Hispanic Heritage A B C

Hathaway School by my Room 10
Oxnard, CA
Hueneme School District
Back to School Night
Sept 26, 2007 in Celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month

View sarah_puglisi's map

Taken in (See more photos here)

I read this great piece...it was discussing "Why Teach 'Culture' in Schools?"
For me this is a bit like asking, "Why do we need to teach art?"
However if I can place a little piece here it might be helpful...

From Education World:

Today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 44 million people in the United States are of Hispanic origin. That's about 14 percent of us!

Teaching of the contributions of Hispanic Americans, and learning about the cultures from which they come, will be the focal point of many classroom activities and discussions in the weeks ahead as students across the United States recognize Hispanic Heritage Month -- September 15 to October 15.

But why teach about Hispanic heritage? Or, for that matter, why teach about any heritage?

Clearly, teaching about the contributions of Latinos can only help to build the self-esteem and the pride of those who identify themselves as Mexican-American or Cuban-American or Puerto Rican-American or . . . .

But, even more importantly, it is essential that all students learn to understand the ethnic diversity that is our country, according to Multicultural Education: Issues and Perspectives (Banks and Banks, 1992). Integrating the cultures in the social studies classroom helps develop "ethnic literacy" in all students. Developing ethnic literacy fosters pride in one's own culture and a respect and appreciation for the uniqueness of others.

Many Hispanic Americans trace their roots to the cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas -- including the Arawaks (Puerto Rico), the Aztecs (Mexico), the Incas (South America), the Maya (Central America), and the Tainos (in Cuba, Puerto Rico and other places). Some trace their roots to the Spanish explorers -- who in the 1400s set out to find an easier and less costly way to trade with the Indies. Other Latinos trace their roots to the Africans who were brought as slaves to the New World. For purposes of the U.S. Census, Hispanic Americans today are identified according to the parts of the world that they or their ancestors came from, including Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spain, or the nations of Central or South America.

Pretty important to my work, ethnic literacy.
Which I strive for fumbling levels in myself.
My Sheltered Immersion Students in 1st grade are able to trace their roots to Hispanic Heritage and are also aware daily they must assimilate into their new life.
Keeping the best of their families.
My interest is always in our taking this school work as part of a process of understanding who we are, who we came from, and where we want to be one day. To that end I'm building a Community Recipe Box. (Soon....to talk of these food pieces as cultural pieces in a wiki.)

Here is a little list of a few books I've read on this very important topic, ethnic literacy, one that I'm ever working to understand:
Multicultural Education by James A. Banks
Beyond Heroes and Holidays by Enid Lee
We Can't Teach What We Don't Know
Becoming Multicultural Educators by Geneva Gay
Cultural Diversity and Education: Foundations, Curriculum, and Teaching (5th Edition) by James A. Banks
The Light in Their Eyes: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities (Multicultural Education Series) by Sonia Nieto
We Can't Teach What We Don't Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools (Multicultural Education (Paper)) by Gary R. Howard
Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (5th Edition) by Sonia Nieto
I have not read this but I read an interesting piece on this book:
Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural by Claudine C. O'Hearn.

So to kick off (bit late) on this blog to recognize Hispanic Heritage Month here are some people that have contributed to our world that I appreciate.

The President speaking to this Month:

President Proclaims National Hispanic Heritage Month
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

For more than 30 years, the United States has annually celebrated the rich history and cultural traditions of our Nation's Hispanic American people. National Hispanic Heritage Month provides us an opportunity to express deep appreciation to Hispanic Americans for their countless contributions to our society and to pay tribute again to America's distinctive diversity. The Rest....

More to Come, as always I go a little brain dead when compiling, missing so many:

A is for:

Isabel Allende (favorite writer of my student Rosalia Garduno)

Author
Born: 8/2/1942
Birthplace: Lima, Peru

The daughter of a diplomat, best-selling author Isabel Allende spent her childhood in South America, Europe, and the Middle East. As a teenager she returned to her family's native country, Chile, where she became a writer and television host, but fled in 1975 following a military coup. Allende published her first and most acclaimed novel, House of the Spirits, in 1985. She has lived and worked in the U.S. since 1988.

Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


(editorial comment, I'm still very unsure how I feel about the Manhattan work....like everything in our lives it is a complex issue, after reading for many years it still brings me concern)
Alvarez, Luis Walter

Alvarez, Luis Walter, 1911–88, American physicist, b. San Francisco, grad. Univ. of Chicago, 1932, Ph.D. 1936. He was awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of a large number of residence states (subatomic particles that have very short lifetimes and that occur only in high-energy nuclear collisions), which was made possible through his development of the liquid-hydrogen bubble chamber (see particle detector). He also helped develop the ground-control approach system for aircraft in the 1940s and played an important part in the Manhattan Project, where he suggested the technique for detonating the implosion type of atomic bomb. A member of the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, Alvarez held the patents for more than 30 inventions, including three types of radar systems. His autobiography, Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist, was published in 1987. He; his son, the geologist Walter Alvarez,. 1940–, b. Berkeley, Calif.; and others proposed that unusually high levels of iridium at the boundary between Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks indicated a major meteor impact with the earth about 65 million years ago and that this might be the cause of the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Rudolfo Anaya
Writer
Born: 10/30/1937
Birthplace: Pastura, New Mexico

Rudolfo Anaya's evocative work is steeped in the land and life of his native Southwest. The first of his seven novels, Bless Me, Ultima (1972), a coming-of-age story set in 1940s New Mexico, is considered a classic of modern American literature. Anaya has also brought his storytelling gifts to essays, children's books, plays, poetry, and the 1998 mystery Shaman Winter. His 1999 novel Alburquerque (the extra "r" reflects the city's original Spanish spelling) won the PEN Center West Award-just one of Anaya's many honors. Anaya is professor emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico.

