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An Ember that Blazes Forever
(credit to Justice Sonia Sotomayer)
Contributions of Hispanic Americans

Introduction | Background Knowledge | Activities | Extensions | Standards

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Background Knowledge

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "Hispanic" refers to people who are of, relating to, or being a person of Latin American descent and especially of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin living in the US. It can also mean relating to or being a person of Latin American descent, especially of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin, and living in the US. The US Census Bureau defines "Hispanic or Latino" as Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or of other Spanish origin. The term "Hispanic" is more closely associated with a person's language, while "Latino" is more closely associated with geography.

As of July 2023, the Hispanic population in the United States was estimated to be just over 65 million people, making it the largest minority group in the country. Thirteen states have one million or more Hispanic residents.

President Lyndon B. Johnson established Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968, and President Ronald Reagan expanded the commemoration to a month in 1988. The timeframe is significant because it coincides with the independence celebrations of many Central American countries. The month honors the community's contributions and its members' resilience and perseverance.

The Hispanic community has been part of the American experience since its founding and continues contributing to every area of American culture.

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Activities

Selective List of Books

• Barrio Rising: The Protest that Built Chicano Park by Maria Doloros Aguila (ISBN 978-0593462072) - Families in a San Diego neighborhood band together to save green space and create a community park.
• Celia Cruz, Queen of Salsa by Veronica Chambers (ISBN 978-0142407790) - Learn about the life of Salsa Queen Celia Cruz, who passed away in 2003.
• Harvesting Hope - The Story of Cesar Chavez by Kathleen Krull (ISBN 978-0152014377) - Cesar Chavez organized a protest in California about the horrible working conditions of farm workers.
• Tomás and the Library Lady by Pat Mora (ISBN 978-0375803499) - Tomas and his family move around the United States following the crops. Each night, his grandfather tells stories, telling Tomas that he has more stories than the library. When Tomas meets the library lady, he learns of a world that opens up through books.
• Areli is a Dreamer: A True Story by Areli Morales (ISBN 978-1984893994) - Read about the true story of the author's immigration experience. Since coming to America, Morales has become a preschool teacher and author.
• Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales (ISBN 978-1596436039) - Learn the story of the great painter, Frida Kahlo.
• Turning Pages: My Life Story by Sonia Sotomayer (ISBN 978-0525514084) - Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayer shares how books have inspired her life.
• Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh (ISBN 978-1419710544) - In the 1940s, Sylvia Mendez was told that she could not attend the school closest to her home and, instead, had to attend the Mexican school. The Mendez family organized a lawsuit to integrate schools in California seven years before Brown vs. Board of Education went before the US Supreme Court.

Selective List of Chapter Books and Graphic Novels

• Shine On, Luz Véliz! by Rebecca Balcarcel (ISBN 978-1797227757) - Luz Véliz is a soccer star sidelined by an injury. Without soccer, she feels lost and out of touch with her family. While she is recovering, she finds that she excels at coding. If she can win the May Showcase, she will impress her teacher, the boy she likes, and, hopefully, her parents.
• Miss Quinces by Kat Fajardo (ISBN 978-1338535594) - Sue is forced to spend her summer vacation visiting family in Honduras instead of going to camp with her friends. While there, her family wants to give her a quinceanera, which she does not want.
• Merci Suárez Changes Gears by Meg Medina (ISBN 978-1536212587) - Merci Suárez adjusts to the challenges of middle school while facing challenges at home with her beloved grandfather, who is acting strangely.
• The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez (ISBN 978-0425290422) - María Luisa upsets the most popular girl at her new school on her very first day, upsets the principal with her outfit, and upsets her mother with everything she does. She finds other outcasts who are like-minded and creates a band. As she makes friends and brings people together, she begins to lead a movement to protect self-expression.
• Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan (ISBN 978-0439120425) - After her wealthy, privileged family faces tragedy, Esperanza and her mother are forced to go to California and work in a farm labor camp. She must find a way to survive as Mama gets sick and a strike threatens the work in the camp. Don't miss the TeachersFirst Reading Trek about Esperanza Rising.
• Catalina Incognito by Jennifer Torres (ISBN 978-1534482784) - Catalina's grandmother is a famous telenovela star. Catalina is disappointed when she receives an old sewing kit for her birthday but quickly discovers the magic of changing the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Explore resources for Hispanic Heritage Month

• TeachersFirst National Hispanic Heritage Month Resources - This curated list of activities and resources provides ideas for students in grades K-12.
• NEA's Hispanic Heritage Month Resources - This site includes lesson plans, books, videos, and activities from the National Education Association.

Take a virtual tour of the Frida Kahlo Museum.

• To offer differentiated learning opportunities, include this virtual tour as part of a student choice board. Learn more about choice boards by viewing the video archive of OK2Ask: Engage & Inspire: Choice Boards for Differentiations (TeachersFirst Review).
• After visiting the virtual museum, have students create self-portraits in Frida Kahlo's style. Upload pictures of the self-portraits to use as the background in Animate from Audio (TeachersFirst Review). Ask students to discuss their portraits and create a recording of how they incorporate features of Kahlo's art style.

Learn more about Hispanic culture through movies like Disney's Encanto or Coco.

• Have students create a social media review of the media that focuses on the Hispanic culture featured in the videos. Visit Ditch That Textbook (TeachersFirst Review) and search for Social Media Templates to find downloadable templates to write Yelp reviews, Instagram stories, and more.
• Use AI chat tools like Claude (TeachersFirst Review) to find ideas to extend learning about Hispanic culture after the movie. For example, include your grade level and the movie's name in the prompt, then ask Claude to suggest ideas to enhance students' understanding of the culture. Typical suggestions include exploring the geography and food represented in the movie further and comparing and contrasting the culture with the students.

