Hispanic Leaders

"A legacy of history, a present of action and a future of success"

"You only have what you give. It's by spending yourself that you become rich."

Isabel Allende, who has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author."

Isabel Allende

Writer

Isabel Angélica Allende Llona, born in Lima, 2 August 1942, is a Chilean writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the genre magical realism, is known for novels such as The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus, 1982) and City of the Beasts (La ciudad de las bestias, 2002), which have been commercially successful. Allende has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author."

In 2004, Allende was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2010, she received Chile's National Literature Prize.

President Barack Obama awarded her the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez

Polician/Activist

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known by her initials AOC, is an American politician and activist. She has served as the U.S. representative for New York's 14th congressional district since 2019, as a member of the Democratic Party. AOC, born in 1983, she is the youngest woman to serve in the US Congress.

She graduated from Boston University in 2011.

"They'll tell you you're too loud, that you need to wait your turn and ask the right people for permission. Do it anyway."

– Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Roberto Clemente

(1934-1972)

The first baseball player from Latin America to collect 3,000 hits, Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente won four batting crowns, 12 Gold Glove Awards and the 1966 National League Most Valuable Player Award during his iconic career. A 15-time All-Star, the Puerto Rico native led the Pittsburgh Pirates to two championships and was named Most Valuable Player of the 1971 World Series at the age of 37.

Source: History.com

"Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?"

- Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is remembered for her self-portraits, pain and passion, and bold, vibrant colors. She is celebrated in Mexico for her attention to Mexican and indigenous culture and by feminists for her depiction of the female experience and form.

Frida Kahlo

Painter, Artist

Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico.

She employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. She was disabled by polio as a child, and had been a promising student headed for medical school until being injured in a bus accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems.

Her life and her husband's, Diego Rivera, have been portrayed in the movie Frida, starring Salma Hayek, a biographical drama that received positive reviews from critics, and won two Academy Awards for Best Makeup and Best Original Score among six nominations.

Luis Walter Alvarez

(1911-1988)

Luis Walter Alvarez was an American physicist, inventor, and professor who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968.

He received the Prize "for his decisive contributions to elementary particle physics, in particular the discovery of a large number of resonant states, made possible through his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chambers and data analysis."

Source: nobelprize.org

Salma Hayek Pinault

Actress/Producer

Salma Hayek Pinault  (September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American actress and producer. She began her career in Mexico with starring roles popular telenovelas, then established herself in Hollywood with appearances in films such as Desperado (1995), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Wild Wild West (1999), and Dogma (1999).

Hayek's portrayal of painter Frida Kahlo in the biographical film Frida (2002), which she also produced, made her the first Mexican actress to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and additionally earned her Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and British Academy Film Award nominations

"Legacy. What is a Legacy? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see."

- Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton

As the musical visionary behind "In the Heights" and "Hamilton," Lin-Manuel has emerged as one of the biggest cultural figures of the past decade, and played a major role in the popularization of Latino storytelling. He was born to parents of Puerto Rican origin and grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood in northern Manhattan.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Miranda was raised around musicals and started writing his first title at Wesleyan University in 1999 during his sophomore year. In the Heights, loosely based on his own experience growing up, would go on to open on Broadway in March 2008. Miranda won his first Tony Award that summer after the show received 13 nominations, earning four wins including Best Musical.

Miranda has won three Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, two Lawrence Olivier Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, an Annie Award, a MacArthur Fellowship Award, a Kennedy Center Honor and a Pulitzer Price.



Eugenio Derbez

Eugenio Derbez is one of Mexico's most successful comedic actors and directors. He was recognized by Variety in 2014 as the #1 most influential Latin American male in the world. On March 10, 2016, Derbez unveiled his star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. His feature film Instructions Not Included, which he directed, co-wrote, and starred in became the most successful Spanish-language film in the U.S. and worldwide and broke numerous box-office records earning more than $100 million worldwide.

Virginia Brindis de Salas

Poet

Virginia Brindis de Salas (18 September 1908 – 6 April 1958) was a poet of the black community of Uruguay. The country's leading black woman poet, she is also considered "the most militant among Afro-Uruguayan writers".

Her poetry addresses the social reality of Black Uruguayans.

Little is known about her life; according to Joy Elizondo, she claimed to be the niece of Cuban violinist Claudio Brindis de Salas, though this is unsubstantiated.

