Famous Latinx Birthdays

 ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Belita Moreno (1949-     )! Photo from allfamous.org An actress from Texas with Mexican heritage, Moreno is perhaps best known for her role as Benny Lopez on the sitcom George Lopez, though she has had a long career appearing in films, television shows, and live theater (appearing in at least four premieres of Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley's shows during the 80s). More recently, she has acted as an acting coach and advisor on numerous films, including Jerry Maguire , Rush Hour 2 , Almost Famous, and more. Moreno's mother, Aurora, was a Spanish teacher, and her father was a World War II veteran. Both of her parents were Mexican-American. See her speak (in English) with George Lopez about her friendship with his grandmother in this 2009 interview. Read (also in English) about her life growing up Tex/Mex (and how proud she is of this heritage) as well as her career in this 2010 interview with LatinoLA.  For resources for ...

Photo from latina.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Gerardo Ortiz! (1989-        ) A Mexican American singer-songwriter and record producer who grew up in Pasadena, California, Ortiz released his first album, Ni Hoy Ni Mañana , in 2010. That album earned him a Grammy award for Best Norteño Album. In 2013, he won a Premio Lo Nuestro for his song Amor confuso. He also received a Premio Lo Nuestro in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 for being the Best Norteño Artist. In 2016 he won Album of the Year for Hoy más fuerte . His latest music video on YouTube, Egoísta , has more than 11 million views (click HERE ). Ortiz's younger brother is Kevin Ortiz , who followed in his brother's footsteps as a musician and is now also a successful singer-songwriter of Mexican regional music. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE. Other birthdays of note: Tito El Bambino (1981-      ): Singer from Puerto Rico who made...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Kevin Ortiz!  (1994-       ) A Mexican American singer of regional music, Ortiz was born in Pasadena, California to parents who had immigrated from Sinaloa, Mexico, His father had been a well-known musician there. Ortiz is one of four boys, and his older brother Geraldo was the first to gain fame for singing regional Mexican music. Kevin Ortiz's breakout sing/video was Un minuto in 2013 (click HERE ). The video now has more than 45 million views on YouTube. He has sung in Nokia Stadium in Los Angeles and many other venues. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Photo from harpersbazaar.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Salma Hayek! (1966-   ) *y a .. Eugenio Derbez! (1962-      ) See below! A Mexican American actress, director,  producer, and businesswoman of Spanish and Lebanese descent, Hayek began her career in Mexico starring in the telenovela Teresa . She then starred in the film El Callejón de los Milagros , one of the most award-winning Mexican films of all time (she was nominated for an Ariel award for her performance). Hayek moved to Hollywood in 1991 and soon had a string of back to back hits: Desesperado (1995), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Dogma (1999), and Wild Wild West (1999). She then started her own production company, Ventanarosa . She co-produced and starred in Frida , released in 2002, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe, among other honors. She then won a Daytime Emmy for directing 2004's The Maldonado Miracl...

Photo from pagesix.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... César Millán! (1969-      ) A Mexican American dog trainer known for his television show Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan  (2004-2012) as well as his three New York Times bestsellers, Millán was born in Sinaloa, Mexico and grew up working with animals on the farm where his grandfather was a tenant farmer. He came to the United States when he was 21 years old speaking no English and with only $100 to his name. His first job was washing dog kennels, something that led him to his current career (read more HERE ). He also met actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who helped set him up with a tutor to learn English, and who became one of his first clients at the Pacific Point Canine Academy, and then the Dog Psychology Center, where he worked with large breed dogs with significant behavior problems. A write-up in the L.A. Times then led to his show, which soon became National Geographic's #1 show. Millán and f...

