Methods and Culture: Hispanic Heritage Month
September is National Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States.
Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15.
The Hispanic Heritage Month national theme for 2022 is: Unidos: Inclusivity for a Stronger Nation. In 1968 President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the original observance, which was expanded to a full month in 1988. The goal is to celebrate the contributions and importance of Hispanics and Latinos to the United States and to honor Americans who have come from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
Thinking about Hispanic heritage is complicated given the varied cultures of origin countries, and conflicts of early settlers with the indigenous peoples who had long resided in the Americas. There is also a temporal factor, from the 1492 arrival of the Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus and subsequent Spanish conquistadors, to legal and illegal immigrants arriving today.
Terms used often miss the nuances of such diverse populations. For example, the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines Hispanic as “of or connected with Spain or Spanish-speaking countries, especially those of Latin America,” yet the countries mentioned in the list above include ones that speak Portuguese, such as Brazil. While the terms Latino, Latina, Latinx address the language variations, people from the Caribbean would be excluded given definition from Dictionary.com: “Latino and Latina specifically concern those coming from Latin American countries and cultures, regardless of whether the person speaks Spanish.” The term Chicano or Chicana is intentionally limited by describing people living in the US whose family came from Mexico. See the Social Science Space post, A Look at the Terminology Behind Hispanic Heritage Month, and Who is Hispanic? from the Pew Research Center for more information.
Researching Hispanic Heritage
Winning poster by Irene Matos Chan
History gives us context, background, and insights that can help us understand contemporary experiences, issues and problems. Original source materials are excellent for studying the past, from individual perspectives, arts and cultural expressions, as well as from records and publications of the era. Fortunately, more and more historical materials are being scanned and posted.
This collection of materials about Hispanic, Chicano/Chicana, Latino/Latina/Latinx or Caribbean heritage are all open-access. Additional archives are located at universities or other private sites, where permission might be needed for access.
Archives
Audio and Video Recordings in the US National Archives
Find archived recordings about Latinx civil rights, culture and folklife, history, music and performing arts, poetry and literature, politics and government, and sports.
Chicano/Chicana History and Culture
Find overviews, links, discussions and images that are important to Mexican American culture and history.
Chicano The History Of The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement
Open-access e-book available in multiple formats.
Digital Public Library of America
Open-access materials on topics related to culture, immigration, and history. Search Primary Source Sets, Exhibitions, and the general site search.
“ We have to assimilate the enormous weight of our past so we will not forget what gives us life. If you forget your past, you die.”
Hispanic / Latino Heritage in the US National Archives
Documents are indexed by category, including arts, diplomacy, education and civil rights, family history, government and politics, immigration, labor, military and veterans, notable Hispanics and women.
Hispanic and Portuguese Collections at the US Library of Congress: An Illustrated Guide
This extensive collection includes millions of objects and documents, some of which are available online. For full access, a visit to the Library of Congress in Washington, DC is required.
HLAS Web (Handbook of Latin American Studies) This searchable online bibliographic database in the Library of Congress links researchers to scholarly descriptions of more than 260,000 books, journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, maps and atlases, and electronic resources published from the 1960s to the present. HLAS Web is mobile-friendly, offers multiple search options and limits, and easy options for citing, saving, and emailing search results.
HLAS Online This Library of Congress online tool links researchers to descriptions of materials published from the 1930s to the present and also provides online access to full-text bibliographic essays written by scholars. HLAS Online is a legacy search system with Basic and Expert searching.
PALABRA Archive of Audio Recordings in the US Library of Congress
PALABRA Archive at the Library of Congress dates back to 1943. Historically known as the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape (AHLOT), this collection contains nearly eight-hundred recordings of poets and prose writers participating in sessions at the Library’s Recording Laboratory and at other locations around Spain and Latin America. Recordings include sessions with Nobel Laureates Gabriel García Márquez, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and renowned writers, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar and Jorge Amado. To date, thirty-four countries are represented in the collection, and it includes readings in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Mayan, Náhuatl, Zapotec, Aymara, English and Dutch.
Personal Narratives in the US Library of Congress
Written and recorded narratives, including materials from the Veterans History Project.
Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Digital Collections is an international program to locate, preserve and disseminate Hispanic culture of the United States in its written form since colonial times until 1960. The program has compiled a comprehensive bibliography of books, pamphlets, manuscripts and ephemera produced by Latinos. The holdings available at the project include thousands of original books, manuscripts, archival items and ephemera, a microfilm collection of approximately 1,400 historical newspapers, hundreds of thousands of microfilmed and digitized items, a vast collection of photographs, an extensive authority list, and personal papers.
Journals
Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences publishes empirical articles, multiple case study reports, critical reviews of literature, conceptual articles, reports of new instruments, and scholarly notes of theoretical or methodological interest to Hispanic populations. The multidisciplinary focus of the HJBS includes the fields of anthropology, economics, education, linguistics, political science, psychology, psychiatry, public health, and sociology.
Meyibó is a history publication, edited by the Institute of Historical Research of the Autonomous University of Baja California, which aims to promote research, dialogue and updating of knowledge on the historical construction of borders in general, as well as on the history of the north of Mexico and the south of the United States, and of the relations between both countries, without avoiding the dialogue of the problems of that great region with those of other areas. The temporality of the investigations can range from indigenous peoples before contact with Europeans to the present.
The Latin American Research Review (LARR) publishes original research and review essays on Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latina/Latino studies. LARR covers the social sciences and the humanities, including the fields of anthropology, economics, history, literature and cultural studies, political science, and sociology.
Letras Hispanas: Revista de Literatura y Cultura is a peer-reviewed, open-access online journal dedicated to publishing scholarly essays that engage topics in connection with Spanish, Latin American, and US Latino literatures and cultures.
Nomenclatura: aproximaciones a los estudios hispánicos is an annual online, peer-reviewed, and indexed academic journal dedicated to interdisciplinary scholarship on the literary and cultural traditions of the Hispanic world.
Pacific Historical Review, open-access special issue: Gender and Intimacy across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (guest editors: Miroslava Chávez-Garciá and Verónica Castillo-Muñoz, University of California, Santa Barbara)
Resources for Document Search and Analysis
Worksheets to use when analyzing photos, written documents, artifacts, posters, maps, cartoons, videos, and sound recording.
Online Research Tools and Aids for searching the US National Archives.
More Methodspace posts about archival and documentary research
Learn about qualitative data analysis approaches for narrative and diary research in these open access articles.