[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.