No, I Will Not Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month!

…And you shouldn’t either.

From September 15 to October 15 this year, this country celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month.

OK, so here’s the thing. I have plenty of reasons to enthusiastically celebrate the culture of Latin America… Hmmm, even that doesn’t sound right. That Holy Roman Spanish colonialism sure is hard to wash out.

What I’m trying to say is that I will wholeheartedly celebrate the cultures of the people whose ancestry is South of our border. I fully support recognizing each and every one of them. I also enjoy the food, the music, the art, the languages (plural!), and… did I mention the food? But most importantly, I support and appreciate the awareness that is so critically needed during this time.

I should also mention that my wife is Puerto Rican and I’m pretty sure that counts as well, although it isn’t technically “South” of our border, it is within it… but that’s a whole other can of worms I can’t go into here. However, it’s exemplary of the problem.

So what’s the problem, then?

The problem is the term Hispanic. Other than poking a little fun by dividing it into two words: his panic, there isn’t much humor in the whole thing. It is actually fraught with bad history. So let’s delve into this a bit because it needs to be addressed before we start making pasteles and listening to Reggaeton.

This Is Not About the Spanish Language

Hispanic basically means people who speak Spanish. But this month is about celebrating people who hail from all over Southern and Central America. They speak many languages, not just Spanish.

This includes the main colonial languages: French and Portuguese, and perhaps also English and Dutch (yes, people always forget that last one). It also includes the many languages of people who were made to also learn European languages during the colonial period. I’m referring to languages like Guarani, Nahuatl, Mapuche, Aymara, Mayan, Quechuan. It also includes derived languages between these like Creole and Papiametu, for example.

So are these people not going to be celebrated this month? Are we not going to enjoy their food, their music, and their history? Of course, we are, because this isn’t just about people who speak Spanish.

Here’s another point to ponder about this Spanish language issue. How many people in the US and Canada that are being celebrated this month actually speak Spanish? After all, many of these people have been here for generations.

According to FactTank, a US government-sponsored research project from 2020, 25% of the people whose ancestors come from South of the border speak primarily English. I presume a good portion of them likely don’t speak Spanish at all, but we will celebrate them and their cultures too.

Just to put a finer point on this, do you know who’s not included in this celebration? Spain. That’s right, they are not included. Sure, people from Spain are welcome to celebrate, but it’s not really intended for them. Perhaps we can justify the exception as a bit of karma for a long history of colonialism that wasn’t very kind.

This is also not About Geography

So this is where it gets a bit confusing. By definition, the term Hispanic refers to people of Spanish descent. That’s why it’s called Hispanic, that is, from the land of Hispania.

That name goes back to when the Romans defeated the Carthaginians, an African people, for the right to violently subdue the native peoples of the Iberian peninsula (today’s Spain and Portugal). The Romans divided the land into five administrative regions all with the name Hispania in them. Actually, the name is a bit older than that, but the Romans made it official.

This is also where the term Latin originates because the Romans left their authoritative footprint thoroughly on the lands and the peoples they conquered. Some centuries later when the Romans were gone, the aristocracy and the clergy that ruled just kept speaking Latin.

Long story short, because the Spanish kings and clergy then conquered most of South America, it became convenient this century to just refer to the whole place as Latin America. It was a broader term that encompassed more of the other parts that didn’t speak Spanish, although not all of it, apparently.

This is also why today we have a whole collection of new terms such as Latinx, Latina, Latine, and other derivatives of the word Latin. I suppose because most of the colonial languages were Romance languages (there’s that Roman reference, again), calling the whole place Latin America seemed sort of fitting. Sort of.

First of all, there’s Brazil. They speak Portuguese and Portugal is part of Roman Hispania, so by definition, Portuguese speakers should be included. However, these people are not Spanish-speaking, as the term Hispanic suggests. The language and the culture are about as different as Italy is from Spain. By the way, like Spain, Portugal is not included, but Brazil is, so there’s that too.

But then there are those places that speak French. Are they part of Latin America? Technically, French is a Romance language with strong roots in Latin. However, French-speaking people and their cultures are conventionally not included in the celebration. That’s an anomaly because it doesn’t quite fit the logic. By definition, they are included, even if in practice they are not.

