El quince de marzo/March 15th

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¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Eva Longoria! (1975-       )

Photo from forbes.com. Click HERE. 
An actress, producer, director, model, activist, and businesswoman who was #4 on Forbes list of "Prime Time's 10 Top-Earning Women" in 2010, Longoria was born to 9th generation Mexican-American parents in Corpus Christi, Texas. When tracing her roots on PBS's show Faces of America, she discovered that her family came to Mexico from Spain in the early 1600s and received a large land grant along the Río Grande river in 1767 from the King of Spain. When the border with the United States moved south in the 1800s, her family found themselves in American territory, and thus Americans. Longoria also discovered that she has Mayan, African, and Asian ancestry, and that she is distant cousins with Chinese cellist Yo-Yo-Ma (read more HERE).  Longoria, who is perhaps best known for her role as Gabrielle Solís on Desperate Housewives, started her career playing Isabella Braña on the soap opera The Young and The Restless (after some other minor roles). She was the executive producer on Lifetime's series Devious Maids as well as the award-winning documentaries The Harvest (La Cosecha) and Food Chains. Longoria is involved in many charities and social justice projects, including her own The Eva Longoria Foundation, which aims to help Latinas through education and entrepreneurship. After working extensively with the National Council of La Raza (NCLR, now Unidos US), Longoria decided to go back to school to learn more about her Latino community, and she enrolled at Cal State Northridge with a major in Chicano Studies. She graduated in 2013 after writing her thesis on Latinos in the STEM field (read more HERE). In addition to acting and producing, she continues to work on many projects including a clothing line and a restaurant. In December of 2017, she announced that she and husband José Bastón were expecting a baby boy in the spring (read more HERE).

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

Other March 15th birthdays:

Eva Ekvall (1983-2011): A Venezuelan reporter, actress, and model, she first gained fame as Miss Venezuela in 2000. She had a daughter, born in 2009, with radio producer husband John Fabio Bermudez, but spent most of her young daughter's life battling breast cancer (she was diagnosed 5 months after giving birth). Her book, Fuera de Foco (Out of Focus), with photographs by Roberto Matta, documents every step of this fight. She passed away on December 17th, 2011, at the age of 28.


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