El veintisiete de marzo/March 27th

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¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Alejandra Espinoza! (1987-       )

Photo from huffingtonpost.com.
Click HERE. 
A Mexican model and TV presenter who won Univisión's Nuestra Belleza Latina in 2007 and went on to work on El Gordo y La Flaca (often stepping in for Lili Estefan) and Sábado Gigante, Espinoza was one of ten children born to mother Rosa María in Tijuana. As a teenager she worked in a McDonald's and was promoted to manager by the time she was 17. Nonetheless, she had dreams of being an actress and thus entered Nuestra Belleza México in 2006, coming in third. The next year, she entered Nuestra Belleza Latina in the first year of the competition and won (the prize was a car and $50,000, plus a contract for $40,000 a year that allowed her to pursue her dream of working in entertainment). She had just turned 20 years old. El Gordo y La Flaca and Sábado Gigante followed, along with work presenting on the shows La Banda and La Reina de La Canción. In 2011 she married producer Aníbal Marrero, and after suffering three miscarriages, she became pregnant with son Matteo, who was born in 2014. The family graced the cover of People en español in December of 2016. Espinoza often posts about Matteo, who also appears from time to time on her shows (see a compilation of home videos of him for Univisión to promote her show La Banda, HERE).  Espinoza now lives in Los Angeles with her family. Read more about her life (in Spanish) and see clips of her talking about her parents and her road to fame in this Univisión article, HERE.

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

Other March 27th birthdays:

Mariano Rajoy (1955-      ): The prime minister of Spain since 2011 and leader of the People's Party since 2004. His grandfather, Enrique Rajoy Laloup, was an architect of the Statute of Autonomy of Galicia in 1932 and was removed from university teaching during Franco's dictatorship (1939-1976). Rajoy published his autobiography, En Confianza, in 2011.

Juca (Juan Carlos) Viapri (1992-      ): A Mexican social media star whose YouTube channel has more than 3 million subscribers, he is considered an "influencer" along with other social media stars like Luisito Comunica. Check out this popular video of his father getting a tattoo for the first time. His tagline in YouTube is "Si no te divierte ¿Por qué habrías de hacerlo?" (If it doesn't entertain you, why would you do it?)

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