Famous Latinx Birthdays

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Roberto Osuna! (1995-        ) Osuna (in blue) with his parents and siblings. From sports.vice.com. Click  HERE .  A professional baseball player from Mexico, Osuna was the youngest pitcher ever to appear in a Major League Baseball game when he played for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015. He continues to play for the team, and was recently signed for a one year, $5.3 million contract. Osuna had been acquired by the team in 2011 for $1.5 million, a deal that changed his family's life. Despite his father's history playing professional baseball (22 seasons in the Mexican League), the family struggled after an arm injury ended his father's career. At that point, Osuna, age 12, left school to help support his family by picking vegetables. He and his father (also Roberto) practiced pitching after work. The entire family slept in one room and struggled to make ends meet. Thus, one of the first things that Osuna did after being signed at ...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... María Teresa Vera! (1895-1965) Both photos from gladyspalmera.com Click  HERE A Cuban singer, guitarist, and composer whose signature song, Veinte Años , has been interpreted and performed by many artists, Vera is considered one of the all-time greats of Cuban music. The granddaughter of slaves and the daughter of a servant in a wealthy household (whose father, a Spanish military man, didn't stick around to meet her), Vera became interested in music from the trova groups that used to visit the mansion where her mother worked. She eventually learned from Manuel Corona himself, one of Cuba's trova greats, and formed a successful duo with Rafael Zequeira (photo above). The two performed in Havana for the first time when Vera was only 16. In 1918, they travelled to New York City, were they performed in the Apollo Theater. Zequeira passed away in 1924, and Vera performed solo and with several different musicians before forming the Sexteto Occiden...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Giannina Braschi! (1953-       ) Photo from goodreads.com. Click  HERE .  A Puerto Rican poet, essayist, and novelist (born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and based in New York City), Braschi dedicates her life's work to "inspiring personal and political liberation" (from Braschi's official website, click  HERE ). A tennis champ before she discovered writing (she was ranked #1 in Puerto Rico after winning the USTA's National Tournament in 1966), Braschi now holds a PhD in the Spanish Golden Age and is considered one of the top Latinx writers of our time (read more about her and other influential Puerto Ricans  HERE ). Some of her most prominent works include the poetry collection Empire of Dreams (1988, originally published in Spain), the Spanglish novel Yo-Yo-Boing (1998), and the "philosophical fiction" The United States of Banana (2011, written in English). She discussed her work (including "huevos poéticos") in this ...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Oscar de la Hoya! (1973-        ) Photo from wikipedia.  A Mexican-American boxer nicknamed "Golden Boy" who fought professionally from 1992-2008, he won a gold medal for the United States in the 1992 Summer Olympics as a lightweight boxer shortly  after graduating from high school. He was named "Fighter of the Year" by The Ring magazine in 1995 and the 16th best boxer of all time by BoxRec . In 2002 he founded Golden Boy Promotions , a national boxing promotional company. He also has several other business ventures including being part-owner of a major league soccer team and launching a clothing line (click  HERE  to read more (in English)). De la Hoya was born in East Los Angeles to Mexican parents, and he speaks about the challenges he faced growing up in this 2008 interview with Jorge Ramos  (in Spanish), including losing his mother to breast cancer in 1991, when he was only 18. Also, while some have challen...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a* ... Luis Coronel! (Luis Miguel Coronel Gómez) (1996-         ) *and also to Sara Carbonero and Daddy Yankee. See below! Photo from billboard.com. Click  HERE A Mexican-American singer born in Tucson, Arizona, Luis Coronel began singing in church at the age of six. His grandfather, Tata, encouraged him (and challenged him, telling him that he wasn't that good yet, but that by being honest he was giving him a chance to improve). As a teenager, Coronel starting uploading videos of his singing to social media. Eventually, Del Records saw one of the performances of Coronel singing to his girlfriend and signed him. Soon after he won "Best New Artist of the Year" at the Latin Billboard Music Awards (see him before the awards, speaking English and Spanish,  HERE ). Coronel just released his third studio album, Ahora Soy Yo , with Sony Music Latin, which debuted as #1 in the Regional Mexican Albums chart (his first two albums, Con l...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Shakira*! (Shakira Isabel Mebarek Ripoli) (1977-     ) *AND to Gerard Piqué (1987-           ), her significant other since 2011 (and father of her two children -- Milan, born in January of 2013, and Sasha, born in January of 2015) Shakira, Gerard Piqué and their children Milan and Sasha. Photo from El País, Dec. 2016 .  Click  HERE .  Shakira most likely doesn't need an introduction. Number 27 on Fortune Magazine's 2017 list of "The World's Greatest Leaders, " this Colombian singer has sold millions of records and won multiple awards, including four Grammys and 12 Latin Grammys. In 1997, she founded Pies Descalzos , an organization that aims to help poor children in Colombia, especially with education. Shakira, whose name in Arabic means "grateful" (her paternal grandparents immigrated to New York City, where her father was born, and her father moved to Colombia when he was five), is an only ch...

¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Moisés Muñoz! (1980-        ) Photo from alchetron.com. Click  HERE .  A professional soccer player from Morelia, Mexico, Muñoz lived in California (in Redwood City, outside San Francisco), where he dreamed of playing professional basketball or football , from age 10 to 16. His family returned to Mexico when his grandfather was given only a few months to live, and it was then that Muñoz became more involved in soccer. He began his career at the age of 19, in 1999. He is a goalkeeper. Still, in 2013 in Mexico's Azteca Stadium, playing for Club América, he had a dramatic end-of-game goal for the championship when he headed the ball in from a corner. Watch it HERE  (and enjoy the Spanish commentary (¡GOOOOOL!) and the comments, i.e. "¡Este es del tipo de partido que se contará de generación en generación del padre al hijo del hijo al nieto etc!" (This is the type of game that will be described from generation to generation, ...