Hispanic Heritage Month has been celebrated since President Ronald Reagan enacted it into law on August 17, 1988, with the approval of Public Law 100-402. This may be your first time seeing Hispanic heritage month celebrated at Hillcrest High school, that is because it is! The idea collectively came from the World Language Department. They never really saw a large representation of the Hispanic population and since the diversity of students from central and Latin America grew, they thought it would be essential to bring the traditions and knowledge to the rest of the student population to bring awareness. Hillcrest High School has shown awareness of Hispanic culture by including students in the festivities and incorporating some of the activities within lesson plans. Some people may wonder why Hispanic Heritage month begins in the middle of September instead of being at the beginning. While everyone knows that black history month starts on February 1st, Asian American and pacific islander heritage month starts on May 1st and basically, everything else starts on the first. The reason why it starts on the 15th of September and ends on the 15th of October is that Hispanic heritage month is lined up with the independence day of 6 central American countries. On September 15th, 1821, Honduras gained independence, on that same exact day and year, Guatemala also gained independence, so did El Salvador, Nicaragua also gained independence on that same day, and Costa Rica, so those five countries all gained independence on September 15th, and because of that is why Hispanic heritage month starts on the 15th. But the day after that on September 16th, Mexico gained independence so those 6 countries are why it starts the day that it does and it goes on all the way until October 15th. The people responsible for setting everything up for Hispanic Heritage Month are Mr. Cole, who believed to see to it that there’s an interest in the department and how we can go about making it happen. Then Dr. Girault developed a schedule with some ideas to be presented during the month and Mrs. Gonzales collaborated in getting some students together to initiate some of the cultural activities. Mrs. Sever and Dr. Girault have taken the lead on having food brought in or donated for a possible fundraiser.