For The United Methodist Church, Hispanic Heritage Month offers an opportunity to recognize the histories, cultures and contributions of Hispanic and Latino communities. But for those who have lived and served among these communities, the celebration can mean much more than a cultural event. It can be an opportunity to learn history, listen to voices that have often been overlooked, and build relationships that continue throughout the year.
The history behind the celebration
Each year, from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, the United States observes Hispanic Heritage Month, a celebration that began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week and was expanded to a month in 1988. The dates recognize, among others, the independence anniversaries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, preceded by Brazil and followed by Mexico and Chile.
The Rev. Dorlimar Lebron, who pastored First Spanish United Methodist Church in East Harlem, New York, believes the conversation must begin with history. The Hispanic and Latino experience in the United States, she notes, is connected to colonialism, political and economic intervention, migration and displacement — realities that should not disappear behind a cultural celebration.
She calls the church to “tell the truth about how our communities came to be here, what our people have survived, what we have created, and what we are still struggling to become.”
Bishop Héctor Burgos Núñez, a Puerto Rican and episcopal leader of the Susquehanna-Upper New York Area, recalls that Hispanic Heritage Month emerged from growing awareness that Hispanic and Latino communities had often been rendered invisible. For him, honoring this heritage also means questioning dominant cultural narratives that have left many stories out.
The United Methodist Church officially observes Hispanic Heritage Month as one of its heritage observances. Such observances can create opportunities for learning and growth, while also carrying the risk of stereotyping, cultural tourism or appropriation when the people whose heritage is being recognized are not authentically involved.
Food can be the beginning, not the whole celebration
The Rev. Dr. Lydia Muñoz, who has led El Plan for Hispanic/Latine Ministry in the denomination, recognizes the value of cultural celebrations. But she cautions against reducing them to food, music, flags, clothing, or a special monthlong event.
For her, an authentic celebration communicates something much deeper. She says, “We are here. Our stories matter. Our faith matters. Our contributions matter.” The cultures, languages, music and expressions of faith within Hispanic and Latino communities are gifts to the whole Body of Christ.
The Rev. Juan Marcos Garay, pastor of Grace Community in Fish Hawk-Lithia, Florida, remembers celebrations from his childhood at El Buen Samaritano United Methodist Church, where families shared carne asada, pupusas, and arroz con gandules. Those gatherings taught him that a multicultural table can become a place where each culture learns from the others.
His proposal is to keep the table but use it as a doorway. He suggests every celebration should be accompanied by formation by teaching the history alongside the food and helping younger generations understand why the celebration exists and what experiences made it possible.
One heritage, many stories
One of the greatest challenges is avoiding the presentation of Hispanic and Latino communities as though they represent a single culture. They include people from many countries, generations, racial backgrounds, languages, immigration experiences, and economic circumstances. There are also significant differences among Afro-Latino, Indigenous, mestizo and other Hispanic and Latino experiences.
Bishop Minerva Carcaño served as a pastor in Texas, New Mexico, and California, and as bishop of the California-Pacific and California-Nevada Conferences. She recalls that a single Hispanic congregation may include people from many countries. For that reason, she emphasizes the importance of learning the particular stories of local communities rather than assuming that one experience represents everyone.
As a child, Carcaño remembers Spanish-speaking United Methodist churches that considered Hispanic heritage celebrations too secular, foreign, or associated with Catholicism. Later, as a district superintendent and bishop, she encouraged such observances because she came to understand that deeply knowing one another's stories can help build more authentic relationships.
That knowledge must include not only people's struggles, but also their hopes, faith, aspirations, and experiences of God.
Remembering the wounds, too
History cannot be reduced to a list of accomplishments. For Muñoz, Hispanic Heritage Month should make room for remembering colonization, racism, migration, displacement, and economic exploitation, as well as resistance, creativity, faith, family, and hope.
The Rev. Jorge Rodríguez, a Honduran-born pastor and theologian, asks a fundamental question, “What are we really celebrating?” His concern is that commercialization can turn cultural heritage into colors, music, food, and attractive images without engaging the histories behind them.
“The celebration should remember resistance,” he argues. Listen to voices that have historically been pushed to the margins. Specifically, the survival of Indigenous peoples, Afro-Latino resistance to slavery and racism, the struggles of farmworkers and laborers, social movements, and the experiences of migrants.
This does not mean abandoning music, food, or cultural symbols. It means placing them within the larger history that gives them meaning.