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Desi Arnaz click out here....

B is for:

Joan Baez

Baez, Joan (bīpstr;ez, bä'–) [key], 1941–, American folk singer and political activist, b. New York City. Baez began singing traditional folk ballads, blues, and spirituals in Cambridge, Mass., coffeehouses in a clear soprano voice with a three-octave range. She made folk music, which had been largely ignored, popular. Baez's records were the first folk albums to become best-sellers. Her later albums include several of her own compositions, e.g., “Song for David” and “Blessed Are.” Among the first performers to urge social protest, she sang and marched for civil and student rights and peace. Since the late 1960s she has devoted time to her school for nonviolence in California and has performed at concerts supporting a variety of humanitarian causes.

See her autobiography, Daybreak (1968), and her memoir, And a Voice to Sing With (1987).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007,


I removed an artist tired of having the image I found of his work hit, as it is objectionable to some.
After awhile it just seemed less art and more drawing the pain of life.

Rubén Blades

Birth: July 16, 1948 in Panama City, Panama
Occupation:singer

Rubén Blades has three very distinct careers that rarely, if ever, meet. As a Grammy Award-winning musician and salsa singer, Blades has released several salsa albums, including Buscando America,Escenas,Mundo, and Siembra, one of Latin music's most popular albums. As a popular Hollywood actor, he has appeared in such films as The Milagro Beanfield War,The Devil's Own,The Cradle Will Rock, and All the Pretty Horses. As an activist and politician, Blades has long been a champion of human rights issues. When he ran for president of Panama in 1994, he placed a respectable third.

C is for:

(by far the one I admire the most here, knowing his niece and god-daughter Amalia as my friend and we shared the work in my classroom 8 years in Greenfield CA where I learned a very great deal abut the richness of Hispanic culture)

Chavez, Cesar Estrada

Chavez, Cesar Estrada (sā'sär āsträ'&thstrok;ä shä'vez) [key], 1927–93, American agrarian labor leader, b. near Yuma, Ariz. A migrant worker, he became involved (1952) in the self-help Community Service Organization (CSO) in California, working among Mexicans and Mexican Americans; from 1958 to 1962 he was its general director. In 1962, he left the CSO to organize wine grape pickers in California and formed the National Farm Workers Association. Using strikes, fasts, picketing, and marches, he was able to obtain contracts from a number of major growers. In 1966 his organization merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee of the AFL-CIO to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee of the AFL-CIO. Chavez also launched (1968) a boycott against the table grape growers, mobilizing consumer support throughout the United States. In 1972 the United Farm Workers (UFW), with Chavez as president, became a member union of the AFL-CIO. Chavez expanded its efforts to include all California vegetable pickers and launched a lettuce boycott, as well as extending his organizational efforts to Florida citrus workers. His successes in California were sharply diminished, however, as the result of a jurisdictional dispute with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters over the organization of field workers. In 1973 the Teamsters cut heavily into UFW membership by signing contracts with former UFW grape growers, but Chavez renewed the grape workers' strike. In 1977, the two unions signed a pact defining the types of workers each could organize. Membership in the UFW later fell, in part due to disputes between Chavez and his followers.

See J. E. Levy, Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa (1975); R. Franchere, Cesar Chavez (1988).

• Cesar Chavez
• Timeline: Cesar Chavez
• Julio Cesar Chavez
• Cesar Chavez Biography (Activist)

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Cesar Chavez

1927–1993

Chavez and the Farm Workers Movement

• Biography: Cesar Chavez
• Timeline: Cesar Chavez
• Migrant Labor

Labor Movement

• Timeline: Labor Movement
• History: Labor Unions
• National Labor Organizations
• Labor Unions in the U.S.
• Strikes
• Picketing
• Boycotts
• Collective Bargaining
• Hunger Strikes

Leaders

• Hispanic Leaders and Activists
• Labor Leaders

Related Websites

• The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers' Struggle
• United Farm Workers

For my momma
Roberto Clemente

On April 7, 1999, the city of Pittsburgh renamed the bridge that connects the downtown to the North Side, spanning the Allegheny River. Once know as the Sixth Street Bridge, it is now called the Roberto Clemente Bridge. The bridge, originally constructed in 1928, will provide baseball fans with a walkway on game days, as well as a direct entryway into the stadium.

It is easy to imagine why the city of Pittsburgh would name a bridge after Clemente. Roberto Clemente was a star player for the Pittsburgh Pirates for 18 years. Bridges, airports, and highways are often named for famous people, although more often for presidents, governors, and other people who have been of public service. But Clemente was more than just a good athlete. He was also a humanitarian who once said, “Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on this Earth.”

Roberto Clemente was born in Barrio San Anton in Carolina, Puerto Rico, on August 18, 1934. By the time Clemente got to high school, his family and friends expected that he would go on to play professional baseball. When Clemente was barely 17, he played in the Puerto Rican Winter League and attracted the attention of scouts for the major league teams in the U. S. The rest, as they say, is history – National League Batting Champion four times, twelve Gold Gloves, National League Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1966, and MVP in the 1971 World Series.

