As Hispanic Heritage Month 2025 soon comes to an end, we want to make sure you haven’t missed some of the events celebrating the culture, history, and accomplishments of the Latino communities that help make up the diverse fabric of America.
In Texas, home to one of the largest Latino populations in the nation, notable Latino performers joined Houston community members to kick off the month with an event celebrating the ceremonial El Grito, which is performed annually on Sept. 15th to mark the start of Mexican Independence Day. KHOU reports that “Grammy-nominated ranchera singer Lupita Infante, granddaughter of the legendary Pedro Infante,” and “Jacqie Rivera, daughter of the late Jenni Rivera,” joined Houstonians at the Miller Outdoor Theatre for an event held in partnership with the Consulate General of Mexico.
“Not only do we do the ceremonial battle cry and a color guard, but there is then a concert celebrating Mexican culture,” said Claudia de Vasco, managing director of the Miller Outdoor Theatre Advisory Board. “In Houston, the Latino population is so large so this is an important time to honor and celebrate all Hispanic cultures.”
In next-door Louisiana, students at Live Oak Elementary School decorated “entire hallways to showcase Spanish-speaking countries and their rich traditions,” KATC reports. “Each grade level focused on a different Spanish-speaking country. The decorations feature animals, clothing, traditional dances and food from various cultures, creating an immersive learning environment for students who walk by.”
Emma, a Honduran American student at Live Oak Elementary, told KATC that she was excited to learn more about her heritage. “It’s good because like I can have friends in Spanish and English they can teach me more Spanish and if I don’t know Spanish I can like ask them,” she said.
At the opposite end of the educational spectrum, college students at California’s Loyola Marymount University said they had a goal of striving for solidarity and visibility not just during Hispanic Heritage Month, but all year long, The Los Angeles Loyolan reports. Sophia Gonzalez, a biochemistry major and president of traditional Mexican dance group Grupo Folklórico, told the outlet that she was encouraged by response to the group’s work.
“This year we’ve been asked a lot more than in previous years [to perform],” she said. “As president this year I have been really pushing for us to reach out more.” Loyola Marymount University’s Laband Art Gallery “Seeing Chicanx: The Durón Family Collection” exhibition also kicked off during the celebration. “This expansive show presents a selection of nearly 50 Chicanx artists who have called Southern California their home,” the school said.
In San Francisco, the annual Lowrider Parade was broadcast on television for the first time in its decades-long history. Thousands turned out for the event in person, which featured David Gonzales, a Bay Area-born artist and the creator of the iconic “Homies” dolls, as the grand marshal. “It’s an honor to be the Grand Marshal of the Lowrider Parade this year,” he said. “My artwork has always reflected our cultura, and has served as a window for the broader community to see and understand the color and passion of who we are.” The parade is a project of the San Francisco Lowrider Council, “formed in 1981 to resist the racial profiling of Latinos who reveled in the display of their automobile artwork,” CBS News reported. “It wasn’t until last year that California finally enacted a law prohibiting lowrider bans and anti-cruising ordinances across the Golden State.”
Here at America’s Voice, we’ve been highlighting just some of the contributions of Latino communities, from music, to books, to resilience that helps keep our economy roaring:
Those contributions are everywhere and impossible to ignore. Here in the U.S., Mexican food is the second most popular cuisine in the nation. The late Anthony Bourdain, a fierce defender of Latino cuisine, once noted that without Latino workers, “our entire service economy—the restaurant business as we know it—in most American cities, would collapse overnight.” It’s the same story for our national economy. As we noted last month, if all U.S. Latinos were an independent country, it would have one of the top GDPs in the world.
“Among the ten largest GDPs, the U.S. Latino GDP was the third fastest growing from 2010 to 2023,” researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles and California Lutheran University said in their annual U.S. Latino GDP report. “Over that period, real Latino GDP increased 2.7 times faster than Non-Latino. In 2023, Latino consumption stood at $2.7 trillion. Latinos in the U.S. represent a consumption market 20 percent larger than the entire economy of Italy and 24 percent larger than Brazil. From 2010 to 2023, Latino real consumption grew 2.6 times faster than Non-Latino, driven by rapid gains in Latino income. Over the same period, Latino real incomes grew 2.9 times faster.”
This month is also an important reminder that despite hurtful rhetoric that seeks to in part minimize and ostracise this community, Latinos have always been here. “The Latino presence in America spans centuries,” said the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino, “predating Spain’s colonization of what is now part of the United States, and they have been an integral part of shaping our nation since the Revolutionary War.”
And, Latinos continue to make history through today. During this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny was announced as the headliner for the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, making him the first solo Latino male performer to star in the event. “In 2020, at the Pepsi Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show he joined Shakira and Jennifer Lopez on stage during their electrifying Miami set,” Forbes reported. “Six years later, he’s the main event.” During a recent appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” Bad Bunny said the achievement was not just for him, but for the entire community.
“No one can ever take away or erase our mark.” — Bad Bunny, during his SNL opening monologue.Latinos have built this country, opened doors, and shaped its future. Their contributions aren’t just part of America’s story — they are America’s story.
— America’s Voice (@americasvoice.bsky.social) 2025-10-06T21:20:01.547Z
Hispanic Heritage Month “gives us a chance to acknowledge how Latinos have been part of this nation for so many centuries,” Alberto Lammers, director of communications at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, told NBC Washington. “I think that’s what is great about this. It has allowed us to really dig deeper and a chance to tell our stories.”