Hispanic Heritage Month Questions to Ask
Twenty questions for Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 to October 15 in the United States. They ask about one person's family rather than about a whole culture: where the family came from, the language spoken at home, food and music, who arrived first and what it cost them, what was kept and what was let go, which assumptions get made, and what a school or workplace could do that would matter more than a catered lunch.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Where does your family come from, and how far back can you trace it?
Why ask it
Starts with a country and a family rather than a category, which matters because Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran and Dominican histories in the United States have almost nothing in common. Some people can name a village and a year, others hit a wall at their grandparents, and the wall itself is often part of the story.
Which language did you first speak at home, and what do you speak with your family now?
Why ask it
The gap between those two answers is where most of the interesting material is. Many people were spoken to in Spanish and answered in English, and plenty who are assumed to be fluent are not, which is a common source of embarrassment worth handling gently rather than testing.
What did Sunday look like in your house growing up?
Why ask it
A concrete question that gets a scene instead of a summary: who cooked, who visited, whether church was involved, how long it all took. Far more useful than asking about traditions, which invites a list nobody actually lives by.
Which dish would tell someone where your family is from?
Why ask it
The framing rules out the obvious pan-regional answers and gets to the regional and family-specific ones. Expect corrections about what is and is not from a particular country, which is where you learn how much variation the word Hispanic is covering over.
Who taught you to make it, and can you still do it their way?
Why ask it
Turns a food question into a question about inheritance and loss. A recipe that was never written down, or one that only tastes right when an aunt makes it, tends to open the subject of what has already gone missing between generations.
What music was playing in your house when you were a child?
Why ask it
Usually the easiest question on the page to answer and the one that produces the most detail: a specific record, a radio station, a parent who danced or refused to. It also breaks the habit of treating an entire region as one musical tradition.
Is there a word or expression from your family's Spanish that people from other countries do not use?
Why ask it
Invites expertise rather than representation, and almost everyone has an example ready. It also makes the point that Spanish varies enormously by country, which is why a single translated poster or announcement often reads oddly to half the people it was meant for.
Who was the first person in your family to come here, and what do you know about how that decision got made?
Why ask it
Asking about the decision rather than the journey keeps this away from an interrogation about status. Answers range from a job and a plane ticket to a war, and Puerto Rican families may reasonably point out that they did not immigrate at all.
What did they give up to do it?
Why ask it
The part usually left out of family stories told to outsiders: a profession that did not transfer, a language, a parent they never saw again. If someone answers only with what was gained, that is often the version the family agreed to tell, and it is worth leaving there.
What did your parents want you to hold onto, and what did they want you to leave behind?
Why ask it
Frequently a contradiction, and people are aware of it: keep the language but lose the accent, keep the faith but marry anyone. Naming both halves gets closer to how assimilation was actually negotiated at home than any question about pride will.
Is there something you were teased about as a child that you are glad of now?
Why ask it
Lunch from home, a name teachers mangled, clothes, a grandmother who spoke no English. The answer usually marks the point where someone stopped apologizing, and it tends to be told with humor rather than grievance.
What do people assume about you that is simply wrong?
Why ask it
Better than asking about stereotypes, because it stays with this person's experience. Common answers include assumed fluency in Spanish, an assumed country, an assumed politics, and an assumed immigration story, and hearing them from one person is more corrective than any list.
When did you first notice that other people saw you as Hispanic or Latino, and is that the word you use for yourself?
Why ask it
Many people answer with a nationality first and treat the pan-ethnic label as a form to be filled in, since it began as an administrative category rather than a self-description. Expect strong preferences between Hispanic, Latino, Latina, Latine, Chicano and simply the country, and use whichever they give you.
Is there a part of your heritage you feel you have lost, and would you want it back?
Why ask it
A quieter question, and the one most likely to be answered honestly in private rather than in a group. Lost Spanish is the most common answer, often with real grief and some resentment attached to how it was lost.
What are you passing on to your children, or would want to?
