Hispanic Heritage Month begins September 15th. THIRTEEN celebrates all month long with Cantos Latinos, special programs dedicated to the unique stories of Latinos. The New York tri-state area is home to millions of Latinos, and THIRTEEN wants to hear from this vital local community. Tell us about your Latino experience. Are you an immigrant or were you born in the U.S.? What is it about your Latino heritage you’re most proud of?
Share your story below and see what some PBS personalities, local politicians and your fellow viewers had to say:
Maria Hinojosa, host, Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One; PBS Frontline contributor; anchor, NPR’s Latino USA
“I was born in Mexico City and raised in Chicago and have been a New Yorker for over 30 years. Being raised as a Mexican immigrant on the south side of Chicago I often felt invisible and that is one of the reasons why I became a journalist. I wanted to tell the stories of a changing America. I love that I am raising bilingual children who have a sense that being Latino now means being 100% American. I am proud that through so many generations in the US Latinos still feel tied to parts of our cultural roots…whether speaking Spanish, loving familia, or understanding that Latinos are made up of all of the races of the world…so that we are in fact, La Raza Cósmica.”
Ruben Diaz Jr., Bronx Borough President
“I grew up in the Soundview area of the Bronx, where both of my parents settled after they moved from Puerto Rico. As a kid, growing up in the Bronx was the best. I remember going to Baretto Point Park with mami, my siblings and my aunts to play in the park and eat food from the food vendors. We would eat empanadas, which is fried dough with a seasoned meat filling, or whatever else the vendors would be selling. I remember going to the Puerto Rican Day parade in Manhattan or the 116th St. Festival with the family. Those times were amazing, because as a kid everything is sort of new to you. The floats, the music, the people and the pride in the Puerto Rican culture at the parade are things that are just unforgettable.
I also had the good fortune to grow up as the son of an impactful Latino community leader. Growing up in the Diaz’s household meant growing up in a very Pentecostal and conservative, yet politically progressive, household. As a young kid I grew up meeting a lot of strong Puerto Rican leaders, like Herman Badillo and Louis Nine. I remember my father would have barbeques in the backyard of the house and he would roast an entire pig back there. He would invite friends like Fernando Ferrer, who is the former Bronx Borough President, or Olga Mendez, who was the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the New York State legislature, and they would eat and talk the politics of the day. It was great growing up in the Diaz household- it’s where I learned that I can be a successful leader, a successful father, and a successful Latino. “
Erik Estrada, voice of Señor Felipe on Maya & Miguel
“I was born here in the United States and raised in a Hispanic home. I used to sell snow cones in the streets with my grandfather. I always maintained a job after school, you know… I was almost a New York cop but I got distracted with this pretty girl in my last years of high school and she was in acting so I got involved in the acting activities and I lost my Spanish, I lost the whole culture of it, I lost the whole speaking of it, writing or reading, but at the age of 44, 15 years ago, I was offered to do a soap opera and I was so intimidated by the Spanish scripts they sent me, that I tried to kill that deal and started asking for cars, mansions, cell phones, and so on; I asked for the moon so they could go away but they said yes to everything I asked for. So what I did was go to a language school and learned to read and speak Spanish. Then I went to Mexico for three months, which turned to a year and a half and what I got out of that, and I’m most proud of, is that I learned the language of my grandparents.”
Sonia Manzano, Maria of Sesame Street
“What other people born and raised in the USA as I was, hold onto their culture as tenaciously as Puerto Ricans do? Maybe we hold our culture dear because of Puerto Rico’s nebulous designation, an unincorporated territory of the United States. I don’t know. I only know that I was proud of being Puerto Rico, even when as a four-year-old I thought it was a spit of land I could see off of Orchard Beach in the Bronx. I was proud of being Puerto Rican even before I visited the island at age fourteen. And I’m proud of being Puerto Rican now, even when forced to have a Spanish / English dictionary handy when speaking to relatives on the island. Maybe I hold onto my culture because I grew up hearing my parents both malign Puerto Rico because of the poverty they had to escape in the forties, while singing songs about how glorious the island was. Whatever it is – being Puerto Rican works for me.”
