Famous Latinx Birthdays

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Victor Jara! (1932-1973) A Chilean singer, poet, and activist, Jara is one of the main figures of the Nueva Canción Chilena movement, which used music as a form of social activism. Jara was born in Lonquén, near Santiago, into a poor family. His father encouraged the children to work to help support the family rather than go to school. By the time Jara was 6, his father had turned to drinking and become violent. He abandoned the family that year. Jara's mother, on the other hand, insisted that her children get an education. She taught herself to play the guitar and piano and also sang traditional folk songs at weddings and funerals. She died when Jara was only 15, and he was left to mostly fend for himself. He earned a theater scholarship to the University of Santiago, and in 1957 he met Violeta Parra, a revolutionary folk singer in Chile who had a huge influence on him. He released his first folk album, Canto a lo humano , in 1966. His songs were a combi...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Alfredo Zitarrosa! (1936-1989) Image from alchetron.com. Click HERE .  A Uruguayan singer, songwriter, poet, and journalist, he was a chief figure in the Nueva Canción movement, a social movement and musical genre characterized by folklore-inspired songs with socially conscious lyrics in Latin America. Because of the dictatorship in Uruguay, he lived in exile from 1976-1984 in Argentina, Spain, and Mexico. His songs were banned in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay during the dictatorial regimes in those countries. Zitarrosa started his career as a professional singer in 1964, when a friend got him a job singing on a Peruvian television show for $50. He repeated the experience on Bolivian radio shows and returned to Uruguay a singer. Before that, he had worked as a radio announcer and a journalist. He was also a poet, having won the Premio Municipal de Poesía for his book of poems, Explicaciones , in 1959. Zitarrosa was extremely popular in Latin America a...