Hispanic/Latino Ministry Coordinator for CA-NV Conference
Hispanic and Latino Heritage Month is more than a celebration of culture. It is a celebration of the human story. Migration is not new. Throughout history, people have moved across lands and borders in search of safety, opportunity, belonging, and a better future. Anthropology and sociology remind us that migration has shaped societies and cultures throughout human history. Wherever people go, they carry something with them: their language, memories, traditions, food, music, faith, and dreams. They arrive in a new place, but they never arrive empty-handed. They bring a whole world with them.
This is also true of the Hispanic and Latino community in the California-Nevada Conference. We carry the richness of Mexico, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and many other nations. We carry our families, our languages, our traditions, our faith, our struggles, and our hopes. We celebrate our aromas and our fragrances. We cry over our losses. We sing while we are crying, and we celebrate our history by dancing. This is who we are. This is part of our richness. And even when we have very little, somehow there is always bread on our hands to share.
Many of us also carry stories of migration of leaving home, beginning again, learning another language, adapting to another culture, and carrying the longing for those we left behind. Yet Scripture reminds us that immigrants and strangers have always been part of God’s story. Abraham left his land carrying a promise. Ruth entered a land that was not her own. Jesus himself, as a child, fled with Mary and Joseph to Egypt.
God knows the story of those who walk between lands. Our migration story does not have to be a story of shame. It can be a story of purpose. Perhaps we should ask ourselves: Why did God bring us here?
We are not here only to survive. We are also here to serve, love, heal, build, and become a blessing to others. We are here to raise new generations and live the values of God’s kingdom love, justice, and mercy.
I remember when my son André was only eight years old. He watched churches open their buildings to new Hispanic and Latino faith communities as immigration brought new families into their neighborhoods. He noticed that sometimes sharing the building was beautiful, but sometimes there was tension when the church began to look and sound different.
One day he said to me, “Mama, one day I am going to buy you and Dad a church a church where the children can play, where the young people can be a church, a church for our abuelitos, where we can eat our food, where nobody can say that we are messing up their church.”
I have never forgotten those words. At eight years old, André understood something profound: the church should never make people feel that their presence is a problem.
Our Hispanic and Latino presence in the California-Nevada Conference is much more than numbers. We are families, children, young people, pastors, lay leaders, missionaries, teachers, musicians, volunteers, and communities of faith. We bring a cultural richness that does not take away from the beauty that already exists in our Conference. It enriches it. New voices, new stories, new gifts, new colors, and new expressions of faith become part of what God is already building among us.
We are not all the same, and that is part of our beauty. Being Hispanic or Latino does not mean having one culture. It means belonging to a large and diverse family. Our diversity does not diminish our identity; it enriches it.
In the Church, we do not need to leave our culture at the door. We bring our songs, our language, our stories, our traditions, our food, our laughter, our tears, and our faith. God takes our story and makes it part of God’s mission.
We dream of a United Methodist Church where the person who arrives from another country can hear, “There is a place for you here.” A church where families can worship God as themselves, where Spanish and Spanglish are recognized as gifts, where young people know their roots are a source of strength, and where Hispanic and Latino leaders have room to develop their gifts and answer God’s call.
The Hispanic and Latino presence it is future and hope. Our responsibility is to plant seeds for those who will come after us to raise leaders, strengthen families, create spaces for our children and young people, build bridges across cultures, and remember that God’s mission is greater than any language, nationality, or border.
We carry our story. We carry our culture. We carry our faith. We carry the dreams of those who came before us and hope for those who will come after us.
Our deepest identity is not determined by our birthplace, language, work, or immigration status. Our first identity is in God. We are God’s creation. We are beloved children. We are part of the body of Christ. We are called. We are sent.
So, during this Hispanic and Latino Heritage celebration, I invite you to celebrate with us. Celebrate our countries, our peoples, our families, our languages, our music, our food, our traditions, and our faith. But also celebrate what God is doing through Hispanic and Latino communities here in California and Nevada.
Listen to a story. Share a table. Learn a word in another language. Taste another culture’s food. Make room for another voice. Build a relationship where there was once distance.
This is not only our story anymore. It is part of our shared story, a blessing we share, and a legacy we are building together in our Conference.
Con amor,
Corazón Morán