Learn to dance the salsa or the cumbia, two of the famous Latino dance styles.

• The NEA's Hispanic Heritage Month site, mentioned earlier (TeachersFirst Review), includes a lesson plan for grades 9-12 that teaches students about traditional Latin dance styles, provides research on Latin dance elements, and offers presentations and dance demonstrations.
• As students learn about Latino dance styles, they should also be encouraged to learn more about Latino music and how it is firmly incorporated into their culture and history. Visit TeachRock (TeachersFirst Review) and search for Latin to find many lessons and videos related to Latino music and artists for all grade levels. For example, The Latin Rhythms of Despacito (TeachersFirst Review) is a lesson for elementary and middle school students to study a contemporary song and learn about Latin American music genres in the history of American culture.

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Extensions

Living Wax Museum

• After reading multiple biographies and teaching a few basic research skills, invite students to choose a famous person to learn more about. As a culminating activity, students can present a Living Wax Museum. If a physical living wax museum is impossible, consider using Blabberize (TeachersFirst Review) to record their short (about 30-second) presentations.
• After the Wax Museum, invite students to stay in character for a dinner party activity. Group students into teams and have them interact as their biography subjects.
• Take advantage of these suggestions for 50 Mini-Lessons for Teaching Students Research Skills (TeachersFirst Review) to guide students as they conduct their research and prepare biography presentations.

A World Without

• Ask students to think about what the world would be like without the contributions of Hispanic Americans. Have students write a story about what life would be like and how people would adapt. For example, Guillermo González Camarena of Mexico invented the chromoscopic adapter for television equipment, which allowed for color television. What would a 21st-century world look like without a color television? What would people do?

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Correlation to Standards

• AASL National School Library Standards
  • Inquire Shared Foundation, Think Domain - Learners display curiosity and initiative by:
    • 1. Formulating questions about a personal interest or a curricular topic.
    • 2. Recalling prior and background knowledge as context for new meaning.
  • Inquire Shared Foundation, Share Domain - Learners adapt, communicate, and exchange learning products with others in a cycle that includes:
    • 1. Interacting with content presented by others.
    • 2. Providing constructive feedback.
    • 3. Acting on feedback to improve.
    • 4. Sharing products with an authentic audience.
  • Include Shared Foundation, Share Domain - Learners exhibit empathy with and tolerance for diverse ideas by:
    • 1. Engaging in informed conversation and active debate.
    • 2. Contributing to discussions in which multiple viewpoints on a topic are expressed.
  • Include Shared Foundation, Grow Domain - Learners demonstrate empathy and equity in knowledge building within the global learning community by:
    • 1. Seeking interactions with a range of learners.
  • Engage Shared Foundation, Think Domain: Learners follow ethical and legal guidelines for gathering and using information by:
    • 1. Responsibly applying information, technology, and media to learning.
    • 2. Understanding the ethical use of information, technology, and media.
  • Engage Shared Foundation, Create Domain: Learners use valid information and reasoned conclusions to make ethical decisions in the creation of knowledge by:
    • 1. Ethically using and reproducing others' work.
    • 2. Acknowledging authorship and demonstrating respect for the intellectual property of others.
    • 3. Including elements in personal-knowledge products that allow others to credit content appropriately.
  • Engage Shared Foundation, Grow Domain: Learners engage with information to extend personal learning by:
    • 1. Personalizing their use of information and information technologies.
    • 2. Reflecting on the process of ethical generation of knowledge.
    • 3. Inspiring others to engage in safe, responsible, ethical, and legal information behaviors.
  • Collaborate Shared Foundation, Think Domain - Learners identify collaborative opportunities by:
    • 1. Demonstrating their desire to broaden and deepen understandings.
    • 2. Developing new understandings through engagement in a learning group.
    • 3. Deciding to solve problems informed by group interaction.
  • Collaborate Shared Foundation, Create Domain - Learners participate in personal, social, and intellectual networks by:
    • 1. Using a variety of communication tools and resources.
    • 2. Establishing connections with other learners to build on their own prior knowledge and create new knowledge.
  • Collaborate Shared Foundation, Grow Domain - Learners actively participate with others in learning situations by:
    • 2. Recognizing learning as a social responsibility.
  • Explore Shared Foundation, Think Domain - Learners develop and satisfy personal curiosity by:
    • 1. Reading widely and deeply in multiple formats and writing and creating for a variety of purposes.
  • Explore Shared Foundation, Create Domain - Learners construct new knowledge by:
    • 1. Problem solving through cycles of design, implementation, and reflection.
  • Explore Shared Foundation, Share Domain - Learners engage with the learning community by:
    • 3. Collaboratively identifying innovative solutions to a challenge or problem.
• Explore Shared Foundation, Grow Domain - Learners develop through experience and reflection by:
  • 1. Iteratively responding to challenges.
  • 2. Recognizing capabilities and skills that can be developed, improved, and expanded.
  • 3. Open-mindedly accepting feedback for positive and constructive growth.
• ISTE Standards for Students
  • Empowered Learner 1.1
    • 1.1.b. Students build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning process.
    • 1.1.c. Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
  • Digital Citizen 1.2
    • 1.2.c. Demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.
  • Knowledge Constructor 1.3
    • 1.3.d. Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories, and pursuing answers and solutions.
  • Innovative Designer 1.4
    • 1.4.d. Students exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance, and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
  • Global Collaborator 1.7
    • 1.7.c. Students contribute constructively to project teams, assuming various roles and responsibilities to work effectively toward a common goal.

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