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Hispanic Heritage


Prince George’s County Memorial Library System celebrates and honors the fundamental value and dignity of all individuals.

We proudly celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15 by facilitating resources, programs, and services that support an intercultural dialogue within our diverse communities in Prince George’s County. Hispanic Heritage Week started in 1968 under President Lyndon Johnson to celebrate the histories, cultures, and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. It was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on September 15. The day of September 15 is the anniversary of independence for several Latin American countries.

La Biblioteca de Prince George reconoce, honra y celebra la dignidad y el valor esencial de todo ser humano.

Celebramos el Mes de la Herencia Hispana del 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre. Durante esta celebración, nuestro sistema de bibliotecas ofrece una serie de recursos, programas y servicios que promueven el diálogo intercultural entre las comunidades del Condado de Prince George. En los Estados Unidos, esta celebración se debe al Presidente Lyndon Johnson quien proclamó la Semana Nacional de la Herencia Hispana en 1968, con el fin de celebrar las historias, las culturas y las contribuciones de aquellas personas que provienen de España, México, América Central, América del Sur y el Caribe. En 1988, el Presidente Ronald Reagan mostró interés por incluir el aniversario de la Independencia de algunos países latinoamericanos y, por tanto, constituyó el Mes Nacional de la Herencia Hispana, entre el 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre. Durante esta celebración, nuestro sistema de bibliotecas ofrece una serie de recursos, programas y servicios que promueven el diálogo intercultural entre las comunidades del Condado de Prince George.

Sonia Sotomayor



Sonia Sotomayor

First-generation American Sonia Sotomayor's parents, Juan and Celina, emigrated from Puerto Rico during World War II. They met in New York, married, and lived in the Bronx housing projects where they had Sotomayor and her younger brother, Juan Jr. Her 42-year-old father, a tool-and-die maker with a third-grade education, was an alcoholic who died when she was 9. Her mother raised the two children alone on her salary from Prospect Hospital, insisting the children excel in school and become fluent in English, something Sotomayor's father had never done. She studied and worked diligently from the set of encyclopedias her mother purchased--the only set of encyclopedias in the housing project--learning to master the language of her birth country.

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Julián Castro



Julián Castro

Julián Castro was elected mayor of San Antonio, Texas, in 2009 at the age of 35. This gave him the distinction of being the youngest person ever elected mayor of a top 50 city, as measured by metro area population, in American history. Castro subsequently emerged on the national political scene in 2014 when President Barack Obama appointed him as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Since leaving that post, Castro remained active in the political area, most notably by announcing in early 2019 his intention to run for president in the 2020 election. However, on January 2, 2020, Castro removed himself from the presidential race.

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Ellen Ochoa



Ellen Ochoa

Ellen Ochoa (born 1958) is an American scientist and former astronaut considered a specialist in optics and optical recognition in robotics. Ochoa is noted both for her distinguished work in inventions and patents and for her role in American space exploration. She is the veteran of four space shuttle flights. In 2012 Ochoa became the director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Among Ochoa's optical systems innovations was a device that detected flaws and image recognition apparatus. In the late 1980s Ochoa began working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as an optical specialist. After leading a project team, Ochoa was selected for NASA's space flight program. She made her first flight on the space shuttle Discovery in April of 1993, becoming the first Hispanic woman astronaut.

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Luis Munoz Marin



Luis Munoz Marin

Widely recognized as "the father of modern-day Puerto Rico," Luis Munoz Marin served as the island's first elected governor from 1948 until early 1965, when he surrendered the governor's mansion to Popular Democratic Party protégé Robert Sanchez Vilella. Although as a young man he had set his sights on a career as a journalist and poet, Munoz Marin soon found himself drawn into island politics. He at first campaigned for independence from the United States but later modified his stand and guided the island to commonwealth status in 1952. Munoz Marin also spearheaded much-needed economic reforms for Puerto Rico and was the architect of Operation Bootstrap, which sharply accelerated economic growth on the island. Thomas Aitken Jr., in his biography of Munoz Marin, Poet in the Fortress, described the Puerto Rican statesman as a combination of opposites: "Poetry and politics, toughness and tenderheartedness, idealism and practicality, the colossal energy of the doer and the contemplative nature of the thinker."

