El cuatro de marzo/March 4th

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¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Ana Guevara! (1977-       )

Photo from espn.com. Click HERE for photo and story
about Guevara's legacy in Mexico. 
An Olympic medalist in the 400 meters (silver in Athens in 2004), Guevara is now a Mexican Senator for the 2012-2018 term. Born in Nogales, Sonora, which is on the Mexican border with the United States, Guevara chairs her country's migration affairs committee and works to inspire young Mexicans to stay and make a life for themselves in the country. In this 2015 profile of her by The Guardian, she visits her old elementary school and tells students, "Uds. también pueden hacerlo ... Uds. pueden lograr grandes cosas por México" (You all can do it too ... You can achieve great things for Mexico) (school visit is at minute 5 of the video). She goes on to say that she never imagined that the races she used to run around the school patio would some day lead to her racing in the Olympics. "You have to believe in you," she tells the students, "That's the secret. After that, the world is yours." Guevara got into high level sports when the secretary of the doctor she was taking her grandmother to see noted her height and told her about a competitive basketball league nearby. Guevara started playing with them and then led the all-star Nogales team to the Sonora Championship. Despite her success, a coach noticed her speed and told her "Your sport is track." She went on to become a hero to many Mexicans as she represented them around the world, winning gold in the 400 meters in the World Championships (2003), the IAAF World Cup (2002), The Goodwill Games (2001), and the Pan American Games (1999, 2003, 2007), among many other awards and honors. She was ranked #1 in the World from 2001 through 2004. Guevara retired from the sport in 2008 and went into politics the next year. She says she is grateful that her role as an athlete allowed the people to know and trust her. She is a member of the Women in Parliaments Organization, which campaigns for more female parliamentarians around the world (click HERE to read her profile on the Inter-Parliamentary Union), and she has been outspoken about violence against women in the country, especially since a 2016 incident in which she was brutally beaten by four men (click HERE to see more, including her press conference after being released from the hospital). In 2011, Guevara adopted a daughter, according to this publimetro.com article, though she keeps her family life private. For a longer video profile of Guevara (in Spanish) from the series Vidas Extraordinarias, click HERE.

For a Webquest for Spanish students on Ana Guevera, click HERE.

Other March 4th birthdays:

Photo from
cosmopolitan. Click HERE. 
Ivy (pronounced Eve-y) Queen (Martha Ivelisse Pesante Rodríguez) (1972-       ): A Puerto Rican rapper, singer, songwriter, producer, and actress. She is often called the "Queen of Reggaetón" and says her quest is to enlighten and empower her female fans. Read more HERE. To see an interview with Ivy Queen about her career and family (in English), click HERE.

Other March 4th events of note:

1519- Hernán Cortés. Spanish conquistador, arrives in Mexico.

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