Links and notes for Hispanic Heritage Month 2009
Posted on: September 30, 2009
I finally managed to put up our display for Hispanic Heritage Month in our library. We are fortunate because we got a nice traveling exhibit from Humanities Texas, which I put up after the crates arrived, with a little help from a most helpful colleague. Anyhow, I also created a book display, which goes along with the traveling display and also helps highlight the observance. I hope to get a post with some links and resources to post on our library blog, but I have a bunch of other things going on. Thus I am making this post with some links and notes, so I can draw from it later. If anyone finds this useful, feel free to link or make your own notes as well.
- From the Pew Hispanic Center, a report on "Hispanics, Health Insurance, and Health Care Access." This struck me as interesting and relevant. I did not want to post about it in the library blog until I had time to read it over. I do trust Pew as a source, but knowing the local politics, I better read it before I post it over there. H/T to Docuticker.
- From President Obama's White House blog, "Todos Somos Americanos," notes on the President's remarks to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. You can get a link to the actual remarks and some photos. Actually, the President's blog is a pretty good resource to see what the President is doing, and it is informative as well. One of the nicer government 2.0 initiatives. Also from the blog, the text of the Presidential Proclamation for Hispanic Heritage Month, in Spanish. Here is the English version. I used the English version on the display, but I did not find the Spanish one right away. I am going to see if I can print it, make it look nice, and add it in.
- Database and reference works provider Gale has some resources for Hispanic Heritage Month here.
- The Law Library of Congress has a guide of resources for National Hispanic Heritage Month over here.
- The Census Bureau has their fact sheet for the observance here. I used some of the facts on the sheet to go with my book display at the library.
- From NASA, the Latina Women of NASA. It does sound like some Playboy pictorial, but it is actually a nice set of links with Latina astronauts as well as other Latinas working at NASA. Good for inspirational material.
- Here is a page from the Smithsonian's Education Portal for Hispanic Heritage Month.
- If you want a reading list, the Florida Department of Education has a small list of recommended readings by grade level.
- The National Park Service has a page for the month as well here.
- PBS has a page listing programming related to the observance here. As the jingle goes, "check your local listings."
A sampling of what some universities are doing. I did a search on our own university website, and there was absolutely no reference to any event or even recognition of National Hispanic Heritage Month on the campus website. The only references are what the library is doing, and you can find it on our blog, which is linked in our website. Otherwise, it is pretty much as if the observance did not exist, which, given this is Texas, which has a pretty big Latino population, you would think someone would notice. At least here at the library, we (mostly me) did our part. But I wanted to look around and see what other universities might be doing. This is a sampling of what I found doing a quick Google search limited to .edu domains:
- List of events at University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
- Here is what Ohio University is doing. Sure, we are nowhere in the league of Ohio University, but if some college in Ohio can notice, why can't we?
- Houston Community College's highlights of activities (this is a video).
- Here is the list of events at Texas A&M, from their Department of Multicultural Services. The list of campus sponsors caught my eye. I have my work cut out for me if I want to have a campus department or two help sponsor some kind of event.
- Even in Kansas they observe the event, and at University of Kansas, they keep going until early November.
- Loyola University in Chicago has some interesting events too.
- And this is what they did at my old stomping ground, Indiana University.
If nothing else, these lists give me some ideas of things to work on for the future. I have to keep reminding myself that Rome was not built in a day.
