El veintiocho de febrero/February 28th
¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Sylvia del Villard! (Feb. 28 1928- Feb. 28 1990)
An Afro-Puerto Rican actress, dancer, choreographer, and activist, del Villard was born and raised in Santurce, Puerto Rico, where she was a good student who often entertained her parents with dances. Because she excelled in school, she was awarded a scholarship from the Puerto Rican government to study at Fisk University, an HBCU in Tennessee. She began studies in anthropology and sociology there, but she decided to return to Puerto Rico after experiencing the racism of the South. She finished her studies at the University of Puerto Rico and then moved to New York City, where she enrolled for further studies at the City College of New York (CCNY). It was in New York that del Villard began to explore her African heritage, eventually tracing her roots back to the Yoruba people of Nigeria. At CCNY she joined the "Africa House" ballet. She also took voice lessons at the Metropolitan Opera. After graduating from CCNY, del Villard returned to Puerto Rico and founded the Afro-Boricua El Coquí Theater in 1968, which became known as the authority on Black Puerto Rican Culture. In 1970 she founded the Luis Palés Matos Theater School, named after her favorite poet (read more HERE). She returned to New York City soon after and founded another theater group, Sininke. She spoke out about discrimination against Black Puerto Rican artists and called for the end of racist casting practices in television, as well as the end of racist practices in general, such as the use of blackface (read more HERE). Del Villard became the director of the office of Afro-Puerto Rican Affairs of the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture. In 1989, after being diagnosed with lung cancer, she returned to the island for treatment, and she passed away on February 28th (her birthday), 1990. The National Puerto Rican Day Parade honored her with a posthumous recognition in 2015. Click HERE to see the video tribute.
For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.
Other February 28th birthdays:
Ernesto Alonso (1928-2007): A Mexican producer, director, cinematographer, and actor, he was known as "El Señor Telenovela" for his role converting Televisa into a global force by supplying them with soap operas. The telenovelas, which were dubbed into more than 50 different languages and distributed worldwide, made Televisa 3.45 billion dollars in 2006, the year before Alonso's death. Alonso started his career in film, and in 1950 he narrated Luis Buñuel's classic, Los Olvidados, about Mexican street children. Read more in his New York Times obituary, HERE. The photo at right is from a blog about Latin American Telenovelas by a Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Georgia (interesting!). Click HERE.
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| Photo from wearemitú.com. Click HERE. |
For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.
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| Ernesto Alonso |
Other February 28th birthdays:
Ernesto Alonso (1928-2007): A Mexican producer, director, cinematographer, and actor, he was known as "El Señor Telenovela" for his role converting Televisa into a global force by supplying them with soap operas. The telenovelas, which were dubbed into more than 50 different languages and distributed worldwide, made Televisa 3.45 billion dollars in 2006, the year before Alonso's death. Alonso started his career in film, and in 1950 he narrated Luis Buñuel's classic, Los Olvidados, about Mexican street children. Read more in his New York Times obituary, HERE. The photo at right is from a blog about Latin American Telenovelas by a Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Georgia (interesting!). Click HERE.
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