We are now in the midst of Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated from September 15 – October 15. This year’s theme is Esperanza: A Celebration of Hispanic Heritage and Hope, a reminder “that we are stronger together,” especially in the face of a uniquely challenging and complex year.
In a press release, the National Council of Hispanic Employment Program Managers wrote, “The theme invites us to celebrate Hispanic Heritage and to reflect on how great our tomorrow can be if we hold onto our resilience and hope. It encourages us to reflect on all of the contributions Hispanics have made in the past, and will continue to make in the future.”
The poster for this year, designed by Eliana De Leon, shows the year 2021 as the boundary that leaves behind past challenges but also builds on the success of Hispanic communities for new generations and looks to the future with optimism. In The Winters Group’s recent Re-Imaginaction Virtual Learning Lab, Brittany J. Harris offered the idea that remembering is a function of justice. So, in the spirit of remembering and reflecting for Hispanic Heritage Month, here are 10 Hispanic heroes from history we should know. This is in no particular order and is by no means a full roundup. Please comment below and share the names and stories of other Hispanic heroes who have changed the world!
We are in the midst of Hispanic Heritage Month, and this year’s theme is Esperanza: A Celebration of Hispanic Heritage and Hope, a reminder 'that we are stronger together,' esp in a uniquely challenging and complex year. Share on X In the spirit of remembering and reflecting for #HispanicHeritageMonth, here are 10 Hispanic heroes from history we should know. Please comment below names and stories of other Hispanic heroes who have changed the world! Share on X
1.) Jovita Idár (1885 – 1946)
Jovita Idár was a Mexican American journalist, activist, and suffragist. She began working for her father’s newspaper La Crónica and used it as a platform to speak out against racism and in support of women’s and Mexican American’s rights. In 1911, Idár and her family organized the First Mexican Congress to unify Mexicans across the border to fight injustice, and in the same year she also founded La Liga Feminil Mexicaista (the League of Mexican Women). She later began working for the El Progreso newspaper where she wrote an article condemning President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to send U.S. troops to the border. The U.S. Army and Texas Rangers showed up at her door to shut the paper down, but Idár refused and even literally put her body between them and the door. Although the paper was eventually shut down, she continued advocating for the fair treatment of women and Mexican Americans, and also remained committed to her community by volunteering as an interpreter in a hospital and starting a free kindergarten for children.
Jovita Idár was a Mexican American journalist and activist. She worked for her father’s newspaper La Crónica and used it as a platform to speak out against racism and in support of women’s and Mexican American’s rights. Share on X
2.) José Andrés (1969 – )
José Andrés grew up in Spain, learning “the craft of cooking,” and later came to the U.S. in 1991. After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, he formed the World Central Kitchen (WCK) to provide hot meals to those affected by natural disasters. He served 3.5 million meals to residents in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and also fed furloughed workers during the month-long government shutdown in 2019. Andrés wrote, “We have shown that there is no place too far or disaster too great for our chefs to be there with a hot plate of food when it’s needed most.”
3.) Sylvia Rivera (1951 – 2002)
Sylvia Rivera was a Venezuelan- and Puerto Rican-American who fought against the exclusion of transgender people, specifically transgender people of color, from the larger gay rights movement. She was actively involved in the Stonewall Inn uprising, along with Marsha P. Johnson, who she considered “a mother to me.” The two together started the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to discuss issues facing the transgender community in New York City and to provide lodging for those who needed it in their STAR House. She later moved into the Transy House (similar to the STAR House) and was still marching in Pride Parades and living in the house until her death in 2002. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project continues her legacy, “working to guarantee all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence.”
7 years before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Sylvia Mendez was at the center of a case in which her parents and neighbors fought against segregated education for children of Mexican descent in California. Share on X
4.) Octaviano Larrazola (1859 – 1930)
Octaviano Larrazola was born in Mexico in 1859 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1870. As a champion of civil rights and equal treatment for Hispanic Americans, he began his political career in 1886. Larrazola was eventually elected as the fourth governor of New Mexico in 1918, and 10 years later was elected as the first Hispanic American to serve as a U.S. Senator. He challenged the GOP in the early 20th century, asking, “Why is it not the party in conjunction with the allies in these later days to be entrusted with the task of making the whole world free?”