Celebrating in a time of uncertainty
This dimension takes on particular importance when immigrant families are experiencing uncertainty about their safety, economic stability and future. The Rev. Dorlimar Lebron observes that when people are reduced to statistics, threats or political problems, there is a contradiction in inviting them to celebrate their heritage while ignoring the circumstances affecting their lives.
For Bishop Héctor Burgos Núñez, the moment calls the church to move from celebration as cultural display toward a practice that affirms people's dignity and belonging, recognizes injustice and amplifies the voices of those living these realities.
This does not require a congregation to turn Hispanic Heritage Month into a political statement. Rather, it invites a theological and pastoral question, “How is our faith responding to the people who are actually part of our communities?”
Muñoz describes this movement as a shift from celebration to accompaniment. Churches can begin by listening to pastors, community leaders, business owners, educators, parents, young people, and organizations serving immigrants.
How congregations should recognize Hispanic Heritage Month
The fundamental question is not simply what event the church wants to organize, but what it needs to learn and understand.
Know before you organize. Learn who the Hispanic and Latino communities in your area are, their histories, and the organizations already working alongside them.
Listen to community voices. Invite Latino leaders to participate from the beginning in defining the goals and activities.
Teach history. Connect music, food and traditions with the stories of migration, resistance, faith, work, and contribution that give them meaning.
Recognize diversity. Avoid presenting one nationality or culture as representative of all Hispanic and Latino people.
Make room for joy and lament. Celebrate accomplishments without erasing historical wounds or present-day challenges.
Turn celebration into relationships. Look for ways to accompany communities throughout the year, not only from September through October.
Connect faith with life. Study the realities facing immigrant communities alongside Scripture, the Social Principles and United Methodist resolutions, and develop pastoral and community responses when concrete needs arise.
From an event to a relationship
For Garay, this approach was captured in advice he received from Bishop Carcaño: “Mijo, just walk with our immigrant siblings. Don’t assume what they need.”
That principle can guide Hispanic Heritage Month as well. Rather than beginning with a program designed by the congregation, begin with people and relationships. Needs emerge through listening and accompaniment rather than from a strategy designed in advance.
This also means recognizing Latino leadership within The United Methodist Church. Burgos Núñez encourages congregations to include Hispanic and Latino lay and ordained leaders, young people, and elders in the planning of celebrations, rather than inviting them only to participate in the finished program.
Participation should go beyond asking someone to cook, sing or dance. It can include preaching, teaching, worship leadership, decision-making, formation, financial investment, and community collaboration.
A Wesleyan tradition of walking with our neighbors
The call to move beyond celebration also has deep roots in the Wesleyan tradition. For John Wesley, love of God could not be separated from love of neighbor. From the early days of the Methodist movement, Wesley and those around him visited people in prison, cared for people experiencing poverty, taught children and provided food and practical assistance to those in need. Works of piety and works of mercy were not competing expressions of faith but part of the same Christian life.
That legacy offers a Wesleyan lens for understanding Hispanic Heritage Month. The purpose is not simply to learn about another culture, but to draw closer to people, know their stories, share their joys and struggles, and respond to needs that emerge through relationship. Wesley's ministry demonstrated a willingness to go beyond the walls of the church and encounter people where they were.
From that perspective, Hispanic Heritage Month can become a contemporary expression of a Wesleyan vocation: Learn in order to understand, understand in order to accompany, and accompany in order to serve.
The celebration begins in September, but its deeper meaning is tested after Oct. 15, when a congregation decides whether it will continue walking with the people and communities it has come to know.
Lebron expresses it from the experience of people who have found a cultural and spiritual home in the church. She says, “Our people are not a theme for a month. We are part of the Church.”
And, as Muñoz reminds us, if everything returns to normal after the celebration, Hispanic Heritage Month risks becoming simply another item on the church calendar. But if it leads to relationships, solidarity, investment, and a community where different cultures have voice and belonging, it can become a deeper expression of what it means to be one Body of Christ.
The invitation to The United Methodist Church is therefore not simply to celebrate Hispanic and Latino communities as people outside of ourselves, but to recognize them as part of the same Body of Christ — and to allow their stories, faith, and experience to help transform the life of the entire Church.
Editorial note: This article was developed with contributions from Revda. Dorlimar Lebron, Bishop Héctor Burgos Núñez, Rev. Dr. Lydia Muñoz, Bishop Minerva Carcaño, Rev. Jorge Rodríguez, and Rev. Juan Marcos Garay.
Rev. Gustavo Vásquez is coordinator of Hispanic-Latino Relations for United Methodist Communications. For inquiries to UM News, contact (615) 742-5470 or [email protected].
This story was published on September 21, 2026. The contact is Laura Buchanan.