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Antonia Novello



Antonia Novello

Antonia Coello Novello was the first woman and the first Hispanic to be appointed Surgeon General of the United States. Noted for her philosophy of "good science, good sense" and for her approachability, Novello was dedicated to the prevention of AIDS, substance abuse, and smoking, as well as to the education of the American public. Her special concerns were for women, children, and Hispanics--populations often overlooked by public health services.

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Archbishop Oscar Romero



Archbishop Oscar Romero

Monsignor Oscar Romero y Galdamez, fourth archbishop of San Salvador, was assassinated while presiding at a memorial Mass in the Carmelite chapel of the Hospital de la Divina Providencia on March 24, 1980. The Archbishop was standing behind the altar, preparing the gifts of the offerty, when two mercenaries approached the chapel and fired a single shot from a U.S. military assault rifle. Archbishop Romero died within minutes from shock and blood loss. He died as a martyr and a prophet, as the greatest source of hope for millions of oppressed and impoverished Salvadorans, and as the greatest threat to the greed and arrogance of the oligarchy of 14 families that ruled El Salvador as if it were their own fiefdom.

Romero had undergone a Metanoia that transformed him from a timid defender of non- controversial virtues into a towering champion of the faith and of the faithful. He had discovered, in his own words: “The word of God is like the light of the sun. It illuminates beautiful things, but also things which we would rather not see.”

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Sylvia Rivera



Sylvia Rivera

A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising, Sylvia Rivera was a tireless advocate for those silenced and disregarded by larger movements. Throughout her life, she fought against the exclusion of transgender people, especially transgender people of color, from the larger movement for gay rights.

Rivera was born in New York City in 1951 to a father from Puerto Rico and a mother from Venezuela. She was assigned male at birth. Rivera had an incredibly difficult childhood. Her father was absent and her mother died by suicide when Rivera was 3 years old. Raised by her grandmother, Rivera began experimenting with clothing and makeup at a young age. She was beaten for doing so and, after being attacked on a school playground in sixth grade by another student, suspended from school for a week. Rivera ran away from home at age 11 and became a victim of sexual exploitation around 42nd Street.

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Jorge Ramos



Jorge Ramos

A powerful influence on Latinos and a star news anchor and reporter, Jorge Ramos is Spanish-language television's most durable personality. In his reporting, television appearances and debates, and freelance writing, Ramos molds opinion concerning the perils of immigrating to the United States and the importance to Americans of the growing bilingual Hispanic minority. Familiar to fans of Spanish-language evening news in Texas, California, and Florida, he nets top ratings and viewer loyalty for incisive news from Latin America and for hard-edged interviews with prime figures from politics, current events, and the arts. His two decades of on-camera work have been about more than the delivery of information: to Ramos, telecasting is a mission, a vehicle for social change.

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Tito Puente



Tito Puente

Tito Puente , byname of Ernesto Antonio Puente, Jr., (born April 20, 1923, New York, New York, U.S.—died May 31, 2000, New York City), American bandleader, composer, and musician who was one of the leading figures in Latin jazz. His bravura showmanship and string of mambo dance hits in the 1950s earned him the nickname “King of Mambo.”

The son of Puerto Rican immigrants, Puente grew up in New York City’s Spanish Harlem. At age 13 he became a professional musician, and he eventually learned to play a number of instruments, including the piano, saxophone, vibraphone, and timbales (paired high-pitched drums). After an apprenticeship in the historic Machito Orchestra (a New York-based Latin jazz group established in 1939), he served in the navy during World War II. Following his discharge, Puente studied at the Juilliard School.

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Gloria Anzaldúa



Gloria Anzaldúa

Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was an author and an academic whose work had a major influence on feminist theory and queer theory. She was the coeditor of the collection This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981), which is still seen as an important feminist work. Anzaldúa died in 2004 from complications related to diabetes.

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Joan Baez



Joan Baez

The voice can be a powerful instrument in music and social activism. For Joan Baez, through many years of performance, writing, and speaking out, the voice is a symbol of an individual's power to effect change. She was born in Staten Island, New York, January 9, 1941, the daughter of Dr. Albert Baez, a physicist. Baez's autobiography, And a Voice to Sing With, details her childhood as a faculty child in Ithaca, New York, and in Bagdad, Redlands, and Palo Alto, California, where she attended high school and began to play the guitar. Relocated to the Boston area, where her father had joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she attended Boston University and began to perform professionally at small clubs, such as Tulla's Coffee Grinder. Her two years of apprenticeship in the Boston area brought her to the attention of Bob Gibson, who invited her to participate in the 1959 Newport Folk Festival.

