For today’s social experiment of the day, I will greet everyone with “Happy Hispanic Heritage Month”. That’s right, today, smack in the middle of a month, you Hispanics get a whole 30 days to eat pasteles, churros and tacos, to wear folkloric outfits you’ve been hiding in your closets, and dance the way only Hispanics know how!

Originally Hispanics only got a week pero since we’re always late anyway, they decided to extend it to a month so that as soon Hispanics realized that they were being celebrated (seriously why else would the company cafeteria suddenly offer quesadillas) the party would be halfway done.

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 to October 15. The celebration began as National Hispanic Heritage Week, which was authorized and requested by Congress in 1968 (Public Law 90-498). It was officially proclaimed as such by President Ford in 1974, calling “upon the people of the United States, especially the education community and those organizations concerned with the protection of human rights, to observe that week with appropriate ceremonies and activities.” In 1988 a joint resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives authorized the change to National Hispanic Heritage Month (Public Law 100-402). President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the change official that same year.

Instead of focusing on the historic nature of various Latin American nations declaring their independence from “madre patria” of Spain, the holiday lumps all of these independence days together and the ends right around Columbus Day (or Dia de la Raza depending on where you are and your politics).

Is it just me or does that whole chronology seen backwards?

Today is the anniversary of independence for five Latin American countries—Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mexico declared its independence on September 16, and Chile on September 18.

Ay, since they all speak Spanish they are all kind of the same, right?

So happy month to all you Hispanics out there y pass the rum….it’s gonna be a long 30 days.

via / Delaware Natural Resources Conservation Service