Why ask it
Shifts the conversation from nostalgia to a live decision, and people are usually specific: weekend language classes, a saint's day, a trip to see relatives, a dish. What they have decided not to pass on is just as informative.
Which writer, musician or public figure from your family's country should be better known here?
Why ask it
Asks for expertise on a subject they choose rather than facts they may not have. It also produces something concrete to read or listen to, which is more use to you afterwards than a general appreciation of contributions.
What part of your family's country's history do you wish had been taught in school here?
Why ask it
Answers often involve United States involvement in the region, which is exactly what a heritage month tends to skip. Be prepared for that to be uncomfortable, and do not steer the conversation back to food when it arrives.
What is a question people ask you during this month that you are tired of?
Why ask it
Gives them a chance to set the terms, and it is a courtesy to ask early rather than at the end. It also tells you which of your own questions to drop, and whether being asked to explain a culture at work is a burden rather than a compliment.
Where do you think this school or workplace gets this month wrong?
Why ask it
Expect specifics: a poster with the wrong flag, the same two songs, celebrating a holiday nobody in the room actually observes, or the fact that nothing changes on October 16. Only ask if you are willing to hear the answer without defending the program.
What would actually help, more than a lunch and a poster?
Why ask it
The closing question, and the only one that has consequences. Answers tend to be structural rather than cultural: who gets promoted, which suppliers are used, whether translation is real, whether the people doing the organizing are paid for it.
Asking these without making it worse
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Ground rules
Nobody is the representative
One person cannot speak for twenty-odd countries and several hundred million people, and being asked to try is the most common complaint about heritage months. Ask about their family, their house, their own experience, and let the general picture assemble itself from several conversations.
Ask in private before you ask in public
Check whether someone wants to be asked at all, and never spring a question on a colleague or student in front of a room. A person who is happy to talk over lunch may not want to be the panel.
Never ask about immigration status
Not directly, not indirectly, not about anyone's relatives. It is unsafe for them and, in a workplace or a school, potentially unlawful for you. If a story about arriving comes up, follow only as far as they take it.
Get the name right first
Learn the pronunciation before you ask anything else, ask if you are unsure, and keep using it correctly. Asking twenty warm questions after mangling someone's surname for two years does not land as interest.
In a classroom
- Do not ask a student to explain their culture to the class. Assign the research to everyone, then let anyone who wants to speak from their family's experience volunteer.
- Cover more than one country, and be specific about which one you are covering at any moment. Flags, foods and music are not interchangeable across the region.
- Include Puerto Rico, and be accurate about it: Puerto Ricans are United States citizens and moving to the mainland is not immigration.
- Give the dates their meaning: the month starts on September 15 because several Central American independence anniversaries fall on that day, with Mexico on the 16th and Chile on the 18th.
- Let students interview a relative instead of answering in front of peers. It produces better material and puts the choice of what to share in the family's hands.
In a workplace
- Pay for the labor. If employees are planning events, translating material or speaking on panels, that is work and should be recognized as such or given time.
- Ask the last two questions on this page and write down the answers. A heritage month that produces no change to hiring, promotion or supplier decisions is decoration.
- Book speakers and buy from Hispanic-owned businesses rather than asking staff to cook. Food organized by volunteers is the default program and the most commonly resented one.
- Do not use the month as the moment to raise someone's language skills, accent or name as a workplace issue.
- Plan for October 16. Whatever you started should still exist in November, or it was an event rather than a commitment.
While you are listening
Take the correction
You will get details wrong: a country, a dish, a word, a term someone dislikes. Say thank you, adjust, and carry on. Explaining why you said it the way you did turns their answer into your defense.
Do not compare too quickly
Offering your own family's immigration story straight after theirs can read as flattening the difference. Ask a second question first, and offer yours if they ask.
Follow the specific, not the cultural
When someone mentions a grandmother, a strike, a border crossing or a school that punished them for speaking Spanish, ask about that. The general questions are only there to get you to the specific ones.
Let the political answers stand
Questions about history and about what the institution gets wrong will sometimes produce answers about policy and power. Redirecting to something more festive is the clearest signal that the invitation to speak was not sincere.