LatinoMVP Awards Will Be Part of Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration for Padres & White Sox.

Fernando Tatis Jr. American League and José Abreu National League LatinoMVP Award Winners. (Photo courtesy Padres & White Sox)

Los Angeles, CA: Hispanic Heritage Month is from September 15^th to October 15^th. In case some might not know the significance, or history of these 30 days, let me explain.

At first it was a week. Hispanic Heritage Week was established by legislation sponsored by Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-CA) of Los Angeles and was signed into law by President Johnson in 1968. In 1988, the week was expanded to a month (September 15 to October 15) by legislation sponsored by Rep. Esteban Edward Torres (D-CA) and amended by Senator Paul Simon (D-IL) it was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. September 15 was chosen as the starting date because it is the anniversary of the independence from Spain in 1821 for the following countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mexico, Chile, and Belize celebrate their independence on September 16, September 18, and September 21.

Now to the present. The Latino community was basically ignored by corporate America for decades. However, after the 2010 Census corporate America took a very serious look at the Latino community when the Census showed that the Latino growth in the country was much more than anyone predicted (that trend continues as seen in the 2020 census). As such, if any corporation wanted to expand their consumer base, they realized they needed to pay attention to the Latino community. MLB was no different and by 2015 they realized they too needed to pay attention. In early September of that year MLB announced its most important recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month with a major campaign and a new bilingual ad that celebrated Hispanic culture with the #PonleAcento campaign. Finally putting accents on Spanish surnames. To our credit, Latino Sports and this writer had years earlier recommended to MLB that they should put accents on Spanish surnames. We explained that Spanish surnames that required an accent and did not have one was misspelling the player’s name. We also explained that many Latinos could see that as disrespectful and a clear sign that MLB with many Latino payers did not really understand our Latino community.

By 2016 approximately 23 teams had recognized the importance of Hispanic Heritage Month and had organized some type of venue during those 30 days.

On the local level, Latino Sports had convinced the Mets and Yankees to expand Hispanic Heritage by allowing us to award one of their players if they had won one of our awards. To their credit they invited us to give our prestigious LatinoMVP Award during Hispanic Heritage Month. Both teams sponsored luncheons where we were able to invite local Latino VIP’s and youths from the local communities. It was a win-win for all.

Today to MLB’s credit they are a sponsor of the LatinoMVP award and have helped to get the award to the players at their home stadiums. This 31^st annual awards presentation will go to the National League LatinoMVP, Fernando Tatis Jr. on Friday September 24^th. at Petco Park and the American League Award will be given to Chicago White Sox, José Abreu on October 1-3 (date to be determined) in front of his home crowd at U.S. Cellular Field.

MLB also announced this year that the Roberto Clemente Day will now be celebrated every September 15^th on the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month. Next season we will work to award all the remaining LatinoMVP winners in the following categories in their home stadiums. They are LatinoMVP Pitchers, Relievers/Closers and Rookies.