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Latino/Hispanic Heritage Month 2005

Introduction: Usually time of celebration, the 2005 Heritage Month will be mixed with mourning and (inter)national determination to help those in need

By Carol Amoruso, Hispanic American Village Editor

We begin Latino/Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15 each year) on a tragic note -- three-plus senseless weeks into the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  Untold numbers of people, including many Latinos have perished; many more are lost, are homeless, without work, cut off from their loved ones, their animals.  Many more have lost hope in what was, for them, the American Dream.

In a replay of 9/11, there are vast numbers of victims silently slipping under the cover of anonymity —damnificados rings so much truer in Spanish—who will never turn up on Web lists of the safe or missing, who will neither ask for nor receive redress, who will never have loved ones read out their names to be mourned and not forgotten, because they are undocumented -- Hondurans, Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Ecuadorians, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, settling now in the South at a faster rate than anywhere in the country and phantomized by fear.

The horrors of Katrina come at the height of a bubble of luster for Latinos—surnames proffered collectively as the poster population of immigrant (read non-white) success.  While the mainstream media is making hay of the plight of Katrina-affected African Americans, from the insensitive and ignorant coverage branding Black survivalists as “looters”, to truly commiserative accounts and photos, there is nary a mention of the thousands of Latinos lost, or ducking the radar.  Other times recently when it’s been convenient, the Latino bubble is vaunted, with the express or tacit effect of causing resentment and division between Latinos and Blacks.

The Hispanic-American Village has determined this month to remain watchful and critical, but, more importantly, to find, as the song says, “Reasons to be Cheerful.”  We’ll be searching out good-sibling groups and just plain folks doing special work with this special population of silent victims.

As a start, check out Daffodil Allen’s cheery story for Pacific News Service, “After Katrina: Where Have all the Hondurans Gone?” just below these words, about a couple of Honduran-American restaurant owners who converted their Houston shop into a satellite consulate, refuge and community center for the Honduran displaced.

This month, we pledge to keep you informed and on your toes, tool, commemorating Latino Heritage with meaningful contributions Latinos have made to this culture looking for meaning.  We’ll keep you hopping with little-known facts that have had impact, and questions to test how well and how profoundly the schools have recognized and taught the Latino connection and contribution.

In addition, we’ll be exploring identity this month.  Hispanic or Latino?  Or, other- identified?  We’ll be coming back to you with much of what you think and have thought of yourselves in the context of this adopted or born-into country and culture.

We’ll start with a question, at first blush, thought to be mere trivia.  But, like many, we’ll see that this gift from the “pre-Americans” was truly revolutionary.