Ray Suarez, Senior Correspondent, PBS NewsHour
“I grew up in Brooklyn in the 60s and 70s. New York City was home to hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans, but didn’t always seem very happy about that fact. My family began coming to the City in the late 1930s, and continued to arrive in fits and starts into the mid-50s, by which time white flight was well underway. Puerto Ricans moved in to neighborhoods in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn…and other people would move away.
The Puerto Rican people I knew worked in warehouses and factories, public schools and grocery stores, in restaurants and hotels. Sometimes they owned small business and small apartment buildings. They were religious if not always pious, liked a good party in a crowded apartment, and somehow danced up a storm in those summer night cramped tangle of arms and legs. It was hard to imagine wanting to move away from everything you knew, to Long Island, to New Jersey, lengthening your commute, living among strangers, just to get away from my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and me.
When I started a new school my mother made sure I was the best-dressed kid in the class. With new shoes, every hair in place, and with clear orders to behave myself I looked around at my new classmates, and my new teacher called me out by name and took me into the hallway. What was up? I wasn’t talking. I wasn’t doing anything to attract any kind of attention one way or another. My teacher leaned down and spoke quietly and earnestly to me. “Can you tell your mother that if you need lunch here at school, you just need to tell me and we can get it for you. And nobody has to know.”
Fourth graders generally lack a nuanced understanding of condescension or class. My teacher seemed to treat this conversation with deep seriousness, so I did the same. I said I would tell my mother when I got home. Then I headed down to the lunchroom, brown bag in hand, and ate a completely privately financed lunch.
At 3 o clock I walked home. My mother asked how it went. I told her fine, and said I had a message from the teacher. I told her the teacher called my name, took me out in the hall, and told me I could get free lunch. The words were hardly out of my mouth when I saw her scowl. “And what did you say?” she demanded. “I told her I would tell you what she said.” I was already starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Why was the teacher so serious? Why was my mother so mad?
“You tell the teacher you will bring your lunch every day, and we don’t need any free lunch!” She wasn’t yelling exactly, but she wasn’t talking either. “Did she take any other kids out in the hall?” No. “Why do you think she asked just YOU!?” Oh yeah. Bingo. Lights on.
And, as it turned out, game on. If I was going to spend the next three years at that school, I was going to be a model citizen…if it killed her. It may have been the late 60s. America may have been getting a little looser, but that was not going to extend to my house. My barber father kept my hair short. My mother scoured the racks at A&S for fashionable bargains. If my schoolmates were going to make their conclusions about Puerto Ricans based on me rather than what they saw in the Daily News and on TV, los puertorriquenos de nueva york were going to be OK.
I headed into a business that was at that time, and in all the years since, an only episodically welcoming environment for Latinos in America. Wherever I worked…ABC Radio in New York…CNN in Los Angeles…NBC in Chicago…PBS in Washington…I was expected to do my work, of course. But I also had another job: I had to symbolize something. I wasn’t sure I wanted to symbolize anything. I wanted to move ahead in my career. I wanted to do a good job and be seen to do a good job. Role model? It wasn’t a job I signed up for, and wasn’t one I was anxious to do for anyone except my own kids. At such time as I had some.
One night in Chicago I covered a political rally in one of the city’s Puerto Rican neighborhoods. A federal court judge had ordered a remap of the city’s aldermanic districts, and now Latino neighborhoods once split into multiple wards finally had a shot at electing Latino aldermen. My crew was packing up to head back to the Loop when a man walked up to our camera position and asked me to say hello to his son, who looked to be around eight years old.
“This is Ray Suarez,” he said to the boy, who stared at me noncommittally, “and he makes our community proud every day. You have to work hard every day in school so you can grow up to be like him.” He turned to me and said in Spanish, “Tell him.” I thought to myself, what’s the play here? Am I supposed to tell this kid to be like me? No way! I quickly regrouped, knelt down and looked at the boy and said, “Your father’s right. You should work hard in school. But don’t do it to be like me. Do it to make your father proud of you.” He nodded his head. We were done.
