Famous Latinx Birthdays

Feliz cumpleaños a Arturo Sandoval (1949- ) Photo from arturosandoval.com A legendary Cuban-American jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer, Sandoval was born in Cuba and came to the United States in 1989 with the help of Dizzy Gillespie, his "spiritual father." Sandoval became an American citizen on December 7, 1998. Sandoval has 10 Grammys, 6 Billboard Awards, and one Emmy. In 2013 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to the world of music. A movie about his life starring Andy Garcia, For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story , was released in 2000. Listen to him talk about his escape from Communist Cuba (where jazz was prohibited and only state-sanctioned music was allowed), his friendship with Dizzy Gillespie, and the importance of jazz music in this 2013 interview for NPR. See him play There Will Never Be Another You in a live studio session HERE . 

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Celia Cruz (1925-2003)! Celia Cruz and husband of 42 years Pedro Knight in 1998. Photo from the 2007 New York Times story Amid the Gravestones, A Final Love Song "Because of [Celia Cruz], we have unapologetic Black women in music, Afro-Cuban rhythms and glamour, [and] Latinx presence in entertainment." -Smithsonian Museum #BecauseofHer ( Why Is Celia Cruz Called the Queen of Salsa? March 5, 2020 video ) Celia Cruz is one of the best known entertainers of the 20th century. With her nicknames of "La Guarachera de Cuba" (for the guarachas that made her famous in her native land), the "Queen of Salsa" and "The Queen of Latin Music," she inspired millions around the world with her music, her style, and her joy. She recorded 37 studio albums and numerous live albums and collaborations and won many awards, including two Grammys, three Latin Grammys, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (in 2016). She was born in Havan...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Yoenis Céspedes (1985-       )! Photo from Dec. 2019 in  forbes.com Nicknamed "La Potencia" (The Power), Céspedes is a professional baseball player from Cuba who signed a 4-year, $110 million contract with the Mets in 2016. Céspedes grew up in the small town of Israel Lica in Cuba and was raised by his mother, a star softball pitcher for the Cuban National Team who he still calls for batting tips, and her extended family (when she was traveling for tournaments). His father, Cresencio Céspedes, who after the first year of his life was not involved in his upbringing, played for the Cuban National Team. When he was ten years old, Céspedes' mother sent him 50 miles from home to a national baseball training camp.  He was playing for the Cuban National Team in 2011when, after he was not selected for the first team, he decided to try to come to the United States. In order to be able to be a free agent, he went to the Dominican Re...

Photo from athleticsweekly.com. Click HERE .  Photo from cadenagramonte.cu, May 2018. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Javier Sotomayor (1967-   )! A retired Cuban track and field athlete who is the current world record holder in the high jump, Sotomayor is a 1992 and 2000 Olympic champion (Cuban boycotts of the Olympics in 1984 and 1988, and an injury in 1996, cost him other chances). He is widely regarded as the best high jumper of all time and is the only person ever to have cleared 8 feet. Sotomayor is the son of a day-care worker and a sugar factory maintenance man who was first sent to Cuban sports school as a prospect for basketball, because of his height. At age 14, coaches made him into a high jumper, and by age 19, he was No. 5 in the world. Sotomayor retired in 2001. He and wife Amaya González have four sons. To see Sotomayor compete and hear him interviewed (in Spanish) click HERE . For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, ...

Bebo (front) and Chucho Valdés. Photo from elpais.com. Click HERE.  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ...Bebo Valdés (1918-2013) y Chucho Valdés (su hijo) (1941-    )! Bebo Valdés (full name Dionisio Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro), a Cuban musician and central figure in the Golden Age of Cuban music, started his career as a pianist in the nightclubs of Havana during the 1940s. Later on his orchestra, Sabor de Cuba, often performed at the Tropicana Cabaret. He was also an important figure in the nascent Afro-Cuban jazz scene in Cuba at the time. In 1960, due to the Cuban Revolution, Valdés defected to Mexico. He then spent time in the United States before moving to Stockholm, Sweden, where he lived for the rest of this life. Valdés won seven Grammy awards during his career, the last being in 2010, for a musical production recorded with his son Chucho, Bebo y Chucho Valdés: Juntos para siempre . The album won Best Latin Jazz Album. They also won a Latin Grammy. In 2011, he was awarded ...

