IRVING, Texas, Sept. 15, 2026 — SER National joins Americans across the country in observing Hispanic Heritage Month, the annual celebration held Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 that honors the history, culture, and contributions of Hispanic Americans. This year’s national theme, “Unidos, Somos Más” — “Together, We Are More” — is the operating principle of a nation that has drawn its strength from people of every origin building something together.
“That is the American triumph,” says Ignacio Salazar, president and chief executive officer of SER National. “No other country has woven so many backgrounds, languages, talents and skills into a single fabric and made it stronger for the weaving. That is why the rest of the world studies the United States and tries to copy it. Hispanic Americans are among the threads that run through every part of that fabric, often in places the public never thinks to look,” he adds.
Consider the record. Mario Molina, a Mexican-born American and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry, identified the ozone hole. Luis Alvarez, a Nobel scientist, explained that an asteroid impact ended the age of dinosaurs. Severo Ochoa won the Nobel Prize in medicine on how cells copy genetic information, and Lydia Villa-Komaroff led the research team that first coaxed bacteria into producing human insulin for diabetes treatment.
The same energy shows up on Main Street. The Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative reports the number of Latino-owned businesses in the United States grew 44 percent from 2018 to 2023. Nationally, the economic output of U.S. Latinos is at $4.4 trillion in 2024, the fourth-largest economy in the world and larger than Japan’s. The Latino labor force grew 5.5 percent that year, the strongest growth on record, and one in five people living in the United States is now Latino.
“Every one of those numbers is a person who got up this morning and went to work,” states Salazar. “A $4.4 trillion economy is not built by a few famous names. It is built by nurses and welders, teachers and truck drivers, coders and construction crews, and small-business owners who opened their doors before sunrise. Hispanic Heritage Month is the country pausing to say: We see you, and we are stronger because you are here.”
SER has been part of that story for 62 years, with a single, nonpartisan mission: preparing people for productive, unsubsidized employment through education, job skills training, and literacy. Through the SER Network of Affiliates, with more than 200 locations across America and Puerto Rico, SER serves more than 1 million people each year. Its measure of success has never changed: a job that supports a family and a career that supports a future.
“The best way to honor the people who broke barriers is to make sure the next generation never meets them,” Salazar said. “When we put a credential in someone’s hand and a paycheck in someone’s pocket, we are not helping one community. We are adding to what America can do. Unidos, somos más. Together, we are more. That has always been the whole point.”
SER National calls on all Americans to mark this month with action, not just applause: learn the stories of the Hispanic Americans who built and sustain their own hometowns; hire, mentor or train a worker looking for a foothold; and stand with the employers, educators and community organizations that keep the nation’s workforce strong. The fabric holds because every thread does its part.