El dos de enero/January 2nd

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¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Paz Vega! (1976-         )

A Spanish actress (and therefore not Latino, which is a term used in the United States to group together many different people from the Spanish-speaking countries of South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean), she nonetheless became known to audiences in the United States when she played a Latina (as the Mexican housekeeper in 2004's Spanglish with Adam Sandler and Tea Leoni - click here to see her in the Trailer). Paz Vega starred in several Spanish television shows, including the sitcom 7 Vidas, a sort of Spanish Friends that first aired in 1999 (click here to see) and many movies. Born in Seville in Andalusia (Sevilla en Andalucía) to a former bullfighter father, Vega decided to become an actress at the age of 16 after seeing a performance of Federico Garcia Lorca's play La casa de Bernarda Alba. She is currently the face of L'Oreal Spain (replacing Penelope Cruz) and working on the Netflix series The OA (click here to see interview) as well as many other projects. She and her husband, Venezuelan Orson Salazar, have three children, Orson (2007), Ava (2009), and Lenon (2010).

To visit Paz Vega's official page, click HERE.

For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Other events of note on January 2nd:

1492 - In the "Reconquista" of Spain the Emirate of Granada, the last to surrender, surrenders
1949-  Luis Muñoz Marín becomes the first democratically elected governor of Puerto Rico

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