Julia Alvarez, writer

Julia Alvarez is a bilingual author who has written essays, poems, and novels, both for adults and children. In her work, she often explores the immigrant experience, identity, and the feeling of being pulled between two cultures.

Gabriel García Márquez, journalist/writer

His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style known as magic realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations.

Elizabeth Acevedo, author/poet

New York Times-bestselling author of The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. She is also the author of With the Fire on High—which was named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal—and Clap When You Land, which was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor book and a Kirkus finalist.

"It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams."

ÔÇò Gabriel García Márquez

"Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life."

- Julia Alvarez

Diego Rivera

(1886-1957)

Considered the greatest Mexican painter of the twentieth century, Diego Rivera had a profound effect on the international art world. Among his many contributions, Rivera is credited with the reintroduction of fresco painting into modern art and architecture.

Source: pbs.org

Latin Music Legends

Tito Puente (1923-2000),

was an American musician, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer of Puerto Rican descent. He is best known for dance-oriented mambo and Latin jazz compositions that endured over a 50-year career. His most famous song is "Oye Como Va".

Carmen Miranda (1909-1955),

was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress and film star who was active from the late 1920s onwards. Nicknamed "The Brazilian Bombshell", Miranda was known for her signature fruit hat outfit that she wore in her American films.

Selena (1971-1995),

Selena Quintanilla Pérez has been called the "Queen of Tejano music". Her contributions to music and fashion made her one of the most celebrated Mexican-American entertainers of the late 20th century.

Carlos Gardel (1890-1935),

was a French-born Argentine singer, songwriter, composer and actor, and the most prominent figure in the history of tango. He was one of the most influential interpreters of world popular music in the first half of the 20th century. Gardel is the most famous popular tango singer of all time and is recognized throughout the world

Celia Cruz (1925-2003),

was a Cuban-American singer and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. Cruz rose to fame in Cuba during the 1950s as a singer of guarachas, earning the nickname "La Guarachera de Cuba". In the following decades, she became known internationally as the "Queen of Salsa" due to her contributions to Latin music.

Source - Wikipedia.org

Be strong minded, and always believe that the impossible is possible.

- Selena

Gloria Estefan

Singer

Gloria Estefan was born in Havana, Cuba on September 1, 1957. When she was 2 years old, her family fled Cuba due to the takeover of Castro at the end of 1958. Gloria Estefan is especially important to Latin Music in the United States for her fusion of Latin rhythms with pop music, and for paving the way for other Latin artists.

Rita Moreno

Actress/Singer/Dancer

Breaking barriers as a Latina singer and actor, she is not only the first Latina to win an Oscar, but also one of only three people in the world to be a PEGOT— someone who has received a Peabody, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award.

Fun Fact: when nominated for the best Supporting Actress Oscar Award, she believed Judy Garland would receive the Award over her West Side Story role. She had no speech prepared when announced winner.

"We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community — and this nation."

- Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)

A Mexican-American labor leader and civil rights activist, Cesar Chavez dedicated his life's work to what he called la causa (the cause): the struggle of farm workers in the United States to improve their working and living conditions through organizing and negotiating contracts with their employers.

Cesar Chavez

Activist/Labor Leader

Cesar Chavez was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers labor union.

He fought for the rights and welfare of farm workers. He organized marches, boycotts, and even went on a hunger strike for 36 days. Chavez received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, after his death.

He has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Pablo Picasso

Picasso was not just a painter. He produced sculptures, pottery, ballet sets, poetry, drawings, and more. He is famous for Cubism: using cube shapes in his work, or taking shapes apart and putting them back together in a different way.

Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.

Oscar de la Renta

├ôscar Arístides Renta Fiallo, known professionally as Oscar de la Renta, was a Dominican fashion designer. Born in Santo Domingo, he was trained by Cristóbal Balenciaga and Antonio del Castillo. De la Renta became internationally known in the 1960s as one of the couturiers who dressed Jacqueline Kennedy.

Eva Peron

Politician/Activist/Philanthropist

She worked for a time as an actress before marrying and becoming First Lady of Argentina. Peron died tragically young from cancer, which cemented her legendary status among the working class. The fascination in her life resulted in films, books, and plays about her life. Eva Peron was the wife of President Juan Peron, beloved advocate for women and the low-income people of Argentina, and unofficial minister of health and labor.

