    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 37 (Monday, September 20, 1999)]
    [Pages 1742-1743]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Proclamation 7220--National Hispanic Heritage Month, 1999

    September 14, 1999

    By the President of the United States

    of America

    A Proclamation

        During National Hispanic Heritage Month, we reflect on the history
    of a people who were part of this land long before the birth of the
    United States. Hispanics were among the earliest European settlers in
    the New World, and Hispanics as a people--like their many cultures--
    share a rich history and great diversity. Hispanic Americans have roots
    in Europe, Africa, and South and Central America and close cultural ties
    to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, South America, and Spain.
    This diversity has brought variety and richness to the mosaic that is
    America and has strengthened our national character with invaluable
    perspective, experiences, and values.
        Through the years, Hispanic Americans have played an integral role
    in our Nation's success in science, the arts, business, government, and
    every other field of endeavor, and their talent, creativity, and
    achievements continue to energize our national life. For example,
    Hispanic Americans serve as NASA astronauts, including Dr. Ellen Ochoa,
    the first Hispanic woman in space. Mario Molina of the Massachusetts
    Institute of Technology shared a Nobel Prize in chemistry for research
    that raised awareness of the threat that chlorofluorocarbons pose to the
    earth's protective ozone layer. Cuban-American writer Oscar Hijuelos
    earned a Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
        The achievements of today's Hispanic Americans build upon a long
    tradition of contributions by Hispanics in many varied fields. Before
    Dr. Ochoa and other Hispanic Americans began to explore the frontiers of
    space, Hernando de Soto and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado ventured into
    the vast uncharted land of the New World. A thousand years before Mario
    Molina calculated the effects of human actions on the atmosphere, Mayan
    priests accurately predicted solar and lunar eclipses. And before Oscar
    Hijuelos described a Cuban family's emigration to 1940s America, Miguel
    de Cervantes Saavedra gave us the classic adventures of Don Quixote and
    Sancho Panza.
        Today, people of Hispanic heritage are an increasingly important and
    growing segment of our Nation's population. Studies show that, in just a
    few years, Hispanics will form the largest minority group in the United
    States. In little more than a decade, Hispanic Americans will wield
    buying power of nearly $1 trillion per year. And by the middle of the
    next century, if population trends continue, almost one-fourth of our
    population

    [[Page 1743]]

    will be Spanish-speaking. The success of these citizens is vital to our
    continued national prosperity, and we must ensure that they are
    empowered with the tools and opportunities they need to thrive in the
    next century.
        That is why my Administration has worked to widen the circle of
    economic opportunity, enforce our civil rights laws, invest in health
    and education, and promote racial reconciliation. We have launched a
    major initiative to mobilize the resources and expertise of the Federal
    Government, the private sector, and local communities to end racial and
    ethnic disparities in health conditions and health care. We established
    the first-ever Office of Minority Health Research and Alternative
    Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. We also have sought to
    expand our Hispanic Education Action Plan with an additional $480
    million for improving educational programs and institutions serving high
    concentrations of Hispanic students. We cannot seize the enormous
    opportunities of the 21st century if a large percentage of our children
    lack the skills and knowledge they need to reach their full potential.
        In honor of the many contributions that Hispanic Americans have made
    and continue to make to our Nation and our culture, the Congress, by
    Public Law 100-402, has authorized and requested the President to issue
    annually a proclamation designating September 15 through October 15 as
    ``National Hispanic Heritage Month.''
        Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United
    States of America, do hereby proclaim September 15 through October 15,
    1999, as National Hispanic Heritage Month. I call upon government
    officials, educators, and the people of the United States to honor this
    observance with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs, and I
    encourage all Americans to rededicate themselves to the pursuit of
    equality.
        In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day
    of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-nine,
    and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred
    and twenty-fourth.
                                                William J. Clinton

    [Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., September 16,
    1999]

    Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on
    September 17.