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Juan Felipe Herrera



Juan Felipe Herrera

Juan Felipe Herrera was acclaimed "one of the finest, most innovative, and most challenging contemporary Chicano poets," by Lauro H. Flores in Dictionary of Literary Biography. In books such as Rebozos of Love and Exiles of Desire, the award-winning Herrera gives voice to the Chicano experience, exhorting his people in a mixture of Spanish and English to be proud of their heritage, his language at once direct and sometimes playful. Herrera's more recent poetry collections for adults, while extending beyond the bounds of the Chicano movement, often hark back to the author's personal experience of growing up a Chicano. Blending poetry with narrative prose in his 1997 memoir Mayan Drifter, Herrera records a visit to the Mexico of his roots. Herrera "is a story-teller, a surrealist, and a polemicist all at once," summed up Marvin Bell in Boston Review, "and as a writer he goes beyond the sometimes brittle and insular thought model we are taught to recognize as poetry into an array of forms for play and politics."

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Lizzie Velásquez



Lizzie Velásquez

Lizzie Velásquez is an American author and motivational speaker. Velásquez was born with a unique congenital disease that prevents her from accumulating body fat. She gained fame after retaliating against a group of cyberbullies who made her the subject of a mean-spirited YouTube video dubbing her the "world's ugliest woman" when she was just 17 years old. Velásquez took to public speaking as a response to this cyberbullying. She also authored three books geared toward teenagers that detail the struggles she has experienced in a society so focused on outer beauty. Velásquez was the subject of a documentary titled A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velásquez Story, which premiered at film festivals in early 2015.

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Rodolfo Gonzales



Rodolfo Gonzales

Professional boxer, 1947-55; former bail bondsman; political activist and businessperson (including ownership of a neighborhood bar), beginning in 1955. Denver Democratic Party, captain of Chicano district, 1957, coordinator of Colorado Viva Kennedy presidential campaign, 1960. Los Voluntarios (civic organization), founder, 1963; Crusade for Justice, founder, 1966; War on Poverty, chairperson, 1966, and publisher of the newspaper El Gallo.

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Raffi Freedman-Gurspan



Raffi Freedman-Gurspan

Raffi Freedman-Gurspan is a Honduran-born, American-raised federal government official, working as the outreach and recruitment director in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. A former policy adviser for the National Center for Transgender Equality, Freedman-Gurspan is the first openly transgender person to hold a White House position. Observers interpreted her hiring as part of a concerted effort on the part of President Barack Obama's administration to increase the visibility and awareness of sexual and gender minority rights issues.

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Sandra Cisneros



Sandra Cisneros

Born in Chicago, Cisneros was the only daughter among seven children. Concerning her childhood, Cisneros recalled that because her brothers attempted to control her and expected her to assume a traditional female role, she often felt like she had "seven fathers." The family frequently moved between the United States and Mexico because of her father's homesickness for his native country and his devotion to his mother who lived there. Consequently, Cisneros often felt homeless and displaced: "Because we moved so much, and always in neighborhoods that appeared like France after World War II--empty lots and burned-out buildings--I retreated inside myself." She began to read extensively, finding comfort in such works as Virginia Lee Burton's The Little House and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Cisneros periodically wrote poems and stories throughout her childhood and adolescence, but she did not find her literary voice until attending the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop in the late 1970s.

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Sophie Cruz



Sophie Cruz

Sophie Cruz is a young American activist. A child of undocumented Mexican immigrants, Cruz worried that her parents would be deported from the United States, so in 2015 she wrote a letter to Pope Francis asking him for help with U.S. immigration laws. In January of 2017, the young girl gave a speech at the Women's March in Washington, DC, after President Donald Trump took office.

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Gabriel García Márquez



Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez (born 1928) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, and journalist whose works earned him the reputation of being the greatest living writer of Castilian in Spain and Latin America.