Photo from fifa.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a Jenny Ruiz (Jennifer Marie Ruiz-Williams)! (1983-      ) A Mexican-American soccer player who played for the Seattle Reign FC and represented Mexico in the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, Ruiz was born in Anaheim, California and attended Corona High School, where she was a 3 time All-League MVP. She then attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas from 2001-2004, where she earned many honors for her soccer performance, including being named to the First Team All Mountain West Conference her senior year. She taught in inner-city Los Angeles for two years with Teach For America following graduation. Ruiz and husband Kevin Williams have two children. Her second child was born in Brazil, where she and her husband were working as Christian missionaries. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Photo from latinoweeklyreview.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Demián Bichir! (1963- ) A Mexican American actor and director who began his career acting in telenovelas, Bichir has also starred in many movies and television series. He played Fidel Castro in 2008's Che (click here for a Bichir interview with People en español about the role), and he was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in 2011's  A Better Life . Bichir is an ACLU ambassador for immigration rights. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Photo from billboard.com. Click HERE.  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Carlos Santana! (1947-       ) A Mexican American musician named one of the "greatest guitarists of all time" by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003, Santana has won 10 Grammys and 3 Latin Grammys during his impressive career. Born in Jalisco, Mexico and taught guitar by his father, who was a mariachi, Santana moved to San Francisco with his family as a child. It was there that he got his first chance to perform, at the Fillmore West in 1966, where he impressed audiences with his guitar solos. Soon after, he formed a band, Santana, with other street musicians, and they had a memorable performance at Woodstock in 1969. Santana was extremely popular throughout the 1970s, and they received a resurgence in popularity in the 90s. He is known for pioneering a fusion of rock and Latin American jazz with Afro-Cuban sounds, though it wasn't until 2014 that he produced his first Spanish-language album, Corazó...

Photo from the hollywoodreporter.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Gabriel Iglesias! (1976-   ) Iglesias, known professionally as "Fluffy," is a Mexican-American stand-up comedian, actor, voice actor, writer, and producer. He was the youngest of six children born to Esther P. Mendez in San Diego, who raised him and his siblings alone. His father, Jesus Iglesias, has recently returned to his life. Growing up, Iglesias lived in Section 8 housing, mostly in Long Beach, and got through the many challenges in his life with humor (and with the help of his mom, who he has said had a wonderful sense of humor).  He was working for a cell phone company in L.A. in 1997 when he decided to pursue stand-up comedy full-time. He struggled at first to make ends meet, and he was evicted from his home and lost his car. He gradually started getting jobs and in 2006 was one of the finalists on the fourth season of Last Comic Standing . He was worked extensively in voice ac...

Photo from newsok.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Eduardo Nájera! (1976-     ) A retired Mexican professional basketball player who is now a scout with the Dallas Mavericks and a sports analyst on Fox Sports Southwest, Nájera was only the second Mexican-born NBA player (Horacio Llamas was the first). He was born in Chihuahua, Mexico and played college basketball at the University of Oklahoma, where he helped the team to four consecutive NCAA tournament appearances during his college career. He was drafted into the NBA in 2000 and first played for the Dallas Mavericks. He also played for the Denver Nuggets, the Golden State Warriors, the New Jersey Nets, and the Charlotte Bobcats during his career. See him interviewed (in Spanish) as he made the transition from player to coach HERE . For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Photo from skyscrapersports.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Jaime García! (1986-     ) A professional baseball player from Mexico who started his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, with whom he played in the major leagues from 2008 to 2016. In 2011, the Cardinals defeated the Rangers 4-3 in a best of seven series to win the World Series. When García started in Game 2, he became the second Mexican born pitcher since Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 to start in a World Series Game. García was traded to the Atlanta Braves in December 2016. He has since played for the Minnesota Twins, the New York Yankees, and the Toronto Blue Jays. García, who was born in Reynosa, Mexico, was raised in both Mexico and the United States (Reynosa, Mexico and McAllen, Texas). His father was a civil engineer, and García attended Sharyland High School in Mission, Texas. where he was a star on the baseball team. Read (in Spanish) about how he was honored to represent Mexico in t...

Photo from immigrantarchiveproject.com. Several interviews, in English and Spanish,  about what it means to be an immigrant (her parents were immigrants from Mexico). Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Jenni Rivera! (1969-Dec. 9, 2012) "Ver la sonrisa, y el orgullo de mis papás para mí significa mucho." A Mexican-American singer, songwriter, actress, television producer, and entrepreneur who was a top-selling female artist in the Mexican music genre, Rivera had sold 20 million records worldwide at the time of her death, in a plane crash, in 2012. During her life she was also honored with two Oye! Awards (Mexico's equivalent of a Grammy), two Billboard Music Awards, 22 Billboard Latin Music Awards, and 18 Lo Nuestro Awards. She has a star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars and received four Latin Grammy nominations. Rivera was born in Long Beach, California to Mexican immigrant parents. Her family was tight-knit and musical. An honors student all her life, Rivera...

