Written by Joanne Villavieja
National Hispanic Heritage Month is here! It begins every year on September 15th and celebrates Hispanic and Latin American people and their cultures here in the U.S. This celebration was originally started by Congress as Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968, but was expanded to one month in 1988 to include other important historical dates in Latin American history. September 15th marks the anniversary of independence for the countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Mexico celebrates its Independence day on September 16th and Chile follows on September 18th. This year there is even more reason to celebrate, following the performances of several inspiring Hispanic and Latin American athletes in the recent 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Athletes from over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean competed this year for gold in various sports. Yulimar Rojas broke the word record for the triple jump, securing gold and bringing pride to her home country of Venezuela. The E-Tech 2021 product identifies the given name YULIMAR (sometimes spelled YOLIMAR) as characteristic of Venezuela. An athlete and LGBTQ+ activist, Yulimar brings pride to communities everywhere.
One of the athletes who represented the US in Women’s Volleyball was 25-year-old Justine Wong-Orantes. In her Olympic debut this year she helped lead Team USA to its first ever women’s volleyball gold medal, and was named Best Libero of the Olympics. She is of Filipino-Chinese descent on her mother’s side and Mexican on her father’s side. Her surnames WONG and ORANTES originate from China and several Spanish speaking countries, respectively. E-Tech’s algorithms are able to connect this information to correctly predict such an individual’s background as Filipino or Hispanic.
According to Pew Research, in 2019 the US Hispanic population reached 60.6 million, up from 50.7 million in 2010. For the few weeks during the games, venues all across the US showing the games were filled with Hispanic and Latin Americans all rooting for their countries’ teams. During Hispanic Heritage Month there is sure to be more celebration than in any previous year. The E-Tech 2021 product includes Hispanic Country of Origin that allows further understanding of your Hispanic consumer base by predicting the individual’s home country. Be sure to connect to your Hispanic and Latin American audiences and share in the celebration through E-Tech’s diversity insights.