In September, President Joe Biden nominated U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Lopez to the San Diego federal bench. If confirmed, she would be the only active Latina on the district’s bench. Opportunely, her nomination occurred during Hispanic Heritage Month, the origins of which began in the 1960s.
Throughout the 1960s, the civil rights movement was at its peak and there was a growing awareness of multicultural identities in the United States. In June 1968, California Congressman George E. Brown—who represented East Los Angeles and a portion of the San Gabriel Valley—introduced a weeklong celebration to recognize the significant contributions of the Lantinx and Hispanic communities to the United States.
By September 1968, Congress had passed a law authorizing and requesting President Lyndon Johnson to issue annual proclamations declaring September 15 the beginning of National Hispanic Heritage Week. At the time he said: "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. This heritage is ours.”1
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan extended the week to a full 31 days to coincide with the joint independence day of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, who declared their independence from Spain on September 15, 1821.
Programming during Hispanic Heritage Month often focuses on musical or dancing contributions. According to Mario T. Garcia, professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, “We also need programming that reflects historical problems ... because you can't assume that Latinos already know about the lynchings in South Texas in the 1910s, the Zoot Suit Riots, the segregation of Mexican kids in schools, or the Chicano-led high school walkouts of the 1960s that permanently changed higher education enrollment for Latino students.”
Educating ourselves is important—as stories of past struggles often propel us to advocate for social justice and societal change. My personal desire for all people to be treated as equal and have equal opportunity has driven my Lawyers Club service and is something for which I will never stop advocating.
