Famous Latinx Birthdays

¡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 wtatennis.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Mónica Puig! (1993-     ) A professional tennis player from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Puig made history in 2016 when she won gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She became the first athlete representing Puerto Rico to win an Olympic gold and the first Latin American champion in women's singles. In this 2016 interview, she describes her return to Puerto Rico after the win, with fans chanting her name well into the night, as "una noche de alegría, una noche feliz." Puig was born in San Juan to a Cuban American father and a Puerto Rican mother.  She turned pro in 2010 at the age of 17 and has since won two WTA singles titles and six ITF singles titles. She reached a ranking of #27 in the world in September of 2016. For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Photo from baseballhall.org. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Roberto Clemente! (1934-1972) A Puerto Rican professional baseball player (18 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates) and humanitarian, Clemente died at the age of 38 in a plane crash while en route to Nicaragua to deliver relief to earth quake victims. An All Star for 12 seasons who played in 15 All Star games, winner of the Golden Glove Award for twelve consecutive years from 1961 to 1972, National League batting leader in 1961, 64, 65, and 67, and the World Series MVP in 1971, Clemente was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973. Born in Carolina, Puerto Rico, Clemente was the youngest of seven siblings. His father was the foreman of sugar crops located there, and he often took his son with him to work to help load and unload the trucks. Clemente always loved playing baseball and joined Puerto Rico's amateur league when he was 16. When he was 18 he signed a contract with the Cangrejeros of San...

Photo from espn.com. Click HERE .  ¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Jorge Posada! (1971-      ) A former Major League Baseball player for the New York Yankees (he retired in 2011 after 17 seasons), Posada is a 5-time All Star who was on the roster for four World Series championship teams. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a Dominican mother and a Cuban father (who had fled to Puerto Rico to escape Fidel Castro's regime), Posada attended Alejandrino High School in the city. He didn't have the SAT scores to attend a four year college, but he was recruited by Calhoun Community College in Decatur, Alabama, where he enrolled in 1991. He played there for two years before being drafted by the Yankees. Posada has been married to Laura Mendez, a former model and actress who now works as an attorney (and who was the pitcher in softball games that Posada used to umpire in high school), since January of 2000. Derek Jeter was his best man. They have two children together, Jorge Luis ...

¡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 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 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...