Photo from wikipedia.  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Lola Rodríguez de Tió! (1843-1924) A Puerto Rican poet, abolitionist, and women's right activist, Rodríguez de Tió was born in San Germán, Puerto Rico and home-tutored for her education. Her father was a respected attorney on the island while her mother was a descendant of Juan Ponce de León, an explorer and the first Spanish governor of Puerto Rico. She married Bonocio Tió Segarra in 1863 and published poetry as well as articles in local journals. She and her husband were banned from Puerto Rico by Spanish appointed governors in both 1867 and 1889, and they lived in Venezuela, the United States (New York City), and Cuba. In Cuba, their home became a gathering place for intellectuals and exiled Puerto Ricans. Rodríguez de Tió became well known for her poetry about both Puerto Rico and Cuba. She also advocated for the abolition of slavery and for women's rights. She is buried in Havana, Cuba. For resources for teaching Span...

Photo from grammy.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Gloria Estefan! (1957-      ) A Cuban American singer, songwriter, actress and businesswoman with three Grammy Awards, Estefan was named one of Billboard Magazine's Top 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, among many other honors (among them a BMI Songwriter of the Year Award, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom). Born in Havana, Cuba to a middle class family, Estefan fled to Miami, Florida with her family after Castro's Revolution. Her father, who had been a soldier in Cuba, joined the military and served in Vietnam, retiring after the Bay of Pigs. He returned from Vietnam sick, and Estefan helped her mother, a school teacher, care for him. She went on to study psychology and French at the University of Miami, working as a translator at Customs at the airport for a while after graduation. In 1974, Estefan became a naturalized citizen of the United States. She m...

Photo from lecturas.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Cameron Diaz! (1972-     ) An actress, producer, author, and model whose father's family is Cuban, Diaz is the 3rd highest grossing U.S. domestic box office actress (after Scarlett Johansson and Emma Watson). In 2013 she was the highest paid actress over 40 in Hollywood. Diaz's father, Emilio Diaz, was working for the California oil company Unocal when his daughter was born in San Diego. Previously the family had lived in Florida. Emilio Diaz's parents had come to the United States from Cuba. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Photo from wikipedia.  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Alberto Salazar! (1958-      ) A Cuban-American track coach and former world-class distance runner, Salazar is perhaps best known for winning the New York City Marathon for three consecutive years (1980, 1981, and 1982) and the Boston Marathon, called the "Duel in the Sun," in 1982. He also holds several records in the 10,000 meter. Born in Cuba, Salazar immigrated to the United States with his family as a child. His father had been a close friend of Fidel Castro and a fellow revolutionary, but he turned against the government and became a member of the ant-Castro movement before his family's immigration. In the Unite States, Salazar was a stand-out runner at his high school in Connecticut, and he went on to win All American honors at the University of Oregon. He is currently the head coach of the Nike Oregon Project. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Fernández with his sister in 2013. Photo from Sports Illustrated . Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... José Fernández! (1992-Sept. 25, 2016) A Cuban-born professional baseball pitcher for the Miami Marlins, Fernández defected Cuba in 2008 after three unsuccessful attempts (each followed by a prison term). He saved his mother's life as they defected by jumping in to save her when she fell overboard in turbulent waters. In the United States, he attended high school in Tampa. His team won state championships his sophomore and senior years. He was drafted in 2011 by the Florida Marlins as the 14th overall selection. He was named to the 2013 MLB All-Star Game and won he NL Rookie of the Year Award.  Fernández announced that his girlfriend, Maria Arias, was pregnant on September 20, 2016, five days before his death in a boating accident. Their daughter, Penelope Jo, was born in February of 2017. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Bianca Santos! (1990-      ) Photo from Wikimedia commons.  An American actress of Cuban and Brazilian descent (her mother is from Havana and her father is from Rio de Janeiro), Santos is known for her roles on Freeform's The Fosters and MTV's Happyland, as well as films such as Ouija (2014), The Duff (2015), and Priceless (2016). She is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Santos attended California Lutheran University, where she studied psychology and sociology. She didn't pursue acting seriously until after college, as she didn't believe that she could make a career of it. A world traveler from a young age, she told Pop Sugar Latina that she had been to Brazil, Mexico, and Spain several times by the time she was 10 (read more HERE ). For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Photo from The Literature of Uprootedness: An Interview with Reinaldo Arenas (in 1983) from The New Yorker, Dec. 2013 (click HERE ).  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Reinaldo Arenas! (1943-1990) A Cuban poet, novelist, and playwright whose memoir  Before Night Falls was on the New York Times' "10 Best Books of the Year" list in 1993 (and made into a movie starring Javier Bardem in 2000), Arenas was an early sympathizer of Fidel Castro who later became a critic and rebel. Though he had joined Castro's rebels in the mountains in 1959, he soon became disillusioned with the regime. His writing, openly gay lifestyle, and unauthorized publishing outside the country got him in trouble, and in 1974 he was sent to prison by the Cuban government for "ideological deviation." He escaped and tried to leave Cuba, but was rearrested and imprisoned alongside hardened criminals. He survived by helping them write letters to their wives and girlfriends. He was released in 1976 ...

