Like every fall, Hispanic Heritage Month has come once again. For various reasons this year’s Hispanic Heritage month, which started on Sept. 15 and will end on Oct. 15, has a different feel to it.
The history of Hispanic Heritage Month began in 1968 when President Lyndon B. Johnson created Hispanic Heritage Week during the peak of the civil rights movement. Oddly enough, it was President Reagan who set the current dates to expand the observation into Hispanic Heritage Month.
I say it is strange that under President Reagan Hispanic Heritage Month became what it is today for numerous contemporary political circumstances. First, if you watched the GOP debate earlier this month you will know that Reagan has enormous influence over the Republican candidates (the debates were held in his presidential library), and if you have not noticed, much of the toxic rhetoric coming out of the GOP presidential primaries is distancing Hispanics and Latinos from the Republican Party.
Regardless of current politics, back then Reagan knew the future importance of the Hispanic electorate. According to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, Reagan won 34 percent of the Hispanic vote in the election of 1984 (ten points higher than Romney in 2012), and under the Reagan administration the Hispanic population grew from 14.6 million to 22.4 million, according to the Pew Research Center. Today that number has more than doubled. In 2014 there were 55 million Hispanics and Latinos in the United States compromising over 17 percent of the population, and making Hispanic and Latinos the country’s largest minority, according to nclr.org, a website that publishes news and statistics covering the Hispanic community,.
This intense demographic change occurring in the US is being felt in our state, and even on our campus. According to the Pew Research Center, Georgia was ranked number ten in the entire country for the Hispanic Population in 2013, and Georgia only lacks about 65,000 people to be among one of the eight states with a Hispanic and Latino population over one million.
On campus, Hispanic and Latino students have quickly continued to become more of a population presence. In the fall of 1999 there were only 326 Hispanic and Latino students enrolled on KSU campus. In the fall of 2014 that number grew to 1,962 Hispanic and Latino students enrolled on campus, a 502 percent growth rate, according to the KSU 2014-2015 Fact Book. Most importantly, according to the most recent retention, progression and graduation tracking analysis by KSU, in 2011 the representation of Hispanic and Latinos “earning Bachelor’s degrees at KSU closely matches their representation in the undergraduate student body.”
However, unfortunately the population presence of Hispanic and Latinos in the student body is not reflected amongst faculty and staff at KSU. According to the 2014-2015 KSU fact book, only ten out of 381 faculty are tenured and there are only 23 out of 753 Hispanic and Latino faculty at KSU. Furthermore, in the federal occupational category which includes archivist, librarians, research, service staff and so on, Hispanics and Latinos only make up 67 out of the 2,217 total KSU staff, a mere 3 percent.
Moreover, a quick scroll through the KSU twitter and twitter page sadly shows no recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month. Even after searching though the KSU website I found no statement or event being promoted by the administration on Hispanic Heritage Month. If the KSU administration as stated through their Office of Diversity and Inclusion truly intend to create a “cross-cultural understanding” on campus they must do as President Reagan, and commit to celebrating the heritage of their Hispanic and Latino student population.
