Labor & Employment Law

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month Sept. 15-Oct. 15

By James Parks

 AFT and the National Education Association (NEA) have compiled a variety of resources to help educators celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, Sept. 15?Oct. 15,  and to teach a new generation about the contributions Hispanics have made to this nation.

Hispanic Heritage Month “is a time to celebrate the rich and diverse culture and traditions of millions of Latinos in the country,” says Hector Sanchez, executive director of  the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA).

Sanchez points out that Hispanics have made major contributions to the culture and development of the United States. Today, more than 50 million people claim Hispanic heritage, including a U.S. Supreme Court justice, 23 members of Congress and 2.3 million business owners, as well as many famous actors, musicians and human and civil rights activists.

The AFT site here pulls together a variety of resources to help teachers explore the contributions of Hispanics this month and all year round in their classrooms. For example, the site includes a pie chart listing the home country of Hispanic Americans and a checklist of statistics.  

Other AFT resources include:

• Colorín Colorado, a free professional development resource for educators of Latino English language learners, provided by the AFT and the Reading Rockets project of PBS Station WETA, which offers ideas, tools and downloadables for Hispanic Heritage month, in addition to numerous other instructional resources for all year long.
• National Geographic Map Machine, where students learn about Hispanic countries throughout the world, including each country?s climate, population, maps, flag and brief history.
• Events in Hispanic-American History, a comprehensive site that highlights key events in Hispanic-American history beginning with Spanish exploration in 1492 through the present.

NEA has created a series of interactive resources here for students from Grades K-12, enabling them to  create a picture dictionary of common English phrases tranbslated into Spanish or organize a travel guide to countries where Spanish is the official language. Students also can learn about and write letters to members of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on September 25, 2010 (boomark / email).