Hispanic Heritage Month and Climate and Environmental Justice

This post is the first in a series.

To recognize Hispanic Heritage Month this year, the Center for Progressive Reform asked Latino leaders in the environmental justice and climate movement to share personal reflections about their heritage and their work on a wide range of cross-cutting, intersectional issues that disproportionately affect Hispanic and Latino populations.

As part of this series, Jenny Hernandez from GreenLatinos, Jose Coronado Flores from CASA de Maryland, and Amy Tamayo from Alianza Nacional de Campesinas also shared calls to action for allied organizations to support solutions that empower Hispanic and Latino communities. But for our first post, we’d like to reflect on the contributions of Latino and Hispanic communities to struggles for climate justice.

The observance of Hispanic Heritage began as Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968 under President Lyndon B. Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to one month, running from September 15 to October 15. The month includes the anniversaries of the independence of several Latin American countries, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua (September 15), Mexico (September 16), and Chile (September 18). It now also includes Latina Equal Pay Day (October 3), Indigenous People’s Day (October 12), and LGBT+ History Month (October).  

It is important to note that the term “Hispanic” — used for the first time in the 1970 U.S. Census — is a misnomer. It has had the harmful effect of excluding and erasing many distinct identities, particularly Indigenous ones, as some, but not all, Latinos share a colonial history with Europe and Spain. It is also worth pointing out that attempts to represent Hispanic and Latino communities as a monolithic group are inaccurate. 

In the next census in 2030, revisions to statistical data categories announced by the Office of Management and Budget will use one combined question for race and ethnicity and encourage respondents to select multiple options. The lack of specific categories obscures social, economic, environmental, and health disparities that are more pronounced among different ethnic groups of Latinos, including Afro-Latinos and non-Spanish speaking Latinos who speak Indigenous languages and dialects. More data disaggregation is needed to identify these and other disparities within the Latino community. 

Nevertheless, this month is an opportunity to reflect on this history and celebrate the role of Latinos in the United States for their contributions, particularly in the labor, environmental justice, and climate movements. 

Hispanic and Latino, Black, and Indigenous organizers continue to be at the forefront of progressive movements in the United States. Working-class Hispanic and Latino leaders have won victories — stronger unions, protections for workers, and safer and cleaner air, land, and water — that benefit all Americans. Dolores Huerta may be one of the better known figures, but there are many whose work remains obscure and unrecognized. 

Hispanic and Latino communities in the U.S. include people born within its borders, others born elsewhere, and descendants of Indigenous people who are native to North, Central, and South America. Some are from families who have been in the United States for multiple generations — some six or more — while others are recent immigrants. The 65 million Latinos in the United States make up 19 percent of the total population and are the second largest racial or ethnic group in the country. Between 2022 and 2023, Latinos accounted for 71 percent of overall population growth in the United States, and this growth will continue even if immigration decreases.  

Despite this, there have been persistent attempts to mischaracterize the existence of Hispanics and Latinos in the United States as “illegal” and to blame communities on the receiving end of bad housing, economic, and social policies — rather than the supporters of those policies — for political gain. These misconceptions also ignore a crucial part of 21st century immigration narratives: recent immigrants, not just from Latin America but from everywhere in the world, are fleeing (sometimes forcibly) the catastrophic impacts of climate change, including drought, extreme storms, and destabilized economies, that have been driven almost exclusively by the “developed nations” who are now keeping them from seeking safety. 

Latino communities also live on the frontlines of pollution and climate change, and Latino children are 3 times more likely to live in nature-deprived areas with polluted air than are white children. Latinos also represent the largest share of the essential and high-risk workers, in sectors like construction, outdoor agricultural work, and manufacturing, and they are overrepresented in heat-related deaths and workplace accidents — such as the recent collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, which killed six workers.

This precarity is why Latinos are disproportionately affected by undemocratic and backward policies like Project 2025, which, among many things, seeks to strip workers of their civil rights, including the right to unionize. State laws that seek to make working conditions even more dangerous also disproportionately affect Latinos, including laws in Texas and Florida attempting to eliminate mandated water breaks for outdoor workers.

But firsthand experience of the impacts of climate change and a deep connection to nature are part of the lived experience and collective consciousness of Hispanic and Latino communities.

It is no coincidence that Latinos consistently have the highest rates of awareness about climate change. In the 2024 election, Latinos will be the second largest voting group by race after white voters, representing 30-50 million eligible voters, or 14 percent of the vote. Approximately every 30 seconds, a Latino in the United States turns 18 and becomes eligible to vote. 

Here at the Center, public protections, regulatory democracy, and climate justice are the foundations of our research and advocacy. This September, we participated with many other Latino Climate justice leaders in the 2024 Hispanic Health Summit, “Fortaleciendo Nuestra Salud,” hosted by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, himself the son of farmworkers, whose agency has been spearheading climate justice and public health initiatives. 

The strength of our democracy and democratic institutions is inextricably linked to successful outcomes for Latinos, who will continue to lead and build upon the sacrifices and contributions of previous generations to continue advancing social, economic, and environmental justice.

Check back for additional posts in this series.