Sunday, September 20, 2015

Resources for Hispanic Heritage and History

By Nina Kendall

Hispanic Heritage Month is here.  The annual  celebration of Hispanic heritage is organized around historical anniversaries. Now is a great time to reflect on how you include Hispanic heritage and history in your classroom. As a history and geography teacher, I approach this topic from multiple perspectives.  If you are still looking for a few options for your social studies classroom, check out our suggestions.

The Hispanic Heritage Month site hosted by the Library of Congress has a collection of art, literature, and history that will help you  design engaging lessons.

A section of the Veterans History Project is dedicated to oral history records of Hispanic American Servicemen since World War II.

The Smithsonian Hispanic Heritage Teaching Resources explore the art of textiles in the southwest, provide historic resources about the Bracero Program, and examine the development of cowboy culture.

The Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum is a unique way to experience Latino culture. Explore a virtual landscape hyperlinked to related resources and YouTube videos.  Set your students to explore the site or check out the teacher resources for ways to incorporate it in your classroom.

The PBS Hispanic Heritage Month site will provide you with links to the Latino Americans documentary and Latin Music USA documentary. The Latin Music USA documentary is a fascinating look at immigration and musical syncretism.

Edsitement has put together a collection of resources for the study of art, language, culture, and history. The 14th colony site provides resources for Teachers to use in teaching about the California Mission system.

The state of California has lesson plans and student friendly biographies about César E. Chávez for K-12 students.

Check out these resources and pick what works best for you. A new resource may be just the thing for a lesson you are planning.