A few months later an English teacher at Roberto Clemente High School called me at the office. “Would you come talk to my classes? I think it would really help me get across that they have to have a good command of the language. They have to work at reading and writing. Come to Clemente.”
I mean, really? I immediately thought of a 16-year old kid sitting in a classroom in Clemente High, watching me come through the door. Could that guy in a suit and tie tell me anything? Still my parents’ son, and still a good boy, I said yes and headed over to Clemente. The kids were interested in the work, but they were 16. They were very interested in the fact that I made a lot of money, and pleasantly surprised that I lived in their neighborhood. But I was still convinced, as Charles Barkley said, if a kid has to look beyond the dinner table to find a role model he was in trouble.
Over time, I surrendered. There was little upside in being a hardass. I had to open myself up to the idea that the boricuas telling me how proud they were to see me on TV were telling the truth. It did mean a lot to them. They were afraid of what the world beyond the barrio was going to dish out to their children. I don’t think they had any illusions that just meeting me was going to suddenly make the dangerous temptations offered Chicago teenagers disappear. I finally understood they were looking for any edge they could find. I understood even better once I was a parent.
I talked to gangbangers trying to find their way out of gang life. I met with immigrant young adults in job training programs. I was a big brother to a young kid from rural Mexico whose father had died shortly after the family arrived in America. My secret was, I was still extremely uncomfortable with the idea that I was any kind of role model for anyone but my sons and daughters.
What I finally surrendered to was the idea while I might have had one idea about myself, doing your work in front of other people, especially this work, created another life over which you had very little control. The reminders could sometimes pull you up short.
I had visited my local YMCA one Saturday at the request of the director, an old friend. I talked to a large group of young guys who were enrolled in a gang diversion program about how hard it was to start over when you’ve been living a gang life. I assured them it was worth it. After the session I asked if I could hitch a ride on the minibus that ferried these young men across gang turf borders and back to their homes.
My house was near the turf border of two rival gangs. When we turned onto my block, one of the ex-gang members said, “That’s a nice house. Is it nice living here?” I had not said anything about this being my house, or even my block. “Oh,” I said, “You know this is my house?” “Of course! When we would tag the alleys around here (painting gang symbols on garages) we would never put anything on your garage man. And everybody knew not to touch your house! We’re proud of you!”
I made two decisions on the spot: 1) I wasn’t going to tell my wife every gangbanger in the neighborhood knew where we lived, and was looking out for us, and 2) being a role model wasn’t all bad.”
Rosie Mendez, NYC Council Member, District 2
“I was born in Williamsburg Brooklyn, and I am the proud daughter of hardworking Puerto Rican parents who emigrated from Isabela, Puerto Rico to make a better life in the US. My parents who had very little education raised two children–my brother who is a doctor and me a member of the New York City Council. My dad was an orphan, who had to leave school at the age of 13, worked in the banana fields, served in the Korean War, and eventually become a pharmacist’s assistant and a bodega owner in Sunset Park. My parents struggled to give my brother and I all the chances they lacked – the Latino version of the working class struggle that epitomizes the immigrant history of the United States.”
Emilio Delgado, Luis of Sesame Street
“I was born in Calexico, California, a dusty border town on the edge of the Mojave desert and the fertile Imperial Valley. I am the oldest of six siblings, all born in the U.S. as well. Although both of our parents, a grandmother and a great grandmother were also born in the U.S., our family history spans both sides of the present international border, most probably going back to when the southwest was still a part of Mexico.
My childhood was a “borderless” experience, that is to say, in an extended family that adeptly negotiated Mexican and American societal disparities in the face of a very real political demarcation line known as “La Frontera“, literally, “borderland“ or “the frontier“.
This unique multicultural upbringing was pivotal to my early development, instilling in me a resiliency in navigating daily life in two distinct cultural realities, and engendering in me, through nurturing, inquiry and imagination, a social and emotional adaptability, which has served me very well. I’m very proud of all this.
