One way to celebrate Hispanic heritage: vote
around the world didn’t have the same resounding impact this year. The coronavirus pandemic muffled the usually chest-thumping replies of “¡Viva Mexico!”
In San Antonio, Mexican consul Rubén Minutti Zanatta struck a noble figure during virtual celebrations marking Diez y Seis de Septiembre, Mexico’s independence from Spain. He mustered all he could to deliver every verbal salvo in a sparse Market Square on Tuesday.
The scene marked the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month and a series of virtual events.
Colleges and universities, especially, have organized an impressive lineup in a city that was once on Mexican soil and remains the most Mexican of U.S. cities.
For all their efforts, the best way to celebrate this year is by being counted — in both the 2020 Census and on Election Day.
Celebrated Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, Hispanic heritage observances recognize the citizens and residents whose ancestries stretch across the Americas, in a country that’s getting browner no matter the attempts to disenfranchise them.
In 2019, according to the Pew Research Center, the nation’s Latinos made up 18 percent of the population, or 60.6 million, up from 50.7 million in 2010.
Though many make the mistake of viewing them as noncitizens, Pew’s 2018 data sets that straight: Four in five, or 80 percent, are U.S. citizens — and, for the love of all that’s sane, Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens.
Ramiro Cavazos, who leads the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and led San Antonio’s Hispanic chamber before that, gets to the bottom line of our contributions.
“The purchasing power and consumer influence of our community should not be underestimated at a $2.3 trillion contribution towards GDP,” he said recently. “We believe that Hispanic Heritage Month is every month of the year.”
That’s a very big hint to celebrate Hispanic heritage by supporting a Latina- or Latinoowned business.
For me, the most celebratory factoid, also from Pew, shows U.S. Latinos are increasingly going to college. About 41 percent of Latino adults, 25 and up, had some college experience in 2018, up from 36 percent in 2010.
It’s still not enough.
It makes sense that in a place once known as Yanaguana, more local events this year are recognizing the city’s indigenous Native American history, since Mexican Americans Native Americans.
Palo Alto College will honor “the indigenous heritages of South Texas,” most poignantly by marking Oct. 12 — not as Columbus Day — but as Indigenous Peoples Day, or Día de la Raza, with a panel on indigenous healing practices needed “during times of crisis.”
San Antonio College’s “Raza Heritage Month” will offer “Raza Reflections, Reckonings and Resiliency” with discussions on whether a culture of will survive the pandemic, and “Resisting the Ranger Inside of Us,” about its former mascot, selected a century ago at the height of atrocities against Mexicans and Mexican Americans by Texas Rangers.
A month of observances shouldn’t go without uplifting the nation’s Latino heroes. None are perfect, but United Farmworkers co-founder Dolores Huerta and U.S. Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor come awfully close.
Little things count. It mattered that a Google Doodle this week honored Felicitas Mendez, who fought for a federal school desegregation ruling that predated Brown vs. Board of Education.
You can have a huge national impact:
• First, answer the 2020 Census. The last day to do so is still Sept. 30, unless efforts succeed in pushing that back to the original extension date of Oct. 31, to account for COVID-19.
• Second, if eligible to vote, get registered by Oct. 5. Registration means nothing if voters don’t vote. Protests and marches don’t match the power that one has at the ballot box.
• So, three, vote.
• Four, vote early. Given all the affronts to voting, from Russian interference to a president vowing to fight results if he doesn’t win, it’s best this year to exercise your right as soon as possible, whether you vote by mail or in person.
Early voting starts Oct. 13 and goes through Oct. 30. Bexar County has extended night hours for early voting. The county will operate 48 early voting sites and 285 on Election Day. Participation matters.
In 2020, for the first time, Latino voters will constitute the largest racial and ethnic group in the electorate, according to Pew. They account for just over 13 percent of all eligible voters, a record 32 million, up from 27.3 million in 2016.