Clement was determined to excel not only for himself, but also to support others of Hispanic background. But today, he is perhaps best remembered for his last effort. In December of 1972, the city of Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, suffered a massive earthquake. Within minutes the whole city was shut down. Power went off; water pipes were broken. Large cracks developed in apartment buildings and the tiled roofs of houses caved in. The city of 400,000 people (one-fifth of the population of Nicaragua) was now a city where 400,000 people were without food, water, and, in some cases, shelter.

Clement enlisted in the relief efforts and headed the relief mission from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Determined to get supplies to Managua as soon as possible, he decided to join one flight himself, to ensure that help for the earthquake victims arrived as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the weather was bad and the plane was small. The plane crashed into the Caribbean Sea and all aboard perished.

Even after his death, Clemente’s generosity lives on. In 1993, his family founded the Roberto Clement Foundation. This foundation works with the youth of Pittsburgh, providing them with recreational programs and opportunities for further education, while, at the same time, teaching them that community service is something everyone can do and from which everyone benefits.

Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros
Author
Born: 1954
Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois

Sandra Cisneros's acclaimed first book, The House on Mango Street (1984), draws on memories of a childhood in which she moved often between Mexico and the U.S. while struggling to find her voice as the only daughter among seven children. A work of sharp observation and vivid prose, this novel, which won the Before Columbus American Book Award, has been widely taught. Cisneros is also known for her poetry, especially My Wicked Wicked Ways (1987).

Fact Monster/Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

D is for:

Dario Ruben

Darío, Rubén (rOOben' därē'ō) [key], 1867–1916, Nicaraguan poet, originally named Félix Rubén García Sarmiento. A child prodigy, he gained a thorough knowledge of Spanish and French cultures through reading; it was then widened during many years abroad in both South America and Europe as diplomatic representative of various Spanish American countries. He was particularly influenced by the writings of the French Parnassians. Darío was the leader and founder of modernismo, emphasizing perfection of form, musical expression, and an ineffable sadness related to that of French symbolist poetry. His influence on contemporary Spanish and Spanish American writers was enormous. Azul [blue], written in 1888 when he was 21, revolutionized the whole of Spanish syntax and metrics; it was followed by Prosas profanas (1896), a departure from pure form and content to grace, beauty, and exoticism. Cantos de vida y esperanza [songs of life and hope] (1905) is concerned with the future of Spanish America. El canto errante [the wandering song] (1907) shows Darío's elegance strengthened by considerable power and technical mastery. His profound work “Poema del otoño” [autumn's poem] (1910) is often considered his masterpiece.

See his Selected Poems (tr. 1965); biography by C. D. Watland (1965); studies by C. Jrade (1983), P. Pearsall (1984), and S. Ingwersen (1986).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

E is for:

Eguren, Jose Maria

Eguren, José María (hōsā' mārē'ä egOO'rān) [key], 1882–1942, Peruvian poet. Originally devoted to modernismo, Eguren avoided its excesses and wrote terse, musical, and sometimes obscure poems. His strange images, symbols, and dreamlike visions were wrought into a framework of formal perfection. Simbólicas (1911), La canción de las figuras (1916), and Poesías (1929) are his best-known collections.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

F is for:

Fuentes, Carlos

Fuentes, Carlos (kär'lōs fwān'tās) [key], 1928–, Mexican writer, editor, and diplomat. He was head of the department of cultural relations in Mexico's ministry of foreign affairs (1956–59) and Mexican ambassador to France (1975–77). Much of his fiction, which generally deals with themes of Mexican identity and history and often focuses on politics and sex, is a synthesis of reality and fantasy, transcending the limits of time and space (see magic realism). His works include La región más transparente (1958; tr. Where the Air Is Clear, 1960), Las buenas conciencias (1959; tr. Good Conscience, 1968), Cambio de piel (1967; tr. A Change of Skin, 1968), Terra Nostra (1975, tr. 1976), Una familia lejana (1980; tr. Distant Relations, 1982), La Campaña (1990, tr. The Campaign, 1991), Años con Laura Díaz (1999; tr. The Years with Laura Díaz, 2000), Instinto de Inez (2001, tr. Inez, 2002), and Silla del Águila (2003, tr. The Eagle's Throne, 2006). His nonfiction books include The Buried Mirror (1992), a study of Spanish and Latin American cultural history, and This I Believe (2005), an alphabetically arranged combination memoir, manifesto, and literary essay. Fuentes has also written numerous essays and short stories.

See biographies by W. Faris (1983) and A. González (1987); studies by R. Brody and C. Rossman, ed. (1982), K. Ibsen (1993), R. L. Williams (1996), C. Helmuth (1997), and M. Van Delden (1998).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

G is for:

Jerry Garcia

musician
Born: 8/1/1942
Birthplace: San Francisco

Arguably one of the most famous rock and roll musicians of all time as lead singer and guitarist of The Grateful Dead. Famous for their mesmerizing live performances, and intriguing blend of pop, rock, bluegrass and folk, The Grateful Dead reached its full expression in albums such as Workingman's Dead (1970), American Beauty (1970), and Blues for Allah (1975). Garcia was a productive musician and songwriter who worked with The Dead, on solo recordings, in other bands, and in numerous guest roles. The Ben and Jerry's ice-cream flavor Cherry Garcia is named for him.