I’m also very proud of the fact that me and my brothers and sisters have succeeded in spite of overwhelming social and economic obstacles in our early lives — and that we now contribute to our country as honest, hard working individuals; celebrating our unique Mexican heritage and embracing our exceptional American life.
To quote Cesar Chavez, “Si se puede!” (Yes we can!)”
Pati Jinich, Pati’s Mexican Table
“I am a Mexican born, Mexican raised woman. I moved to the US after I got married, because my husband got a job offer in Texas and we wanted to have an abroad experience being newlyweds. After a couple years, we moved to the DC area. Now, more than a dozen years have passed and we find ourselves rooted here! Our oldest son was born in Texas and the other two in DC.
We are a proud Mexican American family. As much as I respond “we are Mexican” when people ask any of us where we are from, my kids quickly respond “Mami, we are American”. So we compromise: we are Mexican American, speak English, try to hold on to the Spanish, but truthfully most of what we do is Spanglish… And we have found a way to stay connected to our family, our roots and our beloved Mexico, mostly, through food and any opportunity for travel not only to go back to Mexico city, my home, but to explore new parts of Mexico we haven’t been to.
I am proud about my Latino heritage in multiple ways: in the way we focus on family, on food, on staying and being together, on helping our communities and transmitting the colorful traditions and values of our culture, on how hard we work and put effort into the activities we engage in, on the laughter we can share in happy times and also in hard times, though sprinkled with tears, we find a way to smile.
One of the things I love here in the US, is getting to know so many other Latinos from other countries and find similarities and differences in our traditions -and what we eat!-, but mostly the warm welcome we’ve gotten from Americans and how we interact and share the things we care for and love. “
Responses to "Cantos Latinos"
While working in Puerto Rico, I fell in love with the wonderful local mountain music of the “Jibaro” (the mountain folk of the island) and the great recording artists of the 40s and 50s, such as Ramito, Luisito, el Gaito de Manati, Balthazar Carrero and Ada, one of the many famous women artists of the “genre”. One of my favorite songs is Ramito’s “Pueblos Borinquenos” in which he sang the names of all the towns and cities of his beloved island. I feel that this music was also shaped by the folk music of the many Irish settlers that came to the island around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The discovery of “la Musica Adentra” was somewhat transformative in my life, in that I came to Puerto Rico a “Gringo”, but left, in my heart, a “Jibarito”. One could do worse in life. I am proud to call myself a “Jibarito”.
I have been living in the States for 20 years. However, I was born and raised in Mexico City. My children were born in New York City but travel to Mexico City every so often. My husband was born in Brazil and educated both in the United States and San Paulo. In a way we are quite a mixed family. One of the most beautiful experiences that we had as such was our “Spanish play group” in New York City. Our children came from different ethnic and religious backgrounds,that included Argentinean, Mexican and Central American roots. Some of the parents were Christian, some Jewish, some more inclined to the Asian philosophies. All the same. We got along well, not without disagreements every now and then. What remains alive in my heart is the friendships that were created among the children and parents and that last until now. To me, a Mexican born woman with a profound loyalty to both my country of birth andthe United States, the diversity that one finds and brings to this land is priceless. It has been not without conflict at times that I have tried to instill an identity to my children. They will find probably their own words to define themselves in the future. Celebrating Latino, Spanish, Hispanic culture rings a lot of bells. How do I want to call myself and why? What do I prefer not to call myself and also why? But, mostly it brings home the sounds of Cumbia, Ballenato and Samba, Santana, Manu Chau, and Buena Vista Social Club. The taste of colorful Mexican “moles” (pronounced /molis/), the Caribbean famous pernil and mofongo, and the South American ‘asados” or grills. It also brings home names of places like San Antonio Texas, Brooklyn and the Bronx in New York City, Veracruz, Mexico, La Habana, Cuba, Rosario, Argentina, Dominicana, RD, and Vieques, Puerto Rico. Like the poem from Jorge Luis Borges “Fundacion Mitica de Buenos Aires”, maybe the new families that are formed in this country will have to create their own myths to belong, to remember, to honor and to love all those mixed cultures that make this country good and unique. Not without conflict, not without disagreement. I celebrate the Latino experience with the conviction that our strength as one country comes from those differences that at times seem so hard to grasp and understand. Salud!
