El diecinueve de septiembre/September 19th

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Photo from elsalvador.com. Click HERE

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¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Cristina Esmeralda López! (1982-      )

A retired race walker (marchista/atleta de la marcha atlética) from El Salvador who won gold in the 2007 Pan American Games 20 kilometer race, López then went on to became a representative in El Salvador's Legislative Assembly. López was born into a family with few resources in El Salvador and was able to finish her  basic education with the help of El Salvador's Edúcame program. By 1998 she had won medals in 5 and 10 km races in El Salvador, and two years later she began training at the Instituto Nacional de los Deportes de El Salvador (INDES). Due to economic problems, she immigrated to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2002 in search of work, but she returned to El Salvador in 2003 and resumed training in 2005. She won the gold medal at the Pan American Games two years later, the only athlete from El Salvador ever to do so. In 2008, López announced that she would not be pursuing her dream of completing in the Olympics due to her daughter's health problems ("she needs me now more than I need this dream").  See more about López in this YouTube video.

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

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