El trece de abril/April 13th

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¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Olga Tañón! (1967-     )

Photo from a 2010 NY Daily News profile of Tañón.
Click HERE. 
A singer from Puerto Rico with 14 studio albums, two Grammys, three Latin Grammys, and 29 Premios Lo Nuestro, Tañón is known as La Mujer de Fuego (The Woman of Fire) for her passionate performances. She first became a solo artist in 1992, when she recorded the appropriately named merengue album Sola after leaving the group Chantelle. As the youngest of four children growing up in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, she sang often and joined the group Las Nenas de Ringo y Jossie as a teen. It was from there that she was recruited into Chantelle. Tañón and husband Billy Denizard have two sons, and Tañón has a daughter from a previous (short and tumultuous) marriage with former Puerto Rican baseball player Juan González. Her daughter has had health problems throughout her life, and Tañón often speaks about both the challenges and joys of parenting her. She sings with her in this 2014 Telemundo Christmas special.  Tañón has been vocal in supporting immigrants in the United States (she recorded Nuestro Himno with Pitbull, Carlos Ponce, and Wyclef Jean in 2006 in a message of solidarity with the community), and she has also spoken out about other causes, such as Puerto Rico becoming the 51st state (other Latinos, such as Residente (René Peréz Joglar), support an independent Puerto Rico). To see Tañón interviewed by talk show host Cristina Saralegui in 2011 (in Spanish), click HERE.

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


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