Died: 8/9/1995
Fact Monster/Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Ernesto Galarza

labor organizer, historian, professor, activist
Born: 1905
Birthplace: Nayarit, Mexico, near Tepic

When Ernesto Galarza was eight, he and his parents migrated to Sacramento, California, where he worked as a farm laborer. Excelling at school, he became one of the first Mexican-Americans from a poor background to complete college, after which he received a M.A. from Stanford in 1929, and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 1944. Galarza returned to California, where—at the height of the Cold War and McCarthyism—he organized unions for farm laborers, joining the effort to create the first multiracial farm worker union. While this effort failed, it created the foundation for the United Farm Workers Union of the 1960s. He wrote several books, most notably the 1964 Merchants of Labor, on the exploitation of Mexican contract workers, and the 1971 Barrio Boy, about his own childhood. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.

Died: 1984

Gottschalk, Louis Moreau

A child prodigy pianist who was touring Europe as a virtuoso concert soloist while still a teenager, Louis Moreau Gottschalk provides one of the most colourful chapters in the history of American music. He had received considerable support from his father, both in financial and personal terms. His visit to Europe was a triumph, with his playing being compared with all the great virtuoso pianists of his day. Sadly his youth was shattered by the death of his father, requiring the young man to find the money to support his six brothers and sisters, following his father's death. This demanded endless tours around the States, playing hundreds of concerts per year, many in locations that hardly merited his skills. The stress was to great and eventually his health and mental stamina faltered and he withdrew from the concert stage. The period was brought to an end with his need to earn money, and he resumed his crazy workload. To supplement his income he composed easy salon pieces to meet the growing market for piano music. Eventually a scandal with a young female student eventually drove him into exile in South America. There he met with some renewed success in Brazil, where he organised concerts, among them the monster piano concerts, where thirty-one pianists took part. That hectic life caught up with him, and he died in Brazil at the age of 40. His compositions were of varied quality; those written for orchestra show a composer of who could create memorable and catchy tunes, though whether is unusual orchestration was a matter of skill or an equivalent lack of knowledge is still questionable. The result is never profound or subtle, but has a fresh and uninhibited atmosphere.

H is for:

Oscar Hijuelos

Writer
Born: 1951
Birthplace: New York City

Oscar Hijuelos is the first Hispanic to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. A second-generation Cuban American, Hijuelos grew up in New York and earned a master's in creative writing from City College. In 1983 he published the novel Our House in the Last World, the first of his rich explorations of memory and family life. Hijuelos earned a Pulitzer for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989), the story of Cuban musicians in New York in the early 1950s, when Latin music first swept the United States. His fifth and novel, Empress of the Splendid Season, was published in 1999.

I is for:

Isaacs, Jorge

Isaacs, Jorge (hôr'hā ē'säks) [key], 1837–95, Colombian novelist. The son of a prosperous Englishman and a creole, Isaacs witnessed the ruin and premature death of his parents and the despoilment of his estate by civil war. He fled to Bogotá, where he won critical acclaim with a book of poems (Poesiás, 1864). His masterpiece, María (1867, tr. 1890), a melancholy romantic novel, won immediate success and was widely imitated. His finely drawn characters and colorful accounts of local customs are complemented by a masterful picture of the landscape of the Cauca valley. Isaacs was named consul to Chile and occupied several government posts, but died in poverty.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press.

Ibarbourou, Juana de

Ibarbourou, Juana de (hwä'nä dā ēbärbOO'rOO) [key], 1895–1979, Uruguayan poet also called Juana de América. One of the most popular poets of Spanish America, she caused a sensation with the exuberant and lilting sensuality of her lyrics in Aguas de diamante (1919) and Raíz salvaje (1920). Her early works also include the introspective La rosa de los vientos (1930). Oro y tormenta (1956), in which she uses biblical themes, reflects her increasing preoccupation with suffering and death. Chico Carlo (1944) contains her memoirs. Her work is collected in Obras completas (3d ed. 1968).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

J is for:

Read About what Latin Artists meant to Jazz here(as I'm unable to figure out how to get it)

The Latin Influence in Early Jazz
(This is just so excellent it's ridiculous)

Juana Inés de la Cruz

Juana Inés de la Cruz (hwä'nä ēnās' dā lä krOOs) [key], 1651–95, Mexican poet. She is considered the greatest lyric poet of the colonial period. A beautiful and intellectually precocious girl, Juana was a favorite at the viceregal court before entering a Mexican convent at the age of 16. Forced to study outside the university, she devoted herself to amassing a fine library, and made her convent into a center of religious and social life in Mexico. Her classical erudition and her scientific curiosity led to reprimands from her superiors. The bishop of Puebla published one of her studies but—under the pseudonym of a fellow nun—criticized her for neglecting religious duties. Sor Juana answered these objections to the education of women in a spirited autobiographical letter (1691; tr. 1982) that became a classic. Her lyric poetry, mystical in inspiration and influenced by Spaniards Góngora and Calderón, won enduring fame. Her masterpiece is Primer sueño, a metaphoric interpretation of a dream and of awakening. So Juana sold her books and devoted her last years to the spiritual life. She died trying to help the convent victims of an epidemic.

