Famous Latinx Birthdays

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Dayanara Torres (1974-     )! Photo from the Chicago Sun Times A Puerto Rican actress, model, singer, and writer, Torres grew up in Bayamón, Puerto Rico with her two older brothers, José and Joey, and her younger sister, Jeannette. She attended Colegio Santa Rosa and planned to go to college to study to become an orthodontist, but she was discovered at age 17 and just a year later won the title of Miss Universe 1993, changing the trajectory of her life. After winning the pageant, she became a UNICEF ambassador and toured Asia and Latin America advocating for the organization before moving to the Philippines, where she learned to speak Tagalog and became a major celebrity. She lived there for five years, appearing in many movies and television shows. In 1998 she returned to Puerto Rico and released the album Antifaz . She married the singer Marc Anthony in May of 2000, and the two had two sons together, Cristian Anthony (2001) and Ryan Anthony...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a... Juan Antonio "Chi Chi" Rodríguez (1934-    )! Photo from pgatour.com A professional golfer from Puerto Rico who won 8 PGA Tours between 1963 and 1979, Chi Chi Rodríguez was inducted in to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992. One of six children born to a poor family in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, Rodríguez helped his family earn money by being a water carrier on a sugar plantation. One day he wandered on to a golf course and saw how much more money the caddies made than him. He decided to be one some day and set out teaching himself golf with a stick and a metal can. By 1947, at the age of 12, he was shooting a 67. Rodríguez joined the U.S. Army in 1954 and practiced golf at the courses near his bases wherever he was stationed. He turned pro in 1960 and won the Denver Open in 1963. He calls his meeting with Mother Theresa "the best 45 minutes of my life" (more on that in this interesting Florida Trend interview  HERE ) and credits it with...

Photo from nj.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Bernie Williams (Bernabé Williams Figueroa Jr.)! (1968-      ) A Puerto Rican former professional baseball player with the New York Yankees from 1991 to 2006 and a classically trained guitarist who has released two jazz albums and was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2009, Williams is a multi-talented man. He was born in New York City and lived in the Bronx before moving back to Puerto Rico with his parents when he was one. His dad was a merchant marine and dispatcher and his mom was a retired principal and college professor. Williams played both baseball and guitar growing up, and he was also a standout in track and field, winning medals at an international meet when he was 15. He was signed by the Yankees on his 17th birthday. Even then, he considered studying to be a doctor and took a biology course at the University of Puerto Rico, but he decided that he could not excel at both medicine and baseball an...

Photo from villagegreennj.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... José Feliciano! (1945- ) A Puerto Rican singer and songwriter who has won 8 Grammy awards and whose song Feliz Navidad is still the #1 played song at the holidays, Feliciano has been a successful musician since the early 60s. Born in Lares, Puerto Rico with congenital glaucoma, which left him blind by the age of 3, Feliciano moved with his family to Spanish Harlem in New York City at the age of 5. He first started playing the accordion, and then his father gave him a guitar. He practiced some 14 hours a day, and at the age of 17 he dropped out of school to play music full-time in the nearby clubs. By 1968 he had his first hit album, Feliciano . More than 35 albums followed. In 2000, Feliciano was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame, and in 2011, he won the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He and wife Susan Omillian, who he met in Detroit in 1971 and dated for ten years before ma...

Photo from wikipedia ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Justina Machado! (1972-      ) A Puerto Rican actress born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Machado is best known for her roles as Vanessa Diaz in HBO's Six Feet Under and Brenda on USA Network's Queen of the South . She grew up on the Northwest side of Chicago, and has said that her family was poor. She was raised Catholic and celebrated a traditional quinceañera . Machado always loved theater and took part in all her school's plays. She also performed with the Latino Chicago Theater Company. After graduating from high school in 1990 Machado moved to New York City and then to Los Angeles in 1996. She has now appeared in more than 15 films in addition to her theater and television work. To see her interviewed (in Spanish) about her role on the Netflix series One Day at a Time, click HERE . For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Photo from abcnews.go.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a Héctor El Father (Héctor Luis Delgado Román)! (1979-      ) A retired Puerto Rican rapper, singer, and record producer, Héctor El Father was a reggaeton trailblazer who began his career with Tito El Bambino as the duo known as Héctor & Tito (and also: Los Bambinos). They released several successful albums together and were the first reggaeton artists to sell out a major concert in Puerto Rico. The duo broke up in 2004 and they began their solo careers. In 2005 Héctor El Father signed with Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records and became the Hispanic image for the Roc-A-Fella clothing line Rocawear. Héctor retired from rapping in 2008 (though he did do several farewell concerts through 2010). He then obtained a degree in Theology from Southern Methodist University and has dedicated his life to serving God in Puerto Rico. A 2018 film, Conocerás la verdad , explores his life and conversion (click HERE for tra...