Photo from El Porvenir. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Nicolás Guillén! (1902-1989) A Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer of African-European descent, Guillén was known during his life as the National Poet of Cuba. Born in Camagüey, he was the oldest of six children born to Nicolás Guillén y Urra, who had fought for Cuban independence from Spain, and Argelia Batista y Arrieta. Guillén's father belonged to the Partido Libertad and founded the daily newspaper La Libertad to express his views. Government forces assassinated Guillén's father for protesting electoral fraud and closed down his printing press. After that, Guillén's family struggled financially. Guillén was greatly influenced by meeting African-American poet Langston Hughes in 1930. Hughes' enthusiasm for Afro-Cuban music inspired Guillén, who was familiar with 'son' music from his father. Hughes immediately recognized the similarities between son music in Cuba and the b...

Photo from dailymotion.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Danay García! (1984-     ) A Cuban-American actress known for her roles as Sofía Lugo on Fox's Prison Break and Luciana Galvez on AMC's Fear the Walking Dead , García grew up dancing in Havana before switching to acting at the age of 15. At that point she began studying acting seven days a a week and doing a play every other weekend. At the age of 20, and with an 18-month-old son, she made her way to the United States through Mexico. "It was honestly terrifying," she told E! news in 2017 (click HERE ). Once in the United States, García worked on her English with Robert Easton, the same accent coach who worked with Al Pacino for his role as Tony Montana in Scarface . She continued her ballet training at the Debbie Allen Dance Academyand began auditioning for roles, booking a few commercials at first. Eventually, she landed a role on the feature film Danika with Marisa Tomei. Roles on CSI: New Yo...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Rey Ruiz! (1969*-        ) *some sources list 1966 as his year of birth Photo from megalatina.fm. Click HERE .  Rey Ruiz, also known as "El Bombón de la Salsa," is a Cuban-American musician who began performing in Cuba at a young age and eventually became a member of the famous Cabaret Tropicana music group. During one of the group's tours in the Dominican Republic, Ruiz defected and went to live with friends in the United States. Once there, he began working on his solo career, and in 1992 he released the album Rey Ruiz , which helped him win Billboard and Premios Lo Nuestro awards. In 1993, Ruiz released his second album, Mi Media Mitad , and made his debut in New York's Madison Square Garden. He has since released some ten successful albums. See him interviewed on Martí Noticias in April of 2018 (a news source for Cuban exiles in the United States)  HERE , and listen to him talk about Miami's Little Havana in this video in...

