Why Latine Month Matters for Ancestral Reclamation
Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! You might be a Latine/x femme like me, wondering what Hispanic Heritage Month is even about. Maybe you’re a BI&POC wanting to know more about the Hispanic diaspora. According to its official website, Hispanic Heritage Month is about placing and naming homage to the contributions and accomplishments by Hispanic and Latine/x people.
To me, this month is really about acknowledging that so much of our indigenous heritage and healing practices were lost or pushed underground as a result of colonization and the continued erasure of our ancestral knowledge.
Yet, the body remembers and our ancestors continue to show up to remind us that we just need to tune in, because the knowledge continues to live within our DNA.
Therefore, this month, we reclaim Hispanic Heritage Month as Latine/x Heritage Month, as an invitation to reclaim our ancestral roots, and shift out of the whitewashing of our ancestral practices, and evolutionize into our own liberation, through healing and returning to self.
History of National Hispanic Heritage Month
National Hispanic Heritage Month, which starts on Sept 15th until Oct 15th, started out as Hispanic Heritage Week. At first, the week-long event was just an idea by California governor George E. Brown in June of 1968. By the time the celebration was officially introduced in 1987 and finally passed in 1988, it expanded into a four-week event.
It’s unusual that a month-long celebration starts in the middle of one. But September 15th is a crucial time for the Latine/x and Hispanic diaspora, as Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica all share this date as their independence day! Part of learning about the history of Hispanic Heritage Month is also about understanding the tensions and discomforts that some of us feel when using the word Hispanic.
Why Has Hispanic Never Felt Right to Some of Us in the Latine/x Community?
It is important to remember the history of this word. Hispanic, in its initial origins, arose out of the need to clump people together as a way to bring resources back to Latinx/e communities. However, the word Hispanic, and the reason why some of us shy away from it, is because it refers to Spanish-speaking communities and descendants from Spain- and Spain, as we know, has a violent racist history with colonization and the oppression and erasure of Black, Indigenous and people of color (Remezcla, 2018)
To further add more to this chisme (#facts), why Latinx or Latine, and not Latino or Latina? Part of honoring our ancestors is also acknowledging queer community members. We don’t all fit into a binary. The binary itself, is a concept introduced to us by colonizers to erase expressions of gender that didn’t fit the assigned representation of femininity and masculinity in the West.
So, Is It Latinx or Latine?
To put it into perspective, when I first was introduced to Latinx in undergraduate school (in 2014), I remember a lot of the older Latine generations not wanting to use Latinx because they thought it would change the linguistics of the Spanish language. However, now Latinx is pretty acceptable in mostly academic spaces. As for Latine, I later learned from friends that were born in or lived in Latin America, that this word was actually their word of preference. As a Spanish speaking mother of a non-binary 3 year old, I prefer to use Latine, because I use elle to refer to them. So you decide. Which word is your word, Latinx or Latine?
Latine/x Heritage Month gives us an opportunity to pause and remember those whose shoulders we leaned on, and we’re still healing as a community on many levels, be it homophobia, anti-blackness, or transgenerational trauma. Even so, let's remember that there is always excitement and joy in our hearts. As Emma Goldman reminds us, “I don’t want to be part of the revolution if I cannot dance.” Yep, she was not Latine/x, but ask any Latine/x person, y vas a ver, we always find a reason to dance.
And of course, part of the work as womxn of color, as we move through the month, is to honor Latine/x womxn of color. To highlight their stories, their struggles, their achievements. To honor the spectrum of representation and experiences in womxnhood. As a community, it is about caring and connecting from the heart with each other.
And finally, part of shifting, growing, and transforming is reclaiming- to heal, to unlearn, to remember. To honor and reclaim what was lost, what was taken from us without consent. Part of ancestral healing is reclaiming that we have a rich history of connecting with self through the elements, through the seasons, through earth mother, and through our bodies. Our ancestors knew how to heal, and while this was taken from us, they can’t take the spirits of our ancestors that continue to guide us, we just have to tune in, because when we heal, we heal our lineages.
So this month, tune into self, and honor yourself, as we remember our Latine/x community and our ancestors.
Here’s how you can reclaim your ancestral knowledge:
4 Ways to Reclaim Ancestral Knowledge
Take time to create space to be with your chosen family during this month of remembrance.
Connect with your family - living, dead, and to come - through meditation, prayer, altar work.
Honor those that have passed including family, chosen family members, ancestors.
Connect with earth mother, step outside and let your feet touch the soil- allow yourself to root and prepare to welcome the deep rest that comes when the weather gets cold.
Written By: Pati Garcia