Born in Aracata, Magdalena, Gabriel García Márquez received his early education and baccalaureate degree from the Liceo Nacional of Zipaquirá in 1946. That year he started working as a newspaper editor for El Universal in Cartagena. In 1948 he moved to Barranquilla, where he was editor of El Heraldo until 1952. Then he became editor of the liberal newspaper El Espectador in Bogotá during repressive eras of the conservative dictators Laureano Gómez and his successor, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla.

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Isabel Allende



Isabel Allende

The author of several novels and a short fiction collection, as well as plays and stories for children, Isabel Allende (born 1942) has received international acclaim for her writing.

Allende earned the Quality Paperback Book Club New Voice Award nomination for her debut novel, La casa de los espíritus (1982; The House of the Spirits)--which became a best seller in Spain and West Germany in the 1980s and a 1994 movie--and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize nomination for De amor y de sombra (1984; Of Love and Shadows). In 1988 Allende's third novel, Eva Luna, was voted One of the Year's Best Books by Library Journal.

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Laura Esquivel



Laura Esquivel

Like Water for Chocolate, a unique novel in the form of a cookbook by the Mexican writer Laura Esquivel, became one of the surprise literary hits of the 1990s and spawned one of the most successful foreign-language films of all time in the United States. Esquivel followed up that novel with other works that, if less consistently acclaimed, displayed equal originality. Like her Chilean contemporary Isabel Allende, Esquivel put a feminist twist on the important Latin American literary trend of "magical realism," embedding supernatural elements symbolic of deep forces inside conventionally realistic narratives. With her sense of humor and her winning way of describing family dynamics in Like Water for Chocolate, however, Esquivel merged magical realism with a storyteller's common touch.

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Elizabeth Acevedo



Elizabeth Acevedo

Elizabeth Acevedo is the youngest child and only daughter of Dominican immigrants. She received her undergraduate degree in the performing arts and master's degree in writing. Acevedo is a writer, poet, fiction writer, and performer who has traveled on tour around the world and throughout the United States, including renowned venues such as Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, South Africa's State Theatre, the Bozar, or Centre for Fine Arts, in Brussels, and the National Library of Kosovo. She is noted for her slam poetry performances and is a National Slam Champion. Acevedo represented Washington, D.C., in the 2016 Women of the World Poetry Slam contest, placing eighth.

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Eva Longoria



Eva Longoria

Eva Longoria rose to fame in 2004 with the role of Gabrielle Solis in television's runaway hit series Desperate Housewives. Once considered the ugly duckling of her family, the actress had come to be known for her beauty. And while she was enjoying the perks of her new-found celebrity, Longoria recognized how lucky she was.

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America Ferrera



America Ferrera

America Ferrera broke the mold for Latina film stars thanks to her acclaimed performance in 2002's Real Women Have Curves. Ferrera's figure perfectly embodied the title's sentiment, and she went on to appear in a number of films and her own television series Ugly Betty. The daughter of Honduran immigrants, Ferrera is happy to serve as a role model for women of all shapes and colors, especially when she recalled her own formative years. Speaking to Elizabeth Weitzman about her younger years in Interview, the actress said, "I went through a lot of self-doubt. I never turned on the TV and saw a Latina woman with an average body."

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Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons



Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons

Lucy E. Parsons (c. 1851 – 1942) was an American social anarchist and later anarcho-communist. Her early life is shrouded in mystery: she herself said she was of mixed Mexican and Native American ancestry; historians believe she was born to an African-American slave, possibly in Virginia, then married a black freedman in Texas. In addition to Parsons, she went by different surnames during her life including Carter, Diaz, Gonzalez and Hull. She met Albert Parsons in Waco, Texas, and claimed to have married him although no records have been found. They moved to Chicago together around 1873 and Parsons' politics were shaped by the harsh repression of the Chicago railroad strike of 1877. She argued for labor organization and class struggle, writing polemical texts and speaking publicly at events. She joined the International Workingmen's Association and later the Knights of Labor, as well as setting up the Chicago Working Women's Union with her friend Lizzie Swank, alongside other women.

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Ricky Martin



Ricky Martin

On the edge of the new millennium, Puerto Rican pop sensation Ricky Martin almost by himself gave Latino music an international face. An electrifying performance at the 1999 Grammy Awards launched Martin into worldwide super-stardom. As Entertainment Weekly's Andrew Essex reported, "his leather-pants, electro-pelvis version of 'La Copa de la Vida' single-handedly goosed a very dull [Grammy] telecast, earning him a standing ovation." It earned him a legion of fans, as well, who quickly snapped up copies of Martin's CDs the next day.

