Our Roots Also Grow Far from Home

There are moments when just a scent, a song, or a recipe is enough to make us feel, for an instant, that we are home again. The smell of freshly made empanadas, tortillas warming in the kitchen, or a pot of beans can take us back to our childhood. Sometimes it’s our grandmother’s recipes, those that were never written down, but seemed to have a secret ingredient: love.

For many Latino families living in the United States, Hispanic Heritage Month is much more than a celebration. It is an opportunity to remember where we come from, learn about our history, and think about everything we want our children to carry with them. Our culture is the result of many stories that intertwined over the centuries: indigenous peoples, African, European, and Asian roots, migrations, and traditions that shaped the different countries of Latin America. Each country has its own identity, but we share something powerful: a history of families who preserved their customs and passed them down from generation to generation.

And many times, that story is taught simply: cooking together, speaking Spanish at home, listening to the songs that accompanied us while we grew up, or teaching them a dance we learned from our parents. It is also in the colorful traditional costumes, in their embroidery, weaving, and symbols, and in explaining to our children what stories they tell.

Because our roots do not live only in books or grand celebrations. They live in the everyday: in a song while we prepare dinner, in a word that we only use in our country, or in that grandmother’s recipe that we try to recreate thousands of miles away. As immigrant parents, we know that our children grow up between two worlds. We want them to find their place here, but also to know and love the history they carry with them. It’s having more than one story to tell, more than one music to dance to, and more than one place to call home.

Maybe our children won’t remember every recipe or every date in our history. But we hope they remember the aroma of that kitchen, the colors, the songs, and above all, the pride with which we taught them where they come from. Because perhaps our greatest gift is this: that, even if they grow up far from our land, they never feel far from their roots.