Rigoberta Mench├║ Tum

Activist

Rigoberta Mench├║ Tum is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Recognized for her advocacy work on behalf of the Mayan communities in Guatemala, Menchu became internationally famous after narrating her book, Me llamo Rigoberta Menchu y asi me nacido la conciencia (My Name is Rigoberta Menchu, and this is how my Awareness was born).

She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 and the Prince of Asturias Award in 1998, in addition to other prestigious awards.

Dolores Huerta, activist

Renowned activist for the rights of farm workers, and a leader for Chicano civil rights. With Cesar Chavez, she helped form United Farm Workers to fight for better working and living conditions. Today, it is the largest union that continues to fight for the rights of agricultural workers.

Huerta continued her work well into the 2000's and received the presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 from President Obama. She was the first Latina inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, and has received numerous awards and honorary doctorates.

Sylvia Rivera

(1951-2002)

A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising, Sylvia Rivera was a tireless advocate for those silenced and disregarded by larger movements. Throughout her life, she fought against the exclusion of transgender people, especially transgender people of color, from the larger movement for gay rights.

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project continues her legacy, working to guarantee "all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence."

Source: womenhistory.org

"We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are. We are numerous. There are many of us out here."

— Sylvia Rivera

Maria Elena Moyano

Feminist/Activist

María Elena Moyano Delgado (November 29, 1958 – February 15, 1992) was an Afro-Peruvian community organizer and feminist who was assassinated by the Shining Path (Communist Party of Peru).

She grew up in poverty in the Villa El Salvador, then became involved in local activism. She was twice president of FEPOMUVES (the Popular Federation of Women of Villa El Salvador) and at the time of her death was deputy mayor. Her funeral was attended by 300,000 people and resulted in a downturn in support for the Shining Path. She received the Peruvian Order of Merit posthumously.



The Mirabal Sisters

The Mirabal sisters (hermanas Mirabal) were four sisters from the Dominican Republic, three of whom (Patria, Minerva and María Teresa) opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (el Jefe) and were involved in clandestine activities against his regime. The three sisters were assassinated on 25 November 1960. The last sister, Adela "Dedé", who was not involved in political activities at the time, died of natural causes on 1 February 2014.

The assassinations turned the Mirabal sisters into "symbols of both popular and feminist resistance". In 1999, in their honor, the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Victoria Eugenia Santa Cruz Gamarra

Victoria Eugenia Santa Cruz Gamarra (27 October 1922 – August 30, 2014) was an Afro-Peruvian choreographer, composer, and activist.

Victoria Santa Cruz would go on to be called "the mother of Afro Peruvian dance and theatre." Along with her brother, Nicomedes Santa Cruz, she is credited as significant in a revival of Afro-Peruvian culture in the 1960s and 1970s. They both came from a long-line of artists and intellectuals. For her part she is said to have had "Afrocentrism" influences in her view of dance trying to discover "ancestral memory" of African forms.

José Andrés

Politician/Activist/Philanthropist

José Ramón Andrés Puerta (born 13 July 1969) is a Spanish chef, and founder of World Central Kitchen (WCK), a non-profit devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters. A Spanish-born and raised cook, he is often credited with bringing the small plates dining concept to America. He owns restaurants in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Las Vegas, South Beach, Florida, Orlando, Chicago, and New York.

He was awarded a 2015 National Humanities Medal at a 2016 White House ceremony for his work with World Central Kitchen. In addition, he has received honorary doctorates from Georgetown University, George Washington University, Harvard University, and Tufts University.

Lionel Messi (1987- )

Luis Lionel Andres ("Leo") Messi is an Argentinian soccer player who plays forward for the FC Barcelona club and the Argentina national team.  He is often considered the best player in the world and widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time.

Diego Maradona (1960-2020)

Diego Armando Maradona was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the FIFA Player of the 20th Century award.

Pelé (1940 - )

Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé, is a Brazilian professional footballer who played as a forward. Regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, and labelled "the greatest" by FIFA, he was among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century.

Sonia Maria Sotomayor

Lawyer/Jurist

Sonia Maria Sotomayor (born June 25, 1954) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since August 8, 2009. She is the third woman, first woman of color, the first Hispanic, and first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court.

Ellen Ochoa (1958- )

Ellen Ochoa was the first Hispanic American woman to go to space when she joined the 9-day mission aboard the Discovery shuttle in 1993.

A mission specialist and flight engineer at NASA, Ochoa is a veteran of four space flights, logging more than 950 hours in space.