We All Come from Somewhere
By: Bolgen Vargas
Our teachers recognize that students in the United States come to the classroom with diverse cultural, ethnic, religious, and language backgrounds. Among these are the Hispanic student population. According to the U.S. Department of Education and the National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2022, of the 49.9 million students enrolled in public schools, 14.4 million were of Hispanic heritage. This accounts for 29% of the elementary and secondary student population.
The Hispanic student population is as diverse as the nation itself. Some families' roots in the U.S. extend back before the Mayflower descendants, while others are new to this country. A significant number arrive with full citizen status, as is the case for migrants from Puerto Rico, who constitute the majority of residents of Hispanic heritage in our area. However, in our area there is representation from every country from South Central America to the Caribbean. As with all our students, it is important to honor and celebrate the unique heritage that our Hispanic students bring to our schools. This helps support better relationships and a more positive school environment where each student feels a sense of belonging and appreciation.
In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson and Congress officially began a week-long celebration of Hispanic Heritage Week. In 1988, this was expanded to Hispanic Heritage Month, taking place from September 15 to October 15. This period coincides with Columbus Day and the independence days of many Latin American countries, including Mexico. Under President Lyndon Johnson, his proclamation stated, "The people of Hispanic descent are the heirs of missionaries, captains, soldiers, and farmers who were motivated by a young spirit of adventure, and a desire to settle freely in a free land."
In 1988, during the last year of the week-long celebration before its expansion to a month, President Ronald Reagan stated, "Across the centuries and all around our land, people of Hispanic descent from Europe and throughout the Americas have written countless chapters in the unique saga of the United States. Let us pause during National Hispanic Heritage Week, to reflect on the many and varied cultural heritages of Hispanic Americans and on the continuing and growing part these citizens play in affirming America's heritage of faith, freedom, brotherhood, and opportunity, and in creating that heritage anew."
To connect with our Hispanic/Latinx students and families, it is valuable to celebrate these contributions to our diverse nation, that is the United States of America. I saw an appropriate message at EPIC, the Irish emigration museum in Dublin, Ireland: “we all come from somewhere.” And yet, this truth often gets lost when we judge a dual language student, or a student who doesn’t speak English yet, or a mixed race student, or an undocumented student. All these conditions are what we share in common with the histories of our fellow Americans, rather than what makes us different.
Maybe we can begin with the question, “What does it mean to be an American?”