The United States Congress has declared the period of September 15 through October 18 Hispanic Heritage Month. This commemoration is important to me because of the beauty of Hispanic culture and the countless contributions made by people of Hispanic heritage to America and the world. As a child growing up in Texas, I had limited world experiences. My family did very little traveling and I grew up in a very homogeneous community. I was, however, aware that in Dallas in the 50's there were three groups - the white majority, African Americans who did service work in our communities, and somewhere in far north Dallas a growing group of Hispanics, primarily immigrants from Mexico. I was thoroughly unaware of the latter two cultures that were so different from my 'WASP" neighborhood. When I was eleven, however, I had a wonderful experience. Our neighbors, the Smiths, who were surrogate grandparents, invited me to travel with them to Donna, Texas, over five hundr...