Photo from nydailynews.com. Click HERE (article includes interview in which he talks about why he raises his 5 children in Vermont and what he does to remain grounded and humble).  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Luis Gúzman! (1956-      ) A Puerto Rican actor who has been in multiple movies and television shows since the late 1970s (including the 1993 movie Carlito's Way with Al Pacino, Sean Penn, and John Leguizamo), Gúzman was born in Cayey, Puerto Rico and raised in Greenwich Village, New York City. His mom, Rosa, was a hospital worker and his dad, Benjamín, was a TV repairman. Guzmán at first worked as a social worker and only moonlighted as an actor,  but he eventually turned to acting full time. He most recently appeared in CBS's Code Black , with the season finale appearing July 18, 2018. He often plays supporting roles, though he had his first leading role in 2013's Aztec Warrior, a movie about a washed-up Mexican wrestler. He and wife Angelita Galarza-...

Photo from cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Antonia Coello Novello! (1944-     ) A Puerto Rican physician and public health administrator who served as the 14th Surgeon General of the United States (1990-1993), Coello Novello was the first woman and the first Latina to serve in this position. Born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, she was the oldest of three children. After her father died when she was eight, she was raised mostly by her schoolteacher mother, who emphasized the importance of education. Coello suffered from congenital megacolon, which had been diagnosed at birth, and she was in and out of hospitals her entire childhood. She finally had surgery at age 18 to help with the pain. This experience motivated her to become a doctor to help others suffering as she had. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine in San Juan in 1970 (the same year she married her husband, US Navy flight surgeon and children's ps...

Photo from billboard.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Elvis Crespo! (1971-       ) A Puerto Rican singer born in New York City and raised in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Crespo began his career as a member of Grupo Mania in Puerto Rico in the mid '90s. He went solo in 1998 with his debut album, Suavemente , which won Best Male/Tropical Album of the Year from Billboard Magazine (and also went gold in the United States). He has had nine studio albums since Suavemente, the latest being Diomedizao in 2018. He has won many awards, including a Grammy in 1999 for Best Merengue Performance (Píntame) and a Latin Grammy in 2005 for Best Merengue Album. In 2009 he married his manager, Maribel Vega. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE. Other birthdays of note: Salvador Novo (1904- 1974): Mexican poet and playwright known for his wit, he is often compared to Oscar Wilde.

Photo from hola.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Chayanne (Elmer Figueroa Alce)! (1968-     ) A Puerto Rican singer, actor, and composer, he has released 21 solo albums and sold over 30 million albums worldwide. The third of five siblings, he was given his nickname by his mother after his favorite television show, Cheyenne (Chayanne's mother passed away in 2014 after a long battle with cancer). Chayanne has been married to former Venezuelan beauty queen Marilisa Maronese since 1989, and the two have two children together, son Lorenzo and daughter Isadora. To see him perform Salomé, click HERE . For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Carlos Delgado! (1972-       ) Photo from nbcnewyork.com. Click HERE .  A former professional baseball player (1993-2009) from Puerto Rico who began his career with the Toronto Blue Jays, he is a World Series champion (1993), a two-time All Star (2000, 2003), and a three time AL Silver Slugger, among other distinctions. He was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015. Delgado is well known for his humanitarian efforts, and in 2006 he won the Roberto Clemente Award for his work. He took part in the Navy-Vieques protests to oppose the use of Puerto Rico's Vieques island as a bombing target practice by the Department of Defense (bombing halted in 2003) and did not stand during "God Bless America" during the 2004 season as a protest of the United States' war with Iraq, which he considered unjust. Though criticized, he said he had to stand up for what he believed in. Delgado regularly visits hospitals in Puerto Rico on ...

Photo from elcalce.com/pr. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Julio Voltio (Julio Irving Ramos Filomeno)! (1977-      ) One of the pioneers of the reggeatón movement, Voltio became a devout Christian in 2010 and has since switched to other genres of music. He recorded the album Salsa con voltaje with producer Ángelo Torres in 2016 (click HERE ). Voltio, who worked as an electrician before his career as a musician, got his name from an accident he had at work, when he put his hand in the wrong place and received an enormous electrical shock ( voltio means volt in Spanish). Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, he was already active in music as a teenager. He formed The Masters of Funk with Rey 29 and Héctor Delgado, and then became to duo Karel y Voltio in 2003 with his friend and neighbor Karel. After the duo split, Voltio was considering leaving the music business when Tego Calderón convinced him to sign with White Lion Records. With them, he released the album ...

