Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month Is To Celebrate American Independence

September 15 marks the kick-off of Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States. It serves to commemorate the independence of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, as well as the several Latin American independence days that follow.

While Mexican Independence day is actually on the 16th, Mexicans around the world and in the U.S. start celebrations the night before as people prepare to give “El Grito de la Independencia,” or the “The Cry of Independence,” at midnight. And the next day, every year, my dad – no matter how hot it is – insists on making pozole, a traditional hot Mexican soup, for breakfast.

As a Mexican native, I grew up admiring Mexican Independence Day the same way Americans honor the Fourth of July. Once I immigrated to the U.S., I felt a sense of solidarity with other Hispanic Americans to commemorate all Latin American independence days. When I was a kid, going to La Placita Olvera in Los Angeles was a must. My family and I would go every year to enjoy the music, food, and a reminder of our culture.

But as Hispanic Americans celebrate their cultures and Americans everywhere enjoy the richness that Hispanic culture adds to America, another holiday that inspired all Latin American nations into independence often gets forgotten.

September 17 marks Constitution Day. 

I only learned about this holiday when I became a college student and found that all publicly funded universities must commemorate Constitution Day in some form. And in college, being part of student government and a political club, we celebrated it by passing out U.S. pocket Constitutions and reminding people of the freedoms it protects, like the right to a fair trial, the right to privacy, and freedom of speech. 

But besides passing out the Constitution and inviting a speaker to campus to talk about its importance, I never see Constitution Day celebrations at the park like there are for Hispanic Heritage Month. And it's a shame, because the history is clear – without Constitution Day, Latin American countries and democracy itself would not exist the way they do today.

In fact, the U.S. Constitution is America’s greatest export. As a political scientist, Jacques Lambert wrote in 1967: “The Constitution of the United States lent authority the cloak of democratic respectability. A few countries very shortly adopted constitutions directly inspired by it—Venezuela in 1811, Mexico in 1824, the Central American Federation in 1825, and Argentina in 1826."

Before the United States, no country had a written constitution. After the Philadelphia experiment, almost every Western Democracy today has one. This includes every country in Latin America – every country celebrated on Hispanic Heritage month.

The connection between the American Revolution and the Latin American wars for independence is not just tangential. The Latin American wars for independence were directly inspired by the courage of American patriots in 1776. And the subsequent constitutions drafted in all Latin American nations were inspired by the honorable men who met in 1787 to draft the world’s first constitution.

Today I am thankful the United States is so welcoming of cultures like mine, because the diversity of America makes this nation stronger. 

During Hispanic Heritage Month, Latinos should rightly take pride in and celebrate the rich cultures from which we emigrated. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the reasons that we moved to the United States in the first place. American prosperity was unleashed because of the U.S. Constitution’s brilliance, and we should make room to celebrate it alongside our Hispanic heritage, because it helped our ancestors fight for the independence we celebrate today.

Gabriel Nadales is the National Director, Western Region, of Our America.