Born and raised in East Harlem, New York City and yet, I’m asked because of my accent, where was I born. My first language was Spanish and my cultural upbringing was Puerto Rican even thought my mother is from Honduras, Central America and my dad was Puerto Rican. My reply is… I am an American with an accent!
I teach US and LA history and appreciate you doing this series. Adelante!
I’m half Puerto Rican, but Puerto Ricans are pretty much half everything– European, African, First Nation (Indians, who came from North Asia, aka China)– so I guess I’m even more Puerto Rican, and I’m also All-American, like all Puerto Ricans, because I represent all colors (including red, white, and blue) that make up this wonderful place. My Dad’s side sports ancestors from most of the European Union. I was the Heartbeat of America for Chevrolet for about 10 years (singer and songwriter), and occasionally called myself El Corazon Americano. Has a really nice ring to it.
When I was diagnosed with Guillian Barré Syndrome in the Dominican Republic, where my wife and I had retired, we decided to return to Florida and seek treatment at the Veteran’s Hospital in Palm Beach. My stay at the hospital was a total of three month and Danielle and her family would make the two and one half hour trip from Ft. Myers every two weeks to check on my progress and to check on my wife’s sanity during this difficult period in our lives. After the hospital had finished all it could do, as far as physical therapy was concerned, it was time to leave and make room for the next veteran in need. I was still too weak to go back home to the Dominican Republic and I needed a lot more therapy before I would be able to walk again.

To Danielle and her husband it was a no brainer, we would move in with them in their two bedroom apartment in Ft. Myers. The Veteran’s Administration was generous and very efficient. They shipped a hospital bed and all the equipment I would need for my eventual recovery. All of this equipment filled or grandson’s room where my wife and I took up residence for the duration. The first month was the toughest, my son in-law, Rashid, would have to physically lift me into the shower to bathe. Unfortunately his own father was also in a wheelchair since he was a young man due to a motorcycle accident while he was a police officer in Mississippi. Rashid was accustomed in handling people in the condition I was in. Danielle would also had to help my wife, moving me during the course of the day. It was difficult on all of us.
The person who had the most difficulty was my grandson, Zakir. I had been with him since the day of his birth until he was almost two. We shared sleepy times together and many Dollar Store cookies behind mom’s back. We are buddies and I love when he calls me Papa. We spent our time learning to walk in the park. I taught him how to clap and yell yeah when I finished playing a song on my guitar. To say the least, seeing me in a wheelchair or in a hospital bed was confusing to a three year old. It took him time to understand that grandpa could not wrestle on the floor with him or have pillow fights, it was hard on me as well.
Although it took a while, Zakir found a way grandpa could play with him, the solution was Play-Doh, we could make stuff and I handled the putty with my hands. It turned out to be very therapeutic for my hand coordination, but for some reason I suspected that he already knew that. As I practiced using my walker I could hear Zakir cheer me on, “You can do it Papa, go faster, go faster!”
My son Marco age 14 was inspired by programming of channel thirteen and has been involved in many musical aspect such as Brooklyn philharmonic, salute to music, and best of Brooklyn borough wide, playing with new York pops at Carnegie hall, Marco will attend a music school Frank Sinatra school of the art in September we are extremely proud of him and we are happy that he can be inspired by your programming. Thank you
My father is Mexican-American and my mother was French and Irish. My older sister looks Mexican and I look anything but Mexican, probably Swedish. My experience is unique because I was raised for the first 4 years of my life by my Mexican grandmother and my first language was Spanish, but I looked completely different than anyone in my family. I have always felt like I “fly under the radar” with my ethnicity and that has always made me feel strange, really, particularly when confronted with racist remarks about Mexicans. People are always shocked when I point out that I am Mexican. When I think of my Mexican heritage, I am most proud of its rich culture of food, family and music. There is nothing like a chicken tamale with brown sugar, raisins and chiles…and nothing like dancing to salsa music with my 80 year old aunt.