Photo from justjaredjr.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Raini Rodriguez! (1993-     ) An American actress of Mexican descent, Raini Rodriguez is best known for her role as Trish in the Disney series Austin & Ally. She won Best Young Actress at the 2013 Imagen awards. Born in Bryan, Texas to tire store owners Diane and Roy Rodriguez, she is the only girl of four children. Her younger brother, Rico Rodriguez, is also an actor (best known for his role in Modern Family). Raini was discovered at an IMTA showcase by Susan Osser, a California talent agent, when she was only 11. Osser convinced Raini's mom to come to California to give Raini a year for career opportunities. Her mom home-schooled her and her brothers while they lived in California. Rodriguez has worked on many television shows and several films. Most recently, Raini was the voice of Starehe in the television show The Lion Guard in the episode The Golden Zebra. Click HERE to see Raini and ...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Cheyo Carrillo (Xavier "Cheyo" Carrillo)! (1998-     ) A singer and songwriter from Los Angeles with Mexican roots (his grandparents are from Sinaloa, Mexico), Carrillo started singing at festivals and family parties at the age of 4. When he was six, he self-recorded an album of 10 songs to give out to friends and family. And in 2006, at the age of 8, he won first place in a singing competition on El Show de Don Cheto . That same year he got an accordion and started playing. Several years later he became the accordion player for the group Bukanas de Culiacán , and then, a year after that, for Alfredo Ríos "El Komander ." From there, he branched off and began a solo career. His 2016 music video No Es Normal  (click HERE ) has nearly 6 million views on YouTube, with the videos for songs such as El Más Grande Amor and Estando Contigo also amassing millions of views. In a 2017 interview (in Spanish) with Los Angeles radio personality Pepe...

Photo/Image from scholastic.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Ellen Ochoa! (1958) An engineer and veteran astronaut who is currently the director of The Johnson Space Center, Ochoa is the first Hispanic women to have gone to space (with the space shuttle Discovery in 1993) and the first Hispanic director of The Johnson Space Center. Ochoa's paternal grandparents were immigrants from Mexico who came to the United States to provide their family with more opportunities. Of them, Ochoa has said that she could only imagine the astonishment and pride they would feel upon knowing that their granddaughter had travelled to space, as they had been born in Mexico in the 1870s and had come to this country to lift up their family ("Sólo puedo imaginar el asombro y el orgullo de mis abuelos, quienes nacieron en México en la década de 1870, hubieran sentido al saber que su nieta creció para viajar al espacio. Vinieron a Estados Unidos para levantar a su familia. Junto a la pas...

Photo from pe.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... George López! (1961-       ) A comedian and actor born in Los Angeles, López was raised by his maternal grandmother, Benita Gutierrez (his father left when he was a baby, and his mother remarried and left when he was ten). He never celebrated a birthday and dealt with bullying as the "darkest kid in the neighborhood" (read more in the 2002 New York Times article A Life So Sad He Had to be Funny , HERE ). Despite the difficulties of his childhood and conflicting feelings about his grandmother, who passed away in 2009, López acknowledges the huge role she played in his life, telling a writer for The Chicago Tribune in 2016, "I think about her every day. I think, probably, about her, like every hour" (click HERE for full article). López began pursuing stand-up comedy after graduation from high school, crediting comedian Freddie Prinze, his idol, for helping him realize it was possible. He was performi...

Photo from vibe.com article announcing ABC's just announced television series (January 2018) inspired by the life of Selena. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Selena Quintanilla-Pérez! (1971-1993) "The Queen of Tejano Music" who paved the way for success by artists such as Shakira, Ricky Martin, and Jennifer Lopez (who played Selena in the 1997 movie about her life), Selena still inspires devotion from fans around the world. April 16th is "Selena Day" in Texas (as declared by Texas Governor George W. Bush two weeks after her death) and marked annually with a two-day music festival, La Fiesta del Flor , in Corpus Christi, Texas. Selena, who is Mexican-American, was born in Lake Jackson, Texas in 1971 and grew up speaking English as her first language. She started singing in her father's Tex-Mex restaurant, Papa Gayo's, when she was only eight years old alongside her brother, Abraham III (playing bass guitar), and her sister, Suzette (playing dru...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Dolores Huerta! (1930-        ) ¡Sí se puede!  -Dolores Huerta Photo from the L.A. Times, January 2017. Click HERE . A civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farmworkers Association with César Chávez (which later became the United Farmworkers, or UFW), Dolores Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 and stood beside Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968 as he made a victory speech after winning the California Democratic presidential primary election, moments before he was shot and killed. She has continued to fight for the rights of immigrants, workers, and women ever since. She has won numerous awards for her community service and civil rights work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993. Born in New Mexico to Mexican immigrant parents, Huerta was raised mostly by her mother after her parents' divorce when she was three. Her father was a coa...