Until my youngest sister got married, and we welcomed her Honduran husband (as he frequently calls himself) into our family, I never gave much thought to the differences found from one Latin American country to another. I would have probably said that it wasn’t that big a deal, other than differences in accent and food. I couldn’t be much more pronounced that the differences one finds when comparing one area of Mexico to another.
Boy was I wrong. There are differences in attitudes, beliefs, customs, language, food… and those are just the first that come to mind. When my brother-in-law and his family get together, I can barely follow the conversation. And if they really get going, switching casually to colloquialisms and slang, I can’t understand anything.
How do you celebrate Hispanic heritage when the “heritage” part of that is so varied, so different?
Unfortunately, I don’t have that answer to that. However, read Hispanic Trending’s “Rich and varied ‘Hispanic heritage’ not easy to define” for a great post on this topic. Maybe it’ll inspire you to an answer.