5.) Sylvia Mendez (1936 – )
Seven years before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Sylvia Mendez was at the center of the Mendez v. Westminster case, in which her parents and neighbors fought against segregated education for children of Mexican descent in Southern California. The case banned segregation in California public schools and paved the way for the national ban that would come. In 2011, Mendez received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama for her advocacy for educational opportunity for “children of all backgrounds and all walks of life.”
6.) Joan Baez (1941 – )
Joan Baez is a Mexican American singer-songwriter who became the moral center of the anti-war and social-justice movements in the 60s. She sang at the 1963 March on Washington for civil rights; visited Vietnam during the war; stood alongside Cesar Chavez on strike for fair wages; participated in the birth of the free speech movement at UC Berkeley; protested capital punishment at San Quentin; marched in Northern Ireland with the Irish Peace People; appeared at rallies for the nuclear freeze movement; co-founded the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence; and founded the Humanitas International Human Rights Committee. She received the American Civil Liberties Union’s Earl Warren Award for her commitment to human and civil rights.
7.) Julia Constanza Burgos Garcia (1914 – 1953)
Julia Constanza Burgos Garcia was born in Puerto Rico and moved to the U.S. in the 1930s. She worked as a teacher, journalist, and art and culture editor for the Pubelos Hispanos newspaper. However, she is most known for her poetry, which she used “to establish herself as a writer of international acclaim and to eradicate injustice.” Way ahead of her time, her poems celebrated her identity as an immigrant Black Latina and spoke to the beauty of her native country. Her work was centered on themes of feminist politics, social justice, and Afro-Caribbean celebration, setting the stage for Latinx writers to come.
8.) Raffi Freedman-Gurspan (1987 – )
Raffi Freedman-Gurspan is a Honduran transgender rights activist and the first openly transgender staffer to work in the White House. Freedman-Gurspan was adopted from Honduras by Jewish parents and self-identifies as an indigenous Central American, a Latina, and as Jewish. Her activist career began at 14, protesting budget cuts outside of the Massachusetts State House. She later worked for the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and has since worked in nonprofit and government sectors for nearly a decade. Freedman-Gurspan is now the Director for External Relations at the National Center for Transgender Equality, leading justice initiatives focused on low-income and transgender people of color.
Raffi Freedman-Gurspan is the first openly transgender White House staffer. She was adopted from Honduras by Jewish parents and self-identifies as an indigenous Central American, a Latina, and as Jewish. Share on X
9.) Sor Juana Inês de la Cruz (1651 – 1695)
Sor Juana Inês de la Cruz was born in Mexico in 1651. She composed her first poem at the age of eight and had comprehensively studied Greek logic and the Nahuatl language by the age of 13. Because she was female, she was not allowed to go to university, so she studied privately and became publicly known throughout Mexico for her array of skills and knowledge. In 1690, one of her letters, which criticized a well-known Jesuit sermon, was published without her permission. She was then criticized for the lack of religious content in her poems, and her reply back is now known as the famous Respuesta a Sor Filotea, often hailed as the first feminist manifesto, defending a woman’s right to education. She is widely considered the first feminist author of the New World.
10.) Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874 – 1938)
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg is an Afro-Puerto Rican writer, activist, and scholar. He was very active in the liberation movements of Puerto Rico and Cuba, founding Las dos Antillas, a cultural and political group that worked for the islands’ independence. In the early 1900s, he refocused his efforts on “bolstering the Black identity and preserving its culture in New York City,” founding the Negro Society for Historical Research in 1911. Schomburg is perhaps most known for his collection of works from the African Diaspora, amassing over 10,000 documents. Today, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of The New York Public Library is one of the foremost research centers on Africa and the Diaspora, with more than 10 million items.
