Hispanic Heritage Month Resource Round-Up

ALA Public Programs Office
Girl making craft at Hispanic Heritage Month event
A girl works on a craft project at a Hispanic Heritage Festival at the Somerset (N.J.) Public Library in October 2015.

With more than 50 million people of Latino descent currently living in the United States, Latino Americans have become the nation's largest minority group. Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15 to Oct. 15) celebrates the histories, cultures and accomplishments of Latinos, who have helped shape the United States over the last five centuries.

Programming Librarian has compiled the following round-up of resources to help libraries deliver their best programming in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Do you have other go-to resources that are not listed below? Please share them in the comments or email us at programminglibrarian@ala.org. 

Resources

  • The National Hispanic Heritage Month's list of teacher resources is curated by the National Museum of the American Latino and includes stories, exhibits and more.
  • Bridging Historias: Funded by the NEH, Bridging Historias addresses the increasingly influential body of scholarship on the importance of Latino/a culture in American history, that remains under-represented in most college history textbooks and teaching collections. The website contains the research and teaching materials used by 42 community college faculty and administrators in the greater New York City region, including scholarly talks and teaching presentations by visiting lecturers. The website is designed to provide scholarly resources for incorporating Latino history and culture into the humanities classroom, and for the general public.
  • EDSITEment! National Hispanic Heritage Month: Explore the history of Hispanic culture in America through EDSITEment, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). This website offers a treasure trove of high-quality material in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies.
  • Humanities Texas Traveling Exhibitions: The Humanities Texas exhibitions program circulates traveling exhibitions on a variety of topics including In His Own Words: The Life and Work of César Chávez, Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy, and Voces Americanas: Latino Literature in the United States. Information including rental prices are included for each exhibit.
  • LATINO AMERICANS Documentary: LATINO AMERICANS is a landmark six-hour documentary featuring interviews with nearly 100 Latinos and more than 500 years of History. It is a production of WETA Washington, DC; Bosch and Co., Inc.; and Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB); in association with Independent Television Service (ITVS). The LATINO AMERICANS website offers complete episode descriptions, videos of the full series as well as clips that highlight areas of interest, and access to supporting lesson plans and activities. Films are available in English and Spanish.
  • Latina/o Diaspora in the Americas Project: The Latina/o Diaspora in the Americas Project (LDAP), newly founded in 2014, is a growing archive of more than 100 oral histories dedicated to creating space for Latina/os to share their historical experiences related to identity, immigration reform, labor conditions, education, and civil rights. The site includes tutorials for beginning a new project, deeds of gift examples, and other tools for implementing oral history projects.
  • The Latino Intersections Resource Center: The Latino Intersections Resource Center, a part of the Latino Journal Intersections website, is affiliated with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and the Latin American, Latino & Caribbean Studies Program at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. It receives funding and support from the Dartmouth College Library System. The Resource Center's mission is to create a gateway to resources that facilitate access to Internet-based information to, from, or about the Latino community in the United States.
  • National Park Service's American Latino Heritage Projects: The National Park Service American Latino Heritage projects explore how the legacy of American Latinos can be recognized, preserved, and interpreted for future generations. This website highlights projects undertaken by National Park Service parks and programs as part of the Service's commitment to telling the American Latino story. Projects vary from increased interpretation, collaboration with community organizations, and the production of scholarly documentation.
  • Hispanic Star's Hispanic Heritage Month Toolkit.
  • Afro Latinx Materials to Explore at the Schomburg Center.

Library Programming Ideas 

Books and Book Lists

Related Links