National Hispanic Heritage Month

National Hispanic Heritage Month does not start and end within the same month. Instead, it starts on September 15 and ends on October 15.

It begins on September 15 as that is the independence day of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The following day, September 16 is Mexico's Independence Day.

On September 17, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Hispanic Heritage Week bill. In 1989 President George H.W. Bush with a Presidential Proclamation expanded National Hispanic Heritage week to an entire month.

Countries

National Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates and honors the cultures and contributions of both Hispanic and Latino Americans.

Hispanic describes a person from, or a descendant of someone from, a Spanish-speaking country.

Latino describes a person from, or a descendat of someone from, a country in Latin America.

Latin America is from the deserts of northern Mexico to the Tierra del Fuego in Chile and Argentina. Latin America is a region in the Western Hemisphere made up of Mexico, Central America, and South America. Also included are some of the islands of the West Indies and in the Caribbean Sea.

It is known as Latin America because the language most people speak came from Latin. Latin is the language of the ancient Romans. Languages derived from Latin includes Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

In the United States, the terms Hispanic and Latino are used interchangeably of people who are immigrants and their descendants who hail from Latin America.