See selected poems tr. by M. S. Peden (1985) and F. Warnke (1987); studies by O. Paz (tr. 1988) and G. Tavard (1991); critical essays ed. by S. Merrim (1991).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

K is for:

Frida Kahlo

Artist

Born: 6 July 1907

Died: 13 July 1954

Birthplace: Mexico City, Mexico

Best known as: Mexico's most famous woman artist

Frida Kahlo is one of Mexico's most famous artists and also something of a feminist icon, celebrated for her passionate indomitability in the face of life's trials. She's best known for her daring self-portraits depicting the suffering she experienced in her personal life. As a child Kahlo had polio; at the age of 18 she broke her right leg and pelvis in a horrific bus accident, leading to a lifetime of chronic pain. Partially immobile after the accident, Kahlo began painting in the late 1920s. She married famed muralist Diego Rivera in 1929 and together they travelled to the United States, staying in Detroit and New York City in the early 1930s. In the late 1930s Kahlo had exhibitions of her paintings in New York City and Paris and associated with some of the most famous painters in the world. Kahlo and Rivera were both known for their extramarital affairs (Kahlo supposedly was a lover of Leon Trotsky) and in 1940 they divorced for a short time before remarrying. During the '40s Kahlo gained international recognition for her colorful and sometimes gruesome paintings (as well as for her bold public persona), but she continued to have health problems. She died in 1954 just after her 47th birthday.

Extra credit: Kahlo was portrayed by actress Salma Hayek in the 2002 film Frida. She was also portrayed by Ofelia Medina in the 1984 film Frida, Naturaleza Viva.

Copyright © 1998-2006 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.

L is for:

Latina's in NASA

López Velarde, Ramón

López Velarde, Ramón (rämōn' lō'pās vālär'&thstrok;ā) [key], 1888–1921, Mexican poet. One of the major poets of Mexico, he deeply influenced the work of later poets, notably Xavier Villaurrutia. Although his poetry sometimes shows the influence of modernismo, he was one of the first poets to rebel against its labored aestheticism. His excesses are the result of a passionate quest for originality. It was his masterful treatment of the Mexican landscape, the contrast between the traditions of the countryside and the turbulence of the city, and his own anguished struggle between ascetic leanings and pagan sensuality that give his lyrics their peculiar tension, expressiveness, and drama. His first work, La sangre devota [the devout blood] (1916), was followed by Zozobra (1919). El son del corazón [the sound of the heart] and Poemas escogidos [selected poems] (1935) were published posthumously.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

M is for:

Mario Molina

Cool interview here at Scholastic..Back to Biography
chemist, Nobel laureate
Born: March 19, 1943
Birthplace: Mexico City

At the University of California at Berkeley in 1973, Molina and Sherwood Rowland began researching chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), then widely used in refrigerators, spray cans, and cleaning solvents. They discovered that the release of CFCs could destroy the ozone layer in the stratosphere, allowing more ultraviolet light to get through to Earth and potentially increasing the rate of skin cancer. Their efforts led to CFC production being banned in most countries, and they received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Rita Moreno

(Rosita Dolores Alverio)
actress, dancer, singer
Born: 12/11/1931
Birthplace: Humacao, Puerto Rico

Moreno first appeared in film at the age of fourteen, in A Medal for Benny (1945). She played in several movies (notably The King and I in 1956) until her role as Anita in West Side Story (1961) brought her fame and an Oscar as best supporting actress. Her work in television included appearances on The Muppet Show and The Rockford Files. Moreno was the first actress to bag an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony. More recently, she appeared in Blue Moon (2000) and in John Sayles' Casa de los Babys (2003).

MONTOYA, Joseph Manuel

(1915—1978)

Senate Years of Service: 1964-1977
Party: Democrat

MONTOYA, Joseph Manuel, a Representative and a Senator from New Mexico; born in Penablanca, Sandoval County, N.Mex., September 24, 1915; attended Regis College, Denver, Colo.; graduated from Georgetown University Law School, Washington, D.C., in 1938; admitted to the bar in 1939 and commenced the practice of law in Santa Fe, N.Mex.; elected to the State house of representatives in 1936, reelected in 1938, and was majority leader in 1939 and 1940; member, State senate 1940-1946, and served as majority whip; lieutenant governor 1947-1951; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1950 to the Eighty-second Congress; member, State senate 1953-1954; lieutenant governor 1955-1957; elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-fifth Congress, April 9, 1957, by special election, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Antonio M. Fernandez; reelected to the three succeeding Congresses and served from April 9, 1957, until his resignation November 3, 1964, having been elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate, November 3, 1964, to complete the unexpired term of Dennis Chavez for the term ending January 3, 1965, and at the same time elected for the six-year term ending January 3, 1971; reelected in 1970 and served from November 4, 1964, until January 3, 1977; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1976; died in Washington, D.C., June 5, 1978; interment in Rosario Cemetery, Santa Fe, N.Mex.

Mistral, Gabriela

Mistral, Gabriela (gäbrēā'lä mēsträl') [key], 1889–1957, Chilean poet whose original name was Lucila Godoy Alcayaga. She was a teacher in and director of rural schools in Chile before she attained wider acclaim as an educator. Mistral was noted for her revision of the Mexican school system under José Vasconcelos. Subsequently, she served as Chilean consul in various European and Latin American cities and represented her country at the League of Nations and the United Nations. The mystery of childbearing, the sorrow of a tragic love, and a burning desire for justice are recurrent themes of her fluent and lyric verse. The early Sonetos de la muerte [sonnets of death] (1915) is considered one of her finest achievements. Desolación (1922), Tala (1938), and Lagar (1954) are three of her major volumes. Selected Poems, translated by Langston Hughes, was published in 1957. In 1945, Mistral received the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Latin American to be so honored.