Photo from mlb.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Jhonny Peralta! (1982-      ) A baseball player from the Dominican Republic who was an MLB All-Star in 2011, 2013, and 2015, Peralta is currently a free agent. He first signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1999 and has played with the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals as well. Peralta is married, and he and wife Molly have three girls, including twins Gabriela and Laina. See him interviewed (in Spanish) in this short video (minute :55) HERE . For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE. Other May 28th birthdays of note: Marco Rubio (1971-    ): A Cuban American Republican senator from Miami, Rubio decided to run for President of the United States in 2015, though he suspended his campaign in 2016 when he did not win the Republican primary in Florida. See a short video (in Spanish) about him HERE .

Image from elem.mx. Click HERE .  Feliz cumpleaños a ... Rita Cetina Gutiérrez (1846-1908) A poet, educator, and feminist who educated a generation of young leaders in Mexico, Cetina was born in Mérida, Yucatán in 1846 to Colonel Don Pedro Cetina and Jacoba Gutiérrez. Her father was killed when she was only 14, and a benefactor helped assure that she obtained an education. Cetina was already a respected, published poet when, in 1870, she opened La Siempreviva , Mexico's first secular school for poor girls as well as an art college for young women. She rejected the idea that women should only study domestic skills and included astronomy, law, geometry, geography, history, math, and geography in the curriculum. In 1877 the governor of Yucatán founded El Instituto Literario de Niñas (ILN) and asked Cetina to be the director. She agreed, and in 1886 La Siempreviva and ILN merged. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE. Other May 22nd birthdays ...

Photo from cervantes.es. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Zoé Valdés! (1959-       ) "La libertad es lo primero. Luego todo lo demás." A Cuban writer novelist, poet, scriptwriter, blogger, and activist, Zoé Valdés was born the same year that Castro came to power. She was taught to read and love poetry by her grandmother, who was of Chinese and Irish descent, and she published her first poem as a teenager. In the 1980s she worked at the Cuban Delegation of UNESCO in Paris, and then the Oficina Cultural de La Misión de Cuba , also in Paris, before returning to Cuba and serving as editor of the magazine Cine Cubano.  In 1994 she was officially exiled from Cuba for political reasons (she had ruffled feathers when she was arrested in the 1980s for driving two Spanish tourists around Havana, as this was against the law under the regime, and by refusing to donate an award she won in 1991 to the Castro regime, but the final reason was her signing ...

The photo that San Martín posted on Facebook when he became a citizen of the United States in February of 2018. He captioned it "¡Feliz como lombriz!" Read more HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Roberto San Martín! (1976-      ) An actor from Havana, Cuba, the son of actress Susana Pérez (who has lived in Miami since 2008), he became known for his work in the Spanish series Aquí no hay quien viva (he played Yago in the 4th and 5th seasons), La que se avecina (playing Silvio in the 1st and 2nd seasons), and Amar en tiempos revueltos (playing Ubaldo in the 6th season). Since arriving in Miami in 2012, he has worked on several projects, including two Internet series,  Sobre Vivir en Miami and La Familia Pérez . San Martín became a citizen of the United States in 2018. He is an outspoken critic of the Castro regime (now the Miguel Díaz-Canel regime) and has stated "Deseo justicia ... Yo deseo libertad total y absoluta para las personas de Cuba" (I desir...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Gina Torres! (1969-       ) Photo from etonline.com in March 2018 article about Suits spinoff coming to TV. Click HERE .  An American actress born to Cuban parents in New York City, Torres attended LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts for singing and began pursuing her dream of becoming a performer directly after (she applied to and was accepted at several colleges but could not afford to go). She has been in multiple movies and television shows but is perhaps best known for her work in the USA Network's legal drama Suits . It was announced in March of 2018 that she would executive produce and star in a Suits spin-off centered around her character, Jessica Pearson. Torres won an ALMA Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in  a Syndicated Drama in 2001, and she has been nominated for ALMA Awards multiple times (click HERE to see her speak Spanish to a Telemundo reporter at the 2012 ALMA Awards). Gina Torres...