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Lin-Manuel Miranda



Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda is an American playwright, actor, composer, and performer. His 2007 play In the Heights helped to launch his career and shoot him to stardom. He became best known, however, as the creator of the critically acclaimed and popular musical Hamilton, for which he received various awards, including two Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2018, he costarred in the Disney live-action musical Mary Poppins Returns. He then signed on to star in the adaptation of Philip Pullman's fantasy novel series His Dark Materials, scheduled for release on HBO in 2019.

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Jennifer Lopez



Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez appeared as an overnight sensation when she burst onto the entertainment scene in the mid-1990s. She was a talented, well-rounded modern woman, with pizzazz and good looks, plus singing, dancing, and acting accomplishments to her credit. A veteran of music videos, television, live stage shows, and commercial modeling, Lopez appeared in only a handful of minor film roles before she suddenly rocketed to stardom in the role of the murdered Tejano singing sensation Selena Quintanilla Perez. When Selena was released in theaters, Lopez emerged instantly as one of Hollywood's most popular leading ladies. When Lopez released her first CD in 1998, the album sold more than two million copies by the year's end. With projects in fashion, film, philanthropy, television, and music, Lopez added American Idol judge to her long list of accomplishments when she joined the panel of celebrity judges in 2011. Lopez left the show after two seasons in 2012 only to return once more in 2014. She also released her eighth studio album that year, A.K.A. and signed on to star in the NBC crime series Shades of Blue, which premiered in 2016. Two years later, Lopez returned to the big screen with the comedy Second Act, which hit theaters in November of 2018.

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Dara Torres



Dara Torres

Every Olympics produces a star, and the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, China, made Dara Torres a household name. The 41-year-old became the only American swimmer ever to compete in five Olympics, and she also became the first woman over the age of 40 to race in an Olympic pool event. In Beijing Torres set the fastest times of her career, and went home with three new Olympic medals for a career total of 12, including a gold medal she won as a teenager as part of the U.S. women's relay team at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

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Roberto Clemente



Roberto Clemente

A dazzling baseball superstar of surpassing skills, Roberto Clemente (1934-1972) was the first great Latin American player to captivate the major leagues. His life was cut short when his plane, delivering relief supplies to earthquake-devastated Nicaragua, crashed on the last day of 1972.

A Puerto Rican national hero, Hall of Fame outfielder Roberto Clemente spent his sparkling 18-year baseball career with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He enchanted fans with his powerful throwing arm, graceful outfield defense, and superb hitting. Clemente won Gold Glove Awards, symbolizing defensive supremacy, every year from their inception in 1961, until his death in 1972. He also was elected to the National League All-Star team 12 times. Clemente was an outspoken advocate for Hispanic rights and a humanitarian. His untimely death came while he was leading a mission of mercy.

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Our celebration highlights our multicultural collection of print and digital information resources that includes books, magazines, and movies, in English, Spanish, and French. These resources offer a variety of opportunities to learn about the heritage, traditions, literature, art, and music, articulated by the multi ethnic communities of Latin America that embrace the Indigenous Peoples, such as the Mayan; the mixed-race identities of Indigenous, European, African and Asian heritage; the multiple ethnic and regional/national identities, such as the Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Mexican; and the pan-ethnic Latinx.

Please join our celebration by checking out a variety of resources from our catalog, by contributing with your thoughts and ideas throughout our programs, and by enjoying the multiple services provided by your Prince George’s County Memorial Library System.

En Español + En Español -

Con motivo de esta celebración, nuestro sistema de bibliotecas resalta el acceso gratuito de sus recursos multiculturales, tanto impresos como digitales, y ofrece una gran variedad de libros, revistas y películas publicados en inglés, español y francés. Esta variedad de recursos le permite a nuestros usuarios tener acceso a la herencia, las tradiciones, la literatura, el arte y la música, difundidas por las comunidades multiétnicas de América Latina, entre ellas: las comunidades Indígenas, como los Mayas; las identidades multiétnicas de los indígenas, europeos, africanos y asiáticas; las identidades étnicas y regionales/nacionales como los afro-caribeños y los afro-mexicanos; y por las identidades Latinx pan-étnicas.