See studies by M. C. Preston (1964) and M. C. Taylor (1968).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Machito
Machito played a huge role in the history of Latin jazz, for his bands of the 1940s were probably the first to achieve a fusion of powerful Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz improvisation. At its roaring best, the band had a hard-charging sound, loaded with jostling, hyperactive bongos and congas and razor-edged riffing brass. Machito was the front man, singing, conducting, shaking maracas, while his brother-in-law Mario Bauza was the innovator behind the scenes, getting Machito to hire jazz-oriented arrangers. The son of a cigar manufacturer, Machito became a professional musician in Cuba in his teens before he emigrated to America in 1937 as a vocalist with La Estrella Habanera. He worked with several Latin artists and orchestras in the late '30s, recording with the then-dominant Latin bandleader Xavier Cugat. After an earlier aborted attempt to launch a band with Bauza, Machito founded the Afro-Cubans in 1940, taking on Bauza the following year as music director where he remained for 35 years. After making some early 78s for Decca, the Afro-Cubans really began to catch on after the end of World War II, appearing with -- and no doubt influencing -- Stan Kenton's orchestra (Machito played maracas on Kenton's recordings of "The Peanut Vendor" and "Cuban Carnival") and recording some exciting sides for Mercury and Clef. Upon Bauza's urging, Machito's band featured a galaxy of American jazz soloists on its recordings from 1948 to 1960, including Charlie Parker (heard memorably on "No Noise"), Dizzy Gillespie, Flip Phillips, Howard McGhee, Buddy Rich, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Mann, Curtis Fuller and Johnny Griffin. Playing regularly at New York's Palladium, Machito's band reached its peak of popularity during the mambo craze of the 1950s, survived the upheavals of the '60s and despite the loss of Bauza in 1976, continued to work frequently in the '60s, '70s, and early '80s when the term "salsa" came into use. A documentary film by Carlo Ortiz, Machito: A Latin Jazz Legacy, was released in 1987.
~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide Written by Richard S. Ginell

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photo: Arthur Sirdofsky

Pablo Neruda

Born Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in southern Chile on July 12, 1904, Pablo Neruda led a life charged with poetic and political activity. In 1923 he sold all of his possessions to finance the publication of his first book, Crepusculario ("Twilight"). He published the volume under the pseudonym "Pablo Neruda" to avoid conflict with his family, who disapproved of his occupation. The following year, he found a publisher for Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada ("Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair"). The book made a celebrity of Neruda, who gave up his studies at the age of twenty to devote himself to his craft.

MORE ON ONE OF MY FAVORITE POETS

Antonia Coello Novello

physician and former U.S. surgeon general
Born: 8/23/1944
Birthplace: Fajardo, Puerto Rico

Novello served as surgeon general under President George H. W. Bush from 1990 to 1993. She focused on publicizing the dangers of smoking and teenage drinking, expanding AIDS education, and improving health care for women, minorities, and children.

Novello was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico with a chronic colon condition that caused her severe pain until it was corrected surgically when she was 18 years old. The experience inspired her to pursue a career in medicine. She earned a BS (1965) and an MD from the University of Puerto Rico (1970). Novello and her husband, Joseph Novello, a U.S. Army flight surgeon, moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. She interned, did her residency, and completed a fellowship at the University of Michigan Medical Center, specializing in pediatric nephrology.

The couple then headed to Washington DC, where Novello fellowed at Georgetown University Hospital from 1974 to 1975. She took a position with the National Institutes of Health in 1978, eventually becoming deputy director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. She received a master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University in 1982.

In 1993, she left her post as surgeon general and went to work for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

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O is for:

Ochoa, Severo

(sāvā'rō ōchō'ä) [key], 1905–93, American biochemist and educator, b. Spain, M.D. Univ. of Madrid, 1929. After teaching at the universities of Madrid, Heidelberg, and Oxford, he came to the United States in 1940. In 1954 he was appointed chairman of the department of biochemistry at New York Univ. He became an American citizen in 1956. With Arthur Kornberg he received the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the synthesis of ribonucleic acid (RNA), an organic compound that carries hereditary qualities in all reproduction.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Oña, Pedro de

Oña, Pedro de (pā'&thstrok;rō &thstrok;ā ō'nyä) [key], 1570?–1643, Chilean poet. Having been born in Latin America, he is considered Chile's first national poet. His poetry is both epic and religious. Inspired by La aravcana, by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga, he wrote the epic Arauco domado (1596; tr. Arauco Tamed, 1948). Other works include El vasauro (1635), a religious poem, and El Ignacio de Cantabria (1639), a pious work celebrating St. Ignatius of Loyola.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

P is for:

Paz, Octavio

Paz, Octavio (oktä'vyō päs') [key], 1914–98, Mexican poet and critic. A diplomat, he lived abroad many years. Paz's books—revealing depth of insight, elegance, and erudition—place him among his generation's ablest writers. His works include the poetry collections La estación violenta (1956), Piedra de sol (1957), Alternating Current (tr. 1973), Configurations (tr. 1971), Early Poems: 1935–1955 (tr. 1974), and Collected Poems, 1957–1987 (1987); the volumes of essays The Labyrinth of Solitude (tr. 1963), The Other Mexico (tr. 1972); and El arco y la lira (1956; tr. The Bow and the Lyre, 1973); criticism; and studies of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Marcel Duchamp (both, tr. 1970). In 1971–72 Paz delivered the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard; they are collected in Children of the Mire: Modern Poetry from Romanticism to the Avant-Garde (1974). In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

See I. Ivask, ed., The Perpetual Present (1974).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Tito Puente

