Painting by Ealy Mays (click for more information) Latin America is a place of contradictions and tensions. Echoing Alejo Carpentier, it is possible to argue that at any one instant, you could discover a person tweeting happily in the twenty-first century while at the same time another–perhaps just a short distance away- lives in a virtual stone age. There is abundant wealth and the tragedy of pervasive poverty-borne hunger. There are ancient and modern religions contending, overlapping, and converging. The languages change between every town and even the variations in spoken Spanish between one country and the next scream multiplicity. These differences provoke tensions and, tragically, this has all-to-often resulted in marginalization and violence. However, perhaps as a testament to diversity’s potential, the location of these tensions is also a good place to seek Latin America’s voice and to find its beauty.
Considering the contradictory nature described above, it is perhaps unsurprising that “National Hispanic Heritage Month” does not take place during a single month. Instead it begins in mid-September and ends in the middle of October. The dates are not arbitrary. They were chosen to commemorate important moments in Latin American history. The “month” starts on and around the dates that Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Chile celebrate their independences from colonial Spain. It ends with the anniversary of Columbus’s arrival to the Caribbean and the establishment of that same colonial endeavor. This ironic position of starting with liberation and ending with the colony’s creation certainly seems to be another example of Latin America’s contradictions.
Cultural production has long drawn from these tensions and funneled them into art. Be it Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s seventeenth-century and still-valid explorations of gender roles, Nicolás Guillén’s songs of identity and race, or Vargas Llosa’s novels of class and urbanization, artists point to the locations where contradiction is born as the place where we can feel Latin America. With this in mind it is worthwhile to celebrate the end of National Hispanic Heritage Month with Calle 13’s celebration of multiplicity and diversity. Enjoy.
Considering the contradictory nature described above, it is perhaps unsurprising that “National Hispanic Heritage Month” does not take place during a single month. Instead it begins in mid-September and ends in the middle of October. The dates are not arbitrary. They were chosen to commemorate important moments in Latin American history. The “month” starts on and around the dates that Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Chile celebrate their independences from colonial Spain. It ends with the anniversary of Columbus’s arrival to the Caribbean and the establishment of that same colonial endeavor. This ironic position of starting with liberation and ending with the colony’s creation certainly seems to be another example of Latin America’s contradictions.
Cultural production has long drawn from these tensions and funneled them into art. Be it Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s seventeenth-century and still-valid explorations of gender roles, Nicolás Guillén’s songs of identity and race, or Vargas Llosa’s novels of class and urbanization, artists point to the locations where contradiction is born as the place where we can feel Latin America. With this in mind it is worthwhile to celebrate the end of National Hispanic Heritage Month with Calle 13’s celebration of multiplicity and diversity. Enjoy.