Acompáñenos a celebrar el Mes de la Herencia Hispana al seleccionar nuestros recursos en el catálogo; al participar con sus ideas y consultas en nuestros programas; y al disfrutar de los múltiples servicios brindados por la Biblioteca del Condado de Prince George.


Events

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Music Playlist on Freegal

Hispanic Heritage Freegal Playlist

Celebrate diversity and Latin culture with a mixtape by PGCMLS staff. Stream it for free with your library card on Freegal.

The Library Proudly Celebrates Hispanic Heritage

Kanopy Videos for Hispanic Heritage

Kanopy

Kanopy is an online video streaming platform with 26,000 movies, doh2cumentaries, and indie and foreign films from over hundreds of producers including The Criterion Collection, The Great Courses, Kino Lorber, PBS, and thousands of independent filmmakers. Users are limited to 10 videos streamed every month.

Voices of Our Culture

Hear more great talk on the PGCMLS These Books Made Me Podcast.


Libby Reading for Hispanic Heritage

Libby: the one-tap reading app

Browse and borrow eBooks, eAudiobooks, magazines at home or on-the-go! The Libby app has a wide range of customization and accessibility options, allowing you to create your perfect reading experience.

Please note: Since February 23, 2022, the OverDrive app has no longer been available in the Google Play, Apple, and Microsoft app stores. You can now use the Libby app to access the same collection of PGCMLS eBooks and eAudiobooks on your Android, iOS, or Microsoft devices.

Important Dates in Latino-American History Since 1940

1

1940s

As WWII sets in, many Latinos enlist in the U.S. military—as a proportion, the largest ethnic group serving in the war.


1943

On August 23, Macario Garcia became the first Mexican national to receive a U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor, yet he was refused service at the Oasis Café near his home in Texas.

2

3

1944

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 is passed, providing settlements for veterans. Mexican American veterans, however, have trouble receiving these benefits.

Operation Bootstrap, a program initiated by Puerto Rico to encourage industrialization and to meet U.S. labor demands, fuels a large wave of migrant workers to the United States.


1947

Puerto Rico gains political autonomy when it becomes a commonwealth.

4

5

1948

Dr. Hector Garcia, a witness to racial injustice, begins holding meetings for Mexican Americans to voice their concerns, and in March they establish a new Mexican American movement: the American GI Forum.

This group gets national attention after a Latino soldier killed in action, Pvt. Felix Z. Longoria, is refused burial in Texas. Then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, appalled by this blatant bigotry, makes arrangements for Longoria to be buried at the prestigious Arlington National Cemetery.


1954

In the case Hernandez v. The State of Texas, the Supreme Court recognizes that Latinos are suffering inequality and profound discrimination, paving the way for Hispanic Americans to use legal means to fight for their equality. This is the first Supreme Court case briefed and argued by Mexican American attorneys.

6

7

1956

Nearly a dozen bills are introduced into the Senate to preserve segregation. Henry B. Gonzalez, determined to stop them, stages an effective filibuster, speaking for 22 straight hours. He would later represent San Antonio in Congress.


1958

The landmark production of West Side Story premieres on Broadway, chronicling the racial tensions of the '40s and '50s.

8

9

1960

John F. Kennedy runs for President, with Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate. Johnson enlists the help of Dr. Hector Garcia to help carry the Latino vote. Garcia forms "Viva Kennedy" clubs, greatly aiding Kennedy's narrow victory.


1961

Aspira (Aspire) is founded to promote the education of Hispanic youth and acquires a national following, serving Puerto Ricans wherever they live in large numbers.

West Side Story is made into a film; the role of Anita goes to a Puerto Rican, Rita Moreno, who takes home an Academy Award for her performance.

10

11

1962

Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta form the National Farm Workers Association.


1963

On November 22, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, leaving Lyndon B. Johnson as successor. President Johnson appoints more Mexican Americans to positions in government than any president before; he passes landmark legislation advocating desegregation.

12

13

1964

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act establishes affirmative action programs, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender, creed, race, or ethnic background: "to achieve equality of employment opportunities and remove barriers that have operated in the past" (Title VII). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is also established through Title VII to prevent job discrimination.


