Out, About: Hispanic Heritage Month in Middle Tennessee

This is an excerpt from the NashVillager newsletter, your human-powered daily guide to Nashville. Click here to subscribe.

Hispanic Heritage Month begins this Sunday, Sept. 15 — and continues through Oct. 15.

But have you ever stopped and wondered: Why does ours straddle two calendar months?

It’s not arbitrary. Mid-September was chosen because Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua all celebrate their independence days on the 15th, and Mexico and Chile have theirs right after on Sept. 16 and 18.

Also, you may hear it called by different names — Latino, Latinx, etc. Heritage Month. All are fine, and a sign of changing with the times. A good guide: Whatever the Latino talking to you calls it is the correct name for the length of your conversation.

Hispanic Heritage Month, here

So, with all those independence days tied into the month, HHM is more about rights than many realize.

A great example of this right now is the ¡Printing the Revolution! exhibit at the Frist Art Museum, which is showcasing the rise and impact of Chicano graphics. (“Chicano” refers to Americans of Mexican descent. So, not your friend visiting from Mexico and also not me, a Puerto Rican.)

The exhibit includes many prints in the same style I grew up seeing on the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ posters (at the time, protesting for a penny more per pound of tomatoes). But there were also many modern takes on a familiar medium to me.

Artist Michael Menchaca leans into the indigenous influences of their family’s background in what is now Mexico, and uses images of cats in place of people in their poster work but with a projector of moving graphics overlaid. They say their style developed during a time of grief.

“I took a leap of faith shortly after I lost my elder brother around that same time when I started making these prints,” Menchaca told me. “Because I suddenly had this urge to leave an impression on the world, literally and figuratively, and it was to start thinking about what my legacy will be on this planet.”

¡Printing the Revolution! runs through Sept. 29.

How else can you celebrate this month?

Plaza Mariachi is a great, cultural hub all month between the lotería and salsa nights and soccer watch parties. And this Sunday, it’s hosting a kind of kick-off: a Fiestas Patrias celebration from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. to celebrate Mexico’s independence and all the other nations I mentioned above.

Throughout the month though, consider supporting local organizations like the Hispanic Family Foundation and Conexión Américas in Casa Azafrán. Maybe put down the Duolingo and take an IRL Spanish lesson from local Latinos through Voces de Nashville. (WPLN’s Alexis Marshall has reported on them since the start.)

Also, support local Latino-owned businesses. Like:

• Torres Vintage in East
• Soy Cubano in East: the only place I can get a legit café con leche in this city
• Mofongo (formerly Merengue) Cafe in Berry Hill: Try Puerto Rico’s national dish while you’re there, but don’t sleep on flan de queso, aka cheesecake flan
• Tempo in South Nashville: The coffeeshop’s dirty horchata has gotten the newsroom through the most draining news days, especially when paired with their breakfast tacos
• Bella Vista Coffee Shop in Smyrna: a great combo of quality coffee and some of the best arepas you can get in the states
• Maiz de la Vida (James Beard nominated!): They recently opened a brick-and-mortar in the Gulch, but you can always get their birria tacos from the truck outside Chopper in East

The list goes on and on, so I’ll quit while I’m ahead. But before I go, remember to also buy up some sweets from your local panadería (bakery) or michoacana (a kind of Mexican ice cream and paleta shop where you can get treats like dorilocos and mangonadas while it’s still hot out).

This is an excerpt from this week’s What Where When-sday. You can hear WNXP’s Marquis Munson and I talk it out here.