The Hispanic Heritage Parade walks through the Gateway in Salt Lake City on Sept. 3, 2016. The parade has kicked off Hispanic Heritage Month in Utah since it began in 2016. (Laura Seitz, Deseret News)
Estimated reading time: 6-7 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Gene Hayes had zero interest in participating in any kind of celebration of Hispanic heritage for about a decade.
Not only did the celebrations seem inauthentic, but they also didn’t seem to represent his identity.
“I’m not proud, but I’m proud of my heritage. I’m proud to be Mexican. I’m proud to be Oaxacan. I’m proud of who I am,” says Hayes, senior vice president at Western Governors University and a resident of North Salt Lake.
“A lot of times, I’ve thought by embracing my Hispanic heritage, maybe I’m leaving my Mexican, Oaxacan heritage behind,” he adds. “I think because of that, I was hesitant to throw myself into the mix of others who might be Puerto Rican, might be Dominican, might be Argentinian, might be whatever.”
Just this Hispanic Heritage Month, during a showcase of Hispanic music at the Utah Symphony, Hayes changed his mind. The ‘Celebración Sinfonica’ and other cultural events helped change his perspective on this month.
“It just revived my view that yes, I can be as Oaxacan as I want to be, but I can still be a Hispanic in the U.S. that can contribute a positive light to help the community,” Hayes added.
Hispanic Heritage Month began on September 15 and ends on Saturday. The mid-month start date is associated with the independence celebrations of many Latin American countries, and the month itself has been observed nationally since 1988. Governor Spencer Cox and several cities in the state, including Salt Lake City, have signed proclamations known month, which is marked with celebrations throughout the state.
Hayes still has his critics about the month – namely businesses that use it for commercial gain, often with untouchable stereotypes – but now he believes it also presents a real chance for meaningful recognition.
Hispanic Heritage Month has been hailed nationally as a celebration of Hispanic culture and contributions and condemned as an inauthentic pandering by corporations and politicians. It appears that a variety of opinions are present in Utah as well, which should come as no surprise to anyone who pays attention to the diversity within the Latino and Hispanic communities.
“Latinos, we tend to disagree on all things because we’re not homogenous people, right? said Salt Lake City Council Member Alejandro Puy, who is Argentinian.
“We have different backgrounds, different experiences. And that’s something we have to remember, too: Latinos are not just one people,” he continues. “We have all kinds of races within Latinos. We also have all kinds of dialects and cultural backgrounds. You have Latinos who come from Venezuela or Cuba and they’re very different from Latinos from Chile and maybe Argentina — and everything in between . . . We are connected by language but we are very diverse”.
Latinos, we tend to disagree on all things because we are not homogenous people. …We are connected by language, but we are very diverse.
–Alejandro Puy, Salt Lake City Council
For Puy, the month is an important opportunity to highlight the state’s largest but often invisible minority group. However, he believes recognition of the state’s roughly half a million Latino and Hispanic residents should go beyond Hispanic Heritage Month.
“It’s important to emphasize the community as part of that idea that when we’re here, we’re not invisible and we’re not just something you think about when you’re just trying to mow your lawn. It’s more than that,” he said. “That’s something we sometimes forget because we celebrate and say, ‘Well, we have all these amazing successes,’ but then we stop there. And that’s where we sometimes fail.”
Richard Jaramillo, president of the Utah Coalition of La Raza and a native Utahn, is a little more cynical in his observations about the month.
“There’s certainly a lot of authentic celebrations going on and our community does a good job of trying to put those opportunities out there for people to learn about our culture and experience our culture. And there’s a lot to celebrate,” he said. . “At the same time, maybe it’s the cynic in me that sees it often taken advantage of as a fake, inauthentic and somewhat duplicitous way to celebrate a community for a month or a day when it basically doesn’t do a damn thing. for them the rest of the time.”
Salvador Ceja-Monroy, a Mexican-American resident of Ogden, agrees. He believes the month is being used by some corporations to “virtue signal when they do nothing to help Hispanics,” which is why he thinks the way the month is celebrated in Utah could be improved in the future.
“Here it seems like we have to do it. There’s no help from local or state government,” he said, adding that Ogden has been an exception. “State and local governments don’t have to plan all the events, but they do have to offer their support—provide public places to host events. That way it doesn’t look like state and/or local governments are using Hispanic Heritage Month as a way to virtue signal.”
Others aren’t so sure the month has any value at all.
Juan Perez, a Mexican man who lives in Saratoga Springs, said there is absolutely nothing he likes about this month.
“It needs to die. I’m an American, (I don’t) need to show where I’m from or the color of my skin,” Perez said in response to a KSL.com poll for Hispanic Heritage Month. “Hispanic Heritage Month is an embarrassment to all Hispanics and any person of any skin color.”
Despite the month’s roots in Hispanic countries, the celebration is quite US-centric. Many Hispanic and Latino immigrants don’t even know about the month until they move to the United States.
María Paula García Ospina, a Colombian immigrant, for example, had never heard of Hispanic Heritage Month until about a month before the celebration began this year. The move to the US has been a bit of an identity adjustment for García.
“When I moved here, the first thing I did was look for my community,” she said. “We, in Colombia, are not very proud of our Colombian roots. So when I moved here and I met a lot of people from Colombia, they are very proud of everything. It’s funny because I feel more Colombian here than in my country. so to having these spaces where you can celebrate that, it’s been great for me.”
She also claims there is a need to critically look at the month and understand the history of Latin America, as well as US involvement in the region.
“This place is always promoting everything, so you go into a store and it’s full of stuff — and it’s the same for any kind of party,” García said. “I think it’s very important to know why we’re celebrating, and mostly we have to really think about how we can help our community. If we’re celebrating, it’s not just a party.”
Carlos Alejandro Moreno, a Venezuelan immigrant, also never celebrated the month until he moved to the U.S., but since then he has embraced the month, hosting a celebration with his church congregation as well as an awards ceremony. with Representatives Burgess Owens and Chris Stewart to recognize individuals who are making a difference in the Latino community.
He said Hispanic Heritage Month, in his opinion, helps non-Hispanic Utan residents better understand the differences between different Hispanic cultures.
“It’s a month-long opportunity to celebrate our heritage and highlight who we are,” Moreno said. “America is the place where we have this beautiful opportunity to show who we are and preserve our heritage and also celebrate that heritage.”