By virtue of his warm, flamboyant stage manner, longevity, constant touring, and appearances in the mass media, Tito Puente is probably the most beloved symbol of Latin jazz. But more than that, Puente managed to keep his music remarkably fresh over the decades; as a timbales virtuoso, he combined mastery over every rhythmic nuance with old-fashioned showmanship -- watching his eyes bug out when taking a dynamic solo was one of the great treats for Latin jazz fans. A trained musician, he was also a fine, lyrical vibraphonist, a gifted arranger, and played piano, congas, bongos, and saxophone. His appeal continues to cut across all ages and ethnic groups, helped no doubt by Santana's best-selling cover versions of "Oye Como Va" and "Para Los Rumberos" in 1970-1971, and cameo appearances on The Cosby Show in the 1980s and the film The Mambo Kings in 1992. His brand of classic salsa is generally free of dark undercurrents, radiating a joyous, compulsively danceable party atmosphere. MORE

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Diego Rivera

Artist

Born: 8 December 1886

Died: 24 November 1957

Birthplace: Guanajuato, Mexico

Best known as: Mexican muralist and husband of artist Frida Kahlo

Name at birth: José Diego Rivera Barrientos

Diego Rivera is the Mexican artist best known for his expansive and politically-charged murals -- and for his love affair with artist Frida Kahlo. Rivera studied painting in Mexico before going to Europe in 1907. While in Europe he took up cubism and had exhibitions in Paris and Madrid in 1913; he then had a show in New York City in 1916. In 1921 he returned to Mexico, where he undertook government-sponsored murals that reflected his communist politics in historical contexts. He married Kahlo in 1929, and their tempestuous marriage got to be as famous as their art. In the 1930s and '40s Rivera worked in the United States and Mexico, and many of his paintings drew controversy. His 1933 mural for the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan featured a portrait of Communist Party leader V.I. Lenin; the resulting uproar led to his dismissal and to the mural's official destruction in 1934. Similarly, a 1948 mural for the Hotel de Prado in Mexico that included the words "God does not exist" was covered and held from public view for nine years. Even so, Rivera's talent for historical murals and his tributes to earthy folk traditions made him one of the most influential artists in the Americas and one of Mexico's most beloved painters.

Extra credit: One of his most famous works is a tribute to workers in Detroit, Michigan, commissioned in 1932 by Henry Ford... Rivera was born a twin, but his brother, Carlos María, died before he turned two... Never very faithful romantically, Rivera was married four times to three different women: to Guadalupe Marin (1922-27), to Kahlo (1929-39, then again from 1940 until her death in 1954), and to art dealer Emma Hurtado (from 1955 until his death in 1957). He also lived with the artist Angelina Beloff for many years in Paris, and she is sometimes counted among his spouses as a common-law wife.

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S is for:

Carlos Santana

musician
Born: 7/20/1947
Birthplace: Autlan De Navarro, Mexico

The guitar-playing legend's blend of blues, rock, and Afro-Cuban rhythms has kept him visible on the popular music front for more than 30 years. After moving with his family to San Francisco he became a founding member of the Santana Blues Band, later Santana. A month after appearing at Woodstock in 1969—one of the band's first gigs—Santana released its first album, Santana, which it followed with a series of gold and platinum albums during the 1970s: Abraxas, Borboletta, and Inner Secrets. Santana himself recorded many solo albums including the jazz influenced The Swing of Delight (1980), featuring Herbie Hancock and others, and the pop-oriented Havana Moon (1983) with Willie Nelson and Booker T Jones. In 1986, he wrote the score for La Bamba, the biopic of Ritchie Valens. In 1999, after a break of five years from recording, Santana released Supernatural, which sold almost ten million copies and won eight Grammy Awards.

Serra, Richard

Serra, Richard, 1939–, American sculptor, b. San Francisco. He creates large-scale minimalist (see minimalism) works in metal, concrete, fiberglass, and other materials, usually intended for specific outdoor sites. His Tilted Arc (1981) achieved notoriety when nearby office workers demanded its removal from a site in lower Manhattan. Perceived as menacing, the elegant 120-ft (37-m) curving sheet of rusting steel was dismantled in 1989. In the ensuing years Serra's huge, curved, torqued, space-enclosing, and space-defining steel sculptures have become extremely popular and are widely thought to be among the most significant abstract sculptures of the late 20th and early 21st cent. His pieces are included in many major museum collections; an eight-part, more than 430-ft-long (131-m) assemblage of his massive, rust-patinated steel sculpture was permanently installed (2005) at the Guggenheim Museum's Bilbao branch.

See Richard Serra: Writings/Interviews (1994); C. Weyergraf-Serra and M. Buskirk, ed., The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents (1991); studies by R. Krauss (1986) and H. Foster, ed. (2000).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Luis Santeiro

Writer
Born: 1948
Birthplace: Havana, Cuba

Luis Santeiro has won eight Emmy Awards for his writing for Sesame Street and one for his contribution to the groundbreaking bilingual 1970s sitcom Que Pasa, USA? But Santeiro is primarily a playwright, the creator of widely performed works including Our Lady of the Tortilla (1987) and Praying with the Enemy (1999), which won the National Hispanic Playwright Award. Santeiro's plays use more than a touch of satire to examine such subjects as Catholicism, Hollywood, and Hispanic stereotypes.