But what about the people who live in former English colonies? If we’re going to include French-speaking places, shouldn’t we include English ones? Apparently not. English is not really a Romance language, so they are out. There are also Surinam and the other Dutch-speaking islands in the Caribbean that are excluded because Dutch is also not a Romance language.

Geographically, though, all these places are part of Latin America. They really should be included, but the line in the sand was at French-speaking places, so that’s where it’s at. Therefore, it’s not exactly about geography either.

This is why it’s not called National Latin American Heritage Month, or something like National Latinx Heritage Month. This is a bit puzzling because that seems more fitting than National Hispanic Heritage Month, in my opinion. But there is another reason why the latter isn’t an appropriate term. Let’s consider that next.

This is Also Not about Culture

What is Hispanic culture? That’s difficult to define because it tries to encompass many different cultures. According to the definitions we established above it also includes the cultures of French and Portuguese-speaking people.

While we are on the subject of inclusion, what about the African Diaspora? Most of the people of African descent did not come to the Americas willingly, but now they are here and have developed unique cultures that have both European and African roots. They are every bit part of the cultures we are celebrating. Unfortunately, we don’t often see their faces on any posters, if ever.

Then there are the many other people from other places in the world who have also brought their cultures. I am speaking of people who might not have come through the slave trade, but who did come from such distant places as India, China, the South Pacific, and the Middle East to contribute to the life of South and Central America. Some of them have been here for generations. Their unique blended cultures should also be celebrated.

You also seldom see the people who were here before the colonial period. You know, these are the first Americans. Well, technically that’s wrong phrasing as well because America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian who sailed for Spain, but that’s a discussion for another day.

I’m really speaking of the people whose culture the Spanish and Portuguese literally attempted to eradicate. The French, English, and Dutch had a hand in this effort too, of course. Ironically, these people are almost never on a poster advertising National Hispanic Heritage Month, but they are kind of central to the whole idea, aren’t they?

So, this brings me to the big issue with the term Hispanic. It attempts to combine all of these cultures into one as if it can then be stored nice and neat in a box on a shelf. I almost feel like there is some well-meaning but completely clueless clerk somewhere simply labeling that box: “Other.”

The term Hispanic attempts to whitewash the richness, the color, and the life out of the very people we are trying to celebrate and honor this month. It imposes an artificial homogeneity onto peoples whose cultures are as disparate as all the places their ancestors hail from. There is an eerie shackling feeling to the term with odious undertones of an oppressive colonial history.

So yes, there is a wealth of culture here, but the term Hispanic attempts to erase that entirely. So calling it National Hispanic Heritage Month is not about culture, but about the lack of it, and that is a repulsive thought, especially at a time when we are actually supposed to be celebrating culture.

What the Issue is About, is Politics

This really is the elephant in the room. It is about controlling the “other” with the words we use to define them.

The term Hispanic is old, it is outdated, and it hearkens back to a time when Civil Rights were hotly contested. I’m talking about the 1960s and 70s, when MEChA first became a political force, when Dolores Huerta marched for worker rights, and when The Cuban Adjustment Act was signed. It is a word of a previous generation that grew up when segregation was the norm.

Even with this word being so outdated, it became part of the National Hispanic Heritage Month, many years after. As a matter of fact, it was signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1988. When Reagan was president, he of that older generation, and he was also a conservative, so I suppose it wasn’t noticed that the word was outdated, then. If it was noticed by some, then it was undoubtedly intentional. Now, in 2023 it is still there.

We can’t simply dismiss it as a quaint vestige of a supposed more “romantic past.” This is because that past is a colonial past that is tainted with all the horrors this history entails. The word perpetuates the same sentiment that these “other” people should just be lumped together and contained into a single, generic, opaque box.

This box strips them of all that defines them in much the same way that the colonial powers in their heyday attempted to suppress the cultures, languages, and achievements of the people they ruled over. Language was a tool of suppression then, as it is today. Using the word today just continues the same repression that was imposed hundreds of years ago, if not in deed, then in thought.

As such, it serves the unique political goal of keeping people who have a darker complexion under control. And this is deeply offensive. So no, I will not be celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month. I will be celebrating the people and their cultures, but I will not be celebrating the box.

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