Hispanic Heritage Month

In Celebration: HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH

BY LAURA LARSON

Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15 to celebrate Latinos' histories, cultures, and contributions to the US economy. This annual celebration began in 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson declared the first Hispanic Heritage Week. Now, 52 years later, the reason to celebrate is stronger than ever.

Within Napa Valley, there is an abundance of Latino community leaders and organizations who actively drive awareness of Hispanic presence in the agricultural industry and raise money to encourage and support future generations.

The Napa County Hispanic Network (NCHN) is a local community resource established in 1983 by local Latino leaders to provide an information-sharing hub to the Spanish-speaking community to help bridge some of the gaps. Their primary focus is to provide higher education opportunities through a college scholarship program because they believe that higher education is a pivotal stepping-stone for upward mobility. Every year, NCHN hosts a gala to raise funds for its scholarship program. And thanks to generous partners and funders, to date, they’ve disbursed over $600,000 to local students with strong GPAs who are faced with economic hardship.

Oscar Robles, financial advisor and board member of Bank of America’s Northern California employee network Hispanic/ Latino Organization for Leadership and Advancement (HOLA), shared his inspiration after attending a recent NCHN scholarship presentation for local Hispanic collegebound high school students.

“I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride for what this community has accomplished collectively. Gathered with their families, these young scholars, with ancestors from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, were being honored with merit and needs-based scholarships to help pay for college expenses. Throughout lunch, 24 scholarships were awarded to some of the most incredibly focused and hardworking students I’ve come across. They aspired to become teachers, farmers, winemakers, engineers, lawyers, and doctors. Most had already been accepted into four-year colleges, including UCLA, Berkeley, Davis, Cal Poly, and our own Napa Valley College.”

Robles pointed out that getting into any good college is a massive undertaking of hard work, faith, and luck, and especially true for the often-forgotten children of the region’s Latino immigrant farm laborer community. “These essential workers are the backbone of our world class wine and agriculture industries, without whom our region would not be what it is today. They work for modest wages with workdays from pre-dawn to dusk. Yet somehow, despite the long hours and time away from their children, they’ve managed to instill a focus on education and hard work while challenged with obstacles such as language barriers, costs, and navigating our complex education, financial, and healthcare systems,” said Robles.

In the spirit of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Napa community celebrates the contributions and successes of local Latinos-- from the hardworking generations of parents who pass down their cultural values of faith and resilience, the young scholars for their dedication to hard work and perseverance to realize their college dreams, and the Napa County Hispanic Network, whose information and resource sharing has and will continue to contribute immeasurably to the growth and success of the local Latino community.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO DONATE: www.napacountyhispanicnetwork.org