9 min read
Hispanic Heritage Month 2020 is celebrated in the United States from Sept. 15th through to Oct. 15th. It commemorates the independence of many Latin American countries from Spain. This year, I can’t help but reflect on what it means to be Latinx/Hispanic in these times.
As I consume media, I watch globally how refugees and immigrants are vilified and rejected. In the U.S., that spotlight targets the Latinx/Hispanic community.
Whether from here, born here, or fleeing here, the current U.S. administration has targeted the Latinx community from every angle.
Many Latinx/Hispanic people in the U.S. have struggled to survive.
From the neglect of governmental departments, like FEMA, when Puerto Ricans were hit with natural disasters; to inhumane deterrent practices of I.C.E.; to family separation of minors and infants from their mothers. These actions are currently attracting the United Nations’ attention for abuses of human rights.
By limiting resources for people of color, the U.S. further restricts their path out of poverty. Using these measures, they limit quality education and diminish people’s ability to contribute further to society.
Add to this; politicized images splashed over national media of Latinx people fleeing the atrocities of distant narco-political homelands, which the U.S. helped establish. These same people are then met with xenophobic backlash from the U.S. administration; when this country’s forefathers were in these similar shoes not so many generations ago. Watching it all unfold in front of our eyes depletes the “alma” (soul). So why should we celebrate Hispanic Heritage with its own Month?
Let’s take a look:
U.S. Immigrant History
Suppose we consider that the U.S. has been a country for the last 243 years, approximately nine generations. Arriving immigrants to the U.S. were poor, uneducated, indentured servants, or slaves. They came in hopes of escaping violence, war, racism, classism, famine and religious persecution.
These forefathers worked menial jobs and strove to make better lives for their families. Most first-world countries should acknowledge they are a land of immigrants. Whether current or descendants, they were slaves, refugees and asylum-seekers: some legal, and most just lucky.
Why Hispanic Heritage Month 2020?
In July 2017, there were 58.9 million Hispanics within the United States, equaling 18.1 percent of our population. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a report in February 2016. It stated that 11 million “illegal” U.S. immigrants pay an estimated amount of $11.64 billion in state and local taxes annually. “On average, an estimated eight percent of their incomes.”
According to Citigroup-Oxford Martin School, migrants have accounted for two-thirds of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) expansion since 2011. These migrants created about 30 percent of all businesses but only comprise 14 percent of the population.
Furthermore, more than half of U.S. startups worth more than $1 billion are founded by immigrants. They also created 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies.
LatinX are also two to three times more likely than native-born citizens to start a company, create a patented innovation, win a Nobel Prize, or win an Academy Award.
The fiscal analysis showed no evidence of migrants hoarding benefits, confirming the error in public perception versus reality. Furthermore, it showed immigrants consumed fewer public resources than received when compared to native residents over time.
Although incurring initial costs upon arrival, governments would benefit from shifting taxes more effectively in areas of high immigrant concentrations. Thereby initially replacing potential pressure on public services and infrastructure.
Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates Immigrant Work.
Immigrants are typically of working age. They help improve the workers-to-dependents percentage within their economies and usually have their home countries’ training and education.
They help raise levels of innovation, productivity, and economic growth within their new economies.
Research recommends policies that would help integrate immigrants into their new workforce by giving education, training, language classes, and certification. This can then ensure that migrants could utilize their skills, education, or training upon arrival.
This study also found immigrants associated with higher wages, higher productivity, lower unemployment, and higher female workforce participation.
Comparatively, countries that highly opposed immigration, such as Poland and Hungary (below 2 percent), also had the lowest foreign-born populations, flat birthrates, high aging rates and rising labor shortages.
The political focus on immigration stems from legislators “proving their toughness” on immigration, which reflected an increasing broad resentment stemming from stagnation in income growth.
Further controls on immigration only slow progress, increase inequality, and undermine social cohesion, leading to a vicious cycle of a “race to the bottom” that would disadvantage everyone.
The Department of Health and Human Services found that refugees brought $63 billion more in government revenues than they cost over the past decade.
Consequently, this study was rejected and downplayed by the current U.S. administration. It cited cost, taxation of the social systems, and homeland security as limits to reduce the number of accepted refugees and asylum-seekers into the U.S.
Hispanic Heritage Month brings attention to Changing Demographics.
Looking currently at the population, Forbes magazine claims there are 131 million multicultural citizens, making up 37.5 percent of the U.S. population. In 2019, Hispanics accounted for the most significant portion at 19.6 percent. By 2030, the U.S. Hispanic population is expected to reach more than 72 million people.
Hispanics/Latinx are the youngest ethnic group in the U.S. with a median age of 28, meaning they are in their top working and spending years. Young Hispanics/Latinx are increasingly diverse and it is projected by 2024, more than half of the millennial and postmillennial population will be multicultural/multiracial.
Hispanic and Latin culture spans the globe, integrating into almost every ethnic group and continent through immigration, conquest, colonization, or slavery.
Above, we’ve discussed the reasons Hispanic Heritage Month is important to the U.S. — now let’s look at its influence around the globe.
Hispanic Heritage Month Hi-Lights Hispanic/Latinx History
When I first arrived in the U.S., I was surprised at how many people in the West perceive Latinx/Hispanic culture as exclusively Mexican. Understandably, Mexicans are the largest Hispanic origin group in the U.S. at almost 62 percent, with roughly 37 million people as of 2018.
It surprised me how little people knew about other Latinx cultures or had little curiosity about the many diverse cultures that affect every aspect of U.S. lives and history.
Let’s Start with some Basics.
“Hispanic” refers to the culture, people, and nations linked to Spain or the Spanish language. The term “Latinx/Latino” refers to the people, culture, and countries in Latin America. Recent discussions over renaming the U.S. holiday to Latinx Heritage Month instead of Hispanic Heritage Month seek to be more inclusive of the full population it intends to serve.
Historically, in the 50 years after the Columbus era, the discovery of the Americas marked a time when Spain and Portugal, among other Europeans, colonized the New World and brought wealth back to their Motherlands.
As colonialists encountered and slaughtered these countries’ Indigenous people, they “stabilized” these new territories under the Spanish Crown by introducing the Encomienda system, which worked like a hybrid of feudalism and slavery.
Spanish Viceroys and nobles ruled as landholders in the New World. They were granted Indigenous slaves and ownership to most of what they produced, such as gold or agricultural products. They exchanged disease, guns, alcohol, Christianity and religious salvation in trade.
In some circumstances, the surviving Native American communities continued to resist the Spanish and push back against Christianity, as seen historically in the Pueblo revolt or Pope’s Rebellion driving the Spanish out.
The Americas’ Indigenous populations fought hard but eventually dwindled from 20 million to 2 million by the 1600s. Soon after, the Spanish brought African slaves to the New World to compensate for the loss of slave labor spurring the African Diaspora and the Atlantic Slave Trade as we know it.
Colorism in Hispanic/Latinx Culture
Backed by the Spanish Monarchy and Iberian Catholic Church, the “Casta” system was created during this era. It qualified and ranked the value and legal status of people of color, based on the percent of European Spanish or Portuguese blood mixed with African, Native, or both.
People’s value increased or decreased based on their genealogical mix and afforded their station and autonomy accordingly. Illustrated in this Casta painting below, decreasing legal rights, social rank, and value, the lower you move on the map.
Because of the Casta system, colorism, racism, and classism became ingrained facets in Latin/Hispanic culture.