1966

Striking workers are subjected to physical and verbal attacks throughout their peaceful demonstrations, and on March 16, the Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor held hearings in Delano.

March 17, the morning following the hearings, Cesar Chavez sets out with 100 farm workers to begin his pilgrimage to the San Joaquin Valley. After 25 days, their numbers swell from hundreds, to an army of thousands.

On Easter Sunday, the state capital is finally in sight. With public sympathy mounting and the spring growing season upon them, growers finally agree to meet with union representatives.

14

15

1968

The observation of Hispanic Heritage Week began as a way to celebrate the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.


1968

On March 6, a walkout is planned and coordinated among East L.A. high schools. Approximately 10,000 students peacefully walk out of four schools and are joined by parents and supporters. Police are sent to maintain order—and things get out of hand.

Following the police riot, on March 7 the students walked out again. The walkouts continue for two weeks until the demands are met.

Chicano high school students stage walkouts—first in San Antonio, then in 39 towns across Texas, eventually spreading to nearly 100 high schools in 10 states.

Jose Angel Gutierrez is the mastermind behind much of this activism.

16

17

1970

Herman Badillo is elected into the U.S. House of Representatives, making him the first Puerto Rican to serve in Congress.

In Crystal City, Texas, Jose Angel Gutierrez forms a political party, La Raza Unida ("The United Race").

Elections in April see an unprecedented victory for Chicanos. Gutierrez is elected county judge and La Raza Unida controls not only the school board, but city and county government as well.


1973

Miami officially becomes bilingual, following a referendum sponsored by its growing Cuban community.

Maurice Ferre becomes mayor of Miami, making him the first Puerto Rican to lead a major city in the mainland United States.

18

19

1974

Willie Velasquez of San Antonio organizes thousands of voter registration drives across the Southwest, encouraging the Latino population to vote. He notices, however, that the problem is not the number of Latino voters, but the electoral system. He later would file voting rights lawsuits—never losing a case.

Congress passes the Equal Educational Opportunity Act to create equality in public schools by offering bilingual education to Hispanic students.


1988

Voter rights advocate Willie Velasquez dies in May, and is posthumously honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest civilian peacetime award.

20

21

1988

President Ronald Reagan expanded the observation of Hispanic Heritage Week to Hispanic Heritage Month, starting on September 15 and ending on October 15.


1990

President George Bush appoints the first woman and first Hispanic surgeon general of the United States: Antonia C. Novello.

22

23

1993

Ellen Ochoa becomes the first Hispanic woman to go to space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.

President Bill Clinton names Federico Peña as Secretary of Transportation and Henry Cisneros as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, making them both the first Hispanics to hold those positions. He also appoints Norma Cantú, former Director of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, to the position of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights within the Department of Education. Twenty-five other Hispanics are appointed to positions needing Senate confirmation under this presidency.


1996

Eliseo Medina becomes the first Mexican American Vice President of the Service Employees International Union.

24

25

2003

Hispanics are pronounced the nation's largest minority group—surpassing African Americans.

CHLI is the premier organization founded by members of Congress to advance the Hispanic Community's Economic Progress with a focus on social responsibility and global competitiveness.


2005

Antonio Villaraigosa became the first Mexican American mayor of Los Angeles in more than a century.

26

27

2008

The Freedom Tower is designated a National Historic Landmark, considered the "Ellis Island of the South" for its role as the Cuban Assistance Center in Miami during 1962–1974, offering nationally sanctioned relief to Cuban refugees.


2009

Puerto Rican Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in as the first Latina Supreme Court Justice.

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2010

Marco Rubio, a second-generation Cuban American, is elected U.S. Senator from Florida.


2013

Hispanics make up about one-sixth of the U.S. population—nearly 51 million people.

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2018

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic population reaches 59.9 million people. By the middle of the century, the Latino population is expected to reach 127 million—nearly 30 percent of the projected population of the country.

Work Cited:

Timeline | Latino Americans

Community Resources

Use your library card number to log into these free online resources. Type in the suggested search terms in parentheses to access a wide range of Hispanic American and Latino content. Tutorials for the online resources are here

Non-Fiction for Young Children

Non-Fiction for Teens

Non-Fiction for Adults

Fiction for Young Children

Fiction for Teens

Fiction for Adults