I was born in Puerto Rico and have lived in NYC most of my life. Although my working class family lived a modest life in the South Bronx before saving enough to buy a home of own, I always felt the richness and warmth of our community, regardless of bank accounts, or lack thereof. No matter what happened in the world at large, my family and friends formed a protective circle around me.
But it took a while for me to find find answers to the many questions that filled my childhood. I watched hours of television everyday, and went to the movies once a week, and devoured books in and out of school. But I never, ever found one character there that looked or behaved like the people in my world. But as I grew into maturity, I found myself exploring memory as a key to placing myself in the world. The images that were broadcast or printed bore no resemblance to us. I looked at the people who filled my life and drew more strength from their reality than any manufactured image that didn’t come close to reflecting who we really were.
Decades later, as a novelist, I look back at my ancestors and the gifts they have passed down to me–not physical gifts or material inheritance, but the gift of strength and stories and found I had an urgency to correct the images that so filled our media. When my first novel, Daughters of the Stone, was selected as a finalist for the 2010 PEN America Bingham award, I knew that I had done a good job at of telling the stories not previously told. The women who came before me were too busy surviving to lift their voices to tell their tales. But as a result of their labors, I have been able to do it for them. Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of having written the book is the recognition that I see in faces both Puerto Rican and other readers who recognize, in the pages of my book, the sacrifices that their own ancestors have made to ensure their future. I love your Cantos series, have enjoyed it for years, because it brings me the previously untold stories of other Latinos whose voices have needed recognition for so long. By providing this forum, you have opened another avenue for those tales. Thank you.
Born to Bolivian Parents in 1970 in new york city. My parents came here on there honeymoon and decided to stay. I often think about the courage it took to do this. No money no education (past high school), no family, and no english. How did they do it? Being Latino had a lot to do with it. There spirit and will made them sucsessful. Honest work is part of our culture. Till this day my mom always lectures “no hay imposible”
I am not Spanish, but I really do appreciate learning about all types of Hispanic culture.
The more you know, the more you “grow”. I’m from the Bronx, NY and fell “hard” for the “Latin
sound”. That was my introduction to Spanish culture.
I have had the distinct privilege of having worked at WNET-13, during the late 60’s and early 70’s. I served as Host and Executive Producer of the first Latino/Puerto Rican National Public Affairs Series in the history of Public Television, entitled ‘REALIDADES.’ I am proud to have had that honor, and congratulate WNET-13 for having the vision and presence of mind to acknowledge the Latino contributions to this society, both locally, in New York City, and Nationally, throughout the States and Puerto Rico. It is to their credit that many diverse programs have been produced and broadcast on Public Television, many of which continue to this day. Congratulations to Sonia (Maria) and Emilio (Luis) for your amazing talent and stamina. KEEP ON KEEPING ON!!!!
Thank you PBS for your wonderful, always intelligent and interesting programming and thank you for acknowledging the contributions of so many Hispanics/Latinos in your programs throughout the year. I was born in Puerto Rico and have lived in NJ for close to 50 years. Although I have slowly assimilated into American culture I still enjoy speaking Spanish with relatives and friends and, of course, cooking and eating my Puerto Rican food. I like to call myself a Jersey Rican. Boricua with an attitude
Why are we not seeing Fiesta Latina in Dallas Texas, on channel 13. Please advise as I was so looking forward to it.
Thank You.
I was born in th Lower East Side to Puerto Rican parents, one of 11 children. My parents came here with 7 children from the island and I was the first born herein New York. They are both gone now but the lessons they taught us about customs, religion,pride and common sense will live with us and the next generations for ever. I am an artisan and try to show my Puerto Ricaness through some of my work in quilting ,which is unusal because quilting is much more an American art form. I think that is ok because as my husband likes to say ‘We are American made with Puerto Rican parts’. Thank you for letting me share my story.