Photo from Time Magazine. Click HERE . Video interview included with article.  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Laurie Hernandez! (2000-         ) A Puerto Rican gymnast who won gold in the team event and silver on the balance beam at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Hernandez was born and raised in New Jersey. She credits her Puerto Rican born parents and her siblings, sister Jelysa and brother Marcus, with inspiring her to always pursue her dreams. Seeing Shawn Johnson do gymnastics on television when Hernandez was only 5 years old was the reason she herself started to practice, at the age of 6 (read more HERE ). She eventually was homeschooled so that she could train full time. In 2016, Hernandez won season 23 of Dancing With The Stars alongside parter Val Chmerkovskiy (see them dance the Cha Cha HERE ). In January of 2017, she published her book I Got This: To Gold & Beyond , which would become a New York Times bestseller. Hernandez discusses the complexitie...

Photo from New York Latin Culture , 2017. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Willie Colón! (1950-    ) One of the founding members of the musical genre known as salsa, Willie Colón has been performing and producing music for more than 50 years. He has won numerous accolades, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Grammys in 2004. Born in the Bronx, New York, Willie Colón was mostly raised by his grandmother, Antonia Roman Pintor, who had grown up in the hills of Puerto Rico and received only a third grade education. Colón's mother was around, but as she was only 16 when she had him, she did not do much parenting. Colon's father was a heroin addict and not a major part of his life. When Colón was 11, his grandmother gave him a trombone, and soon after a neighbor walking by heard him practicing, knocked on the door, and offered to teach him. Colón was performing in local clubs at the age of 14 (with a forged id card) and had signed with the newly for...

Photo from screenertv.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Carlos Valdes (1989-       )! An actor and singer from Colombia best known for his role as Cisco Roman/Vibe on the television series The Flash (2014-present), Valdes was born in Colombia and moved to Miami with his family when he was five years old. When he was 12, he moved once again to Marietta, Georgia. Valdes, who sings and plays piano, guitar, ukulele, bass, and percussion in addition to acting, studied Musical Theater at the University of Michigan. He graduated in 2011. While there he also honed his skills with the musical theater group StarKid Productions. After graduation, Valdes appeared in stage productions of High School Musical, The Wedding Singer, Jersey Boys , and Once . Once was nominated for a Tony in 2013. To hear Valdes talk about his role as Cisco in The Flash , click HERE . To read more about him in the post "Five Things You Didn't Know About Carlos Valdes," click HERE ,...

Photo from rollingstone.com, September 2107, in post about Fonsi's performance of Despacito with The Roots on The Tonight Show. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Luis Fonsi (Luis Alfonso Rodríguez López-Cepero! (1978-     ) If you haven't yet heard of Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi, you almost definitely have heard his 2017 hit song with Daddy Yankee (remix featuring Justin Bieber), Despacito. The Despacito video on YouTube broke records with more than 5 billion views (and also made history when it was hacked in April 2018). Despacito has also spawned interesting discussions about the aspects of race in reggaeton music and the fact that this song was so successful (see interview in The Atlantic with Wellesley college professor Pietra Rivera-Rideau , author of Remixing Reggaeton: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico . As Rivera-Rideau says, "It's an interesting moment to think about how this genre has moved from being so maligned, marginal...

¡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...

Photo from YCF Diving, where Ruiz is the head coach. Click HERE .   ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Mark Ruiz! (1979-        ) An Olympic diver from Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, Ruiz started diving at the age of 9. He moved to Florida at the age of 12 to further train, and he was the individual state champion for diving all four years of high school. In 1999, he swept all three events at US Nationals, the first diver to do so since Greg Louganis. That year, he also won the Pan Am Games gold medal. Ruiz competed in the Olympics in 2000 and 2004, and he was a US National Champion 22 times. Ruiz now runs Mark Ruiz Diving Camps for athletes from all over the country, and he is the head coach for YCF Diving. He is married to Nicole Bolt, an NCAA All American at the University of Florida who was also a state champion diver at his high school. In 2017, Ruiz raised money to help with recovery efforts in Puerto Rico after the devastation of Hurricane Maria. His GoFundMe pa...