Sammy Sosa

Born: Nov. 12, 1968
Baseball OF

Slugging Chicago Cub who surpassed Roger Maris’ season home run record (61), just after Mark McGwire did in 1998 and finished the year with 66; followed that up with seasons of 63, 50 and 64 HRs; 1998 NL MVP; 7-time All-Star (1995,98-2002,2004).

Gary Soto

Writer
Born: April 12, 1952
Birthplace: Fresno, California

Although his prolific career has included essays, plays, and ten books of poetry for adults, Gary Soto is best known as an acclaimed writer of fiction and narrative poems for children. His sympathetic and often humorous juvenile books include Baseball in April and Other Stories (1990) and the novel Taking Sides (1991). Soto, a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, travels widely to schools in California and the Southwest to promote reading and meet his young readers.

Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría (wikipedia)

(April 7, 1922 in Havana, Cuba – February 1, 2003) was an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussionist. He is most famous for being the composer of the jazz standard "Afro Blue," recorded by John Coltrane among others. In 1950 he moved to New York where he played with Perez Prado, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader, Fania All Stars, etc. He was an integral figure in the fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms with R&B and soul, paving the way for the boogaloo era of the late 1960s. His 1963 hit rendition of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.

Santamaria inspired the stage name of Japanese actor Yusuke Santamaria. Additionally, his name is used as a pun in the film Blazing Saddles. When the character of Mongo entered a scene, a character cried, "Mongo! Santa Maria!".

T is for:

Rufino Tamayo

Click out for bio here at Wikipedia

Tamayo's, Hombre Mirando La

Torres Bodet, Jaime

Torres Bodet, Jaime (hī'mā tôr'rās bôdet') [key], 1902–74, Mexican poet, diplomat, short-story writer, and essayist. Torres Bodet's first book of poems, Fervor (1918), reveals the influence of symbolism and modernismo, but his later poetry shows the effect of the European avant-garde and is cosmopolitan in tone. His outstanding early poems were collected in Poesías (1926). Sin tregua (1957) and Selected Poems (bilingual ed. 1964) contain later verse. Narratives collected in Margarita de niebla (1927), Proserpina rescatada (1931), and Nacimiento de Venus (1941) reveal his refined, erudite playfulness. Contemporáneos (1938) and Tres inventores de realidad (1955) contain some of his major critical essays. Torres Bodet has held many important government posts.

See study by S. Karsen (1971).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

U is for:

Uslar Pietri, Arturo

Uslar Pietri, Arturo (ärtOO'rō OOs'lär pyā'trē) [key], 1906–2001, Venezuelan novelist and essayist. Uslar Pietri is considered one of the most powerful regional writers in modern Spanish American letters. His masterpiece is the historical novel Las Lanzas coloradas (1931; tr. 1963, The Red Lances), a vivid depiction of the Venezuelan campaign of Simón Bolívar. Among his nearly 50 other works are Red (1936) and Treinta hombres y sus sombras (1949), short stories; El Camino de El Dorado (1947, repr. 1997), a fictionalized biography of Lope de Aguirre; and collections of essays such as Las visiones del camino (1945), Letras y hombres de Venezuela (1948), and Las Nubes (1956). Uslar Pietri also held offices in various Venezuelan governments and ran unsuccessfully for president in 1963.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

V is for:

Nydia Velázquez

U.S. Representative
Born: 3/28/1953
Birthplace: Yabucoa, Puerto Rico

In 1992 Nydia Velázquez became the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress (Democrat, New York). Velázquez was an activist as a teenager in rural Puerto Rico and came to the U.S. to earn a master's degree in political science at New York University. She has taught university in both Puerto Rico and the U.S. As a U.S. Representative she has been outspoken about voter registration, health care, and family violence.

Villaurrutia, Xavier

Villaurrutia, Xavier (hävē'ār vē"yäOOrOO'tyä) [key], 1903–50, Mexican poet and playwright. Villaurrutia was deeply influenced by Ramón López Velarde. He worked on the Mexican literary review Contemporáneos (1928–31) and in 1928 founded the first experimental theater in Mexico. His poetic writing includes Reflejos (1926) and Nocturnos (1933). Villaurrutia's intense preoccupation with death permeates the poems in Nostalgia de la muerte (1938) and Décima muerte [tenth death] (1941); it is also the subject of his play Invitación a la muerte (1941). His most notable theatrical works are the short dramatic pieces, Autos profanos, included in Poesía y teatro completos (1953). Villaurrutia greatly influenced the work of younger Mexican poets, notably Alí Chumacero.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Luis Valdez
Whose work I enjoyed watching immensely in San Juan Bautista at Christmas time.
Read here....

Richie Valens
Too sad to write, more here...

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Yáñez, Agustín

Yáñez, Agustín (ägOOstēn' yä'nyās) [key], 1904–80, Mexican novelist and critic. Yáñez's writings include works about Native American myths and the Spanish colonial era. His work includes tthe novels The Edge of the Storm (1947, tr. 1963) and The Lean Lands (1962; tr. 1968).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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From Fact Monster:

• Famous Firsts by Hispanic Americans New!
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• Spanish Loan Words
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• Countries of Origin
• Spanish Accents
• Hispanics in Congress
• Where Spanish is Spoken
• Hispanic Holidays
• Spanish Place Names
• Preference for Racial or Ethnic Terminology
• Notable Books by Mexican and Mexican-American Authors

Here are some cool bios.
And a very cool ABC.... of biographies.

Scholastic has some very nice biographies too.

And a VERY good list of Mexican Americans can be found here on Wikipedia.

I'm missing a few spots till I edit, patience.