Ynés Enriquetta Julietta Mexía was born in Washington, DC, where her father worked as a Mexican diplomat. When she was 3, her parents separated, her father returned to Mexico, and she, her mother, and six half-siblings moved around until settling down in Maryland. At 17, after completing her studies, she intended to join a convent but eventually moved to Mexico to supervise her father’s ranch, which she took over after he died. In 1897, at 27, Mexía married her first husband. After he died in 1904, she operated a pet and poultry stock-raising business and remarried. After her second husband bankrupted her company, she divorced him in 1906. Following a mental and physical breakdown, 39 years old Mexía left Mexico to receive medical treatment in San Francisco. There, she became active in the early environmental movement in California and joined the Sierra Club and Save the Redwoods League. She began hiking, went camping, and became interested in nature, specifically plants. In 1921, at 51, Mexía enrolled at UC Berkeley to study botany and began to collect and categorize plants. Four years later, she went on her first plant-collecting expedition to Mexico. Soon, she realized she preferred to work alone and broke off from her group, collecting 500 specimens in two months. During the next 13 years, Mexía traveled the Americas, collecting plants from Tierra del Fuego on the border of Chile and Argentina to the northern regions of Alaska. Mexía stood out not only by the number of expeditions she had or the mileage she covered but also by being an older woman who traveled alone on horseback, wearing trousers, and camping outdoors. Mexía regularly published the documentation of her adventures in the Audubon Society of the Pacific’s newsletter. While not on one of her expeditions, she lectured about them at various scientific organizations. In 1938, Mexía got sick during her expedition in Mexico. She had to cut the trip short and go back to the US. She died from lung cancer the following month at 68. In only 13 years of her career, Mexía collected over 145,000 plant specimens, discovering 500 new species. Read more...

Natalie Diaz was born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, to a Mexican father and Native-American mother. She attended Old Dominion University on a full athletic scholarship and played point guard on the university’s basketball team. After receiving her Bachelor’s degree, she played professional basketball in Europe and Asia before returning to Old Dominion University for an MFA in poetry and fiction. At the time, Diaz used poetry to explore why she wants certain things and why she is afraid of others, reflecting her upbringing in the reservation. She published her poems in various magazines, and in 2012, at the age of 34, she published her first book- When My Brother Was an Aztec. In this award-winning poem collection, she portrayed her experiences as a Native American woman and focused on her brother’s crystal meth addiction. In 2020, at 40, Diaz published her second collection- Postcolonial Love Poem, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in poetry – the first Latina woman to receive the award. In her poetry, Diaz blends personal, cultural, and political references to challenge contemporary American perception. Another interest of Diaz is preserving Native languages, believing that they are the foundation of the American poetic lexicon. As the Fort Mojave Language Recovery Program Director, she works with the last speakers of the Mojave language to document and revitalize the language. Diaz serves as the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University. She is a faculty member of the CantoMundo Retreat and the Board of Trustees for the United States Artists. In 2021, at the age of 43, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Read more...

Adelina “Nina” Otero Warren was born near Los Lunas, New Mexico. Her family was among the early settlers in New Mexico, and her parents were part of the Hispanic elite. When she was 2 years old, her father was killed by an Anglo squatter. A few years later, her mother married an English businessman, and she grew up in a multicultural environment. She was influenced by her mother, who was an advocate for social and educational developments and served as the director of Santa Fe’s Board of Education. At 16, the family relocated to Santa Fe, where she became a socialite. At the age of 26, she married Lieutenant Rawson D. Warren, a cavalry officer who was nine years older than her. Though the marriage did not last long, she kept her x-husband’s last name and called herself a widow, so she would not be stigmatized as a divorced woman.   At 31, Nina moved to NYC to keep house for her brother. There, she became active in Anne Morgan’s settlement house, working alongside the famous suffragist Alice Paul and organizing crafts programs for working-class women. Two years later, her mother died, and Nina returned to Santa Fe to take care of her half-siblings. Upon her arrival, she started working for the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. Soon she became the first Mexican-American state leader of the Congressional Union in New Mexico, raising support from the Spanish-speaking community as well as from the English-speaking community. Using her family connections, she was a successful lobbyist for voting in favor of the Nineteenth Amendment, and she had a key role in its ratification in 1920. In 1922, at the age of 41, Nina ran as the Republican Party nominee for New Mexico to the US House of Representatives – The first Latina to run for the US Congress. During her campaign, she spoke Spanish and advocated for the improvement of education, health care, and welfare services, as well as for the preservation of Hispano heritage and culture. Ultimately, she lost the election by less than 9%, probably because it was discovered that she was a divorcee, not a widow. In 1917 Nina was appointed as the Santa Fe Superintendent of Instruction – one of the first women to serve as government officials in New Mexico. In her 12 years in office, she worked tirelessly to improve the education of Hispano. Read more...

Catherine Cortez was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. She studied finance at the University of Nevada, Reno, and then law at the Gonzaga University School of Law. In 1995, she became the chief of staff of the former Nevada Governor Bob Miller, as well as served as an assistant to the United States Attorney General. During that time, she married Paul Masto, a former Special Agent in the US Secret Service. In 1999, Cortez Masto moved to Washington, DC, for a few years to work as a federal prosecutor. In 2006, 42 years old Cortez Masto won the state Attorney General’s elections, serving full two-term after winning the re-election of 2010, the second woman to serve as Nevada Attorney General. In this position, she focused on social issues such as sex trafficking, elder abuse, domestic violence, and the methamphetamine epidemic. As state attorney general, Cortez Masto investigated a nationwide mortgage-fraud, which the settlement of the case brought to the state more than $1.9 billion. In 2016, Cortez Masto ran for a seat at the US Senate. In her campaign, she asserted topics such as immigration reform, protecting Social Security and Medicare, and raising the minimum wage. She won with 47% of the votes, and when she took office, Cortez Masto became the first Latina in the US Senate and the first woman to represent Nevada. While in office, she advocates for gun control, pro-choice, and federal government limitations on greenhouse gas emissions. She is a member of numerous committees, including the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the Committee on Finance, and the Committee on Indian Affairs. In her efforts to promote women and children, Cortez Masto introduced two bills addressing missing, murdered, and trafficking of Native Americans and Alaska Natives, as well as introduced the Interdiction of Protection of Child Victims of Exploitation and Human Trafficking Act, providing tools for law enforcement officers to recognize and rescue exploited children. Read more...

Rosa Dolores Alverio was born in Humacao, Puerto Rico, and grew up in nearby Juncos. At the age of 5, after her parents divorced, she moved with her mother to NYC. When her mother remarried, she adopted her stepfather’s surname – Moreno. The family settled in Valley Stream, New York, where she took dance classes and paved her way into the entertainment industry. At 11, she began dubbing Spanish-language versions of American films, and at 13, she had her Broadway debut, playing Angelina in Skydrift. Five years later, Moreno had her first big-screen appearance in the movie So Young, So Bad, and after it, she adapted her stage name – Rita Moreno. She acted throughout the 1950s, landing small roles in notable films such as Singin’ in the Rain and The King and I. In 1961, Moreno played Anita’s role in the film adaptation of West Side Story, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress – the first Hispanic woman to win an Oscar. With such accolade in her resume, Moreno thought that she would be able to play less stereotypical characters for her next films, and with no such offer, she did not perform in another movie for the next seven years. At 33, she returned to Broadway, performing in The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, and continued to play in one production after another, winning her Tony in 1975 for her depiction of Googie Gomez in The Ritz. In 1968 Moreno returned to film, starring alongside Marlon Brando in The Night of the Following Day. She continued to steadily appear on screen in different genres, from romantic comedies such as The Four Seasons to dramas such as King of the Corner. Moreno’s first serious role in TV was in 1971 in the children’s series The Electric Company, becoming recognized for shouting the show’s opening line, “Hey, you guys!” and winning a Grammy Award with her fellow cast members. In 1977, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program for her appearance on The Muppet Show, becoming the first Hispanic woman and the third person to win an EGOT – Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Over the years, she made guest appearances on numerous TV shows, including The Love Boat, The Golden Girls, The Nanny, and Miami Vice, and steady roles in various acclaimed shows, such as Sister Pete on Oz and as the matriarch Lydia Riera on One Day at a Time. Read more...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx borough of NYC to a Puerto Rican family. Her political tendencies were recognized from a young age, and in high school, she participated in the National Hispanic Institute’s Lorenzo de Zavala Youth Legislative Session and later served as its Secretary of State. She attended Boston University, graduating cum laude with a BA degree in international relations and economics. While studying in college, she was an intern in Senator Ted Kennedy’s section of foreign affairs and immigration issues. As the only Spanish speaker in the office, she was the one to assist the families who were separated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After college, Ocasio-Cortez returned to the Bronx and worked at the nonprofit National Hispanic Institute, as well as a community organizer, a waitress, and a bartender, helping her mother with fighting a Foreclosure on their home. In 2016, she was a volunteered organizer at Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. She became active with the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, traveling across the country speaking to the communities that have been affected by the change of drinking water in the area. The encounter with the local activists inspired her to work for her community. Not long after, she received a call from Brand New Congress, recruiting her as a progressive candidate for the congressional district election. In April 2018, still working as a waitress, Ocasio-Cortez launched her primary campaign for NYC’s 14th congressional district election – the first person in 14 years to challenge Joe Crowley’s seat in US congress. Under the slogan “The Courage to Change,” she organized an all-volunteer grassroots campaign and did not take corporate donations. With a strong social media presence, she defeated her opponent by almost 15%, becoming the youngest woman ever to serve in the US Congress. Arriving at the House of Representatives with millions of followers on social media, Ocasio-Cortez was appointed by her colleagues to give them social media lessons. In congress, she runs on a progressive platform. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and a loud advocate for social policies, such as abolishing ICE, universal healthcare, gun control, cancellation of student debt, tuition-free public college and trade school, criminal justice reform, and ending the privatization of prisons. She is also promoting climate policies, and together with Senator Ed Markey, she introduced the “Green New Deal” – a plan to switch to renewable energy sources for the entire country to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Read more...

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was born in Lake Jackson, Texas, to a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. From a young age, her father noticed her musical abilities, and at the age of 9, she became the lead singer of her family’s band Selena y Los Dinos. At first, the band played at the family’s restaurant, but when it was bankrupt, they played everywhere they could, from street corners to fairs and weddings. Over time their popularity grew, especially Selena’s. At 13, she recorded her first Tejano music LP album, and by 17, she recorded five more albums and frequently appeared at the popular Spanish radio program – the Johnny Canales Show. At 18, while performing at the Tejano Music Awards, she was discovered by the music producer José Behar of label EMI Latin Records. She released an album every year, getting more and more popular with singles hitting the top US Billboard Regional Mexican