Honoring Hispanic and Latin American Culture and Contributions through Preservation

Sylvia Mendez. Photograph by Richard Rivera, October 12, 2011. Image courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States spans from September 15 to October 15 each year. The timeframe aligns with the dates on which many Central American countries celebrate their independence days. To be clear, Hispanic and Latin American, or Latino or Latina or Latinx, do not hold the same meaning. The term Hispanic speaks to language, whereas Latin American speaks to geography. However, as one might imagine, it is not so simple.

U.S. observance of Hispanic Heritage Month began in 1968. For lovers of legislative history, the Library of Congress has got you covered with background on how this commemorative observance came about. Today, the Hispanic population in the United States continues to grow, cementing the importance of Hispanic and Latin American contributions to our country’s past, present, and future.

For a wealth of information on such contributions, visit this site, where numerous national cultural institutions are partnering to pay tribute. Included is the National Archives Document Display on Sylvia Mendez, whose family fought school segregation in Southern California preceding Brown v. Board of Education. The Mendez family’s story is an example of how preserved records become resources that courts, scholars, and the public rely on to understand context and the historical record that often frames later judicial reasoning.

This year’s Hispanic Heritage Month comes on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court granting an emergency application for stay in Noem v. Perdomo, addressing the practice of federal immigration officers relying on race and ethnicity, as well as other factors, to support decisions to detain people. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic person and the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, dissented. Judicial opinions are built on evidence and history, and archives safeguard much of that foundation. Legislative histories, agency records, demographic data, and prior court proceedings, preserved and made accessible by archivists, regularly appear in the reasoning that shapes opinions, concurrences, and dissents alike.

During this month of honor and celebration, I encourage each of us to ponder these questions. What does it mean to truly honor people and cultures? What constitutes true freedom and independence? Let us look inward and ask ourselves whether we are upholding the values we hold as our own. Preservation is not just commemorative. It is participatory in the rule of law. By maintaining accurate, inclusive, and accessible archives, we provide the sources that inform judicial understanding, illuminate lived experiences, and help ensure that courts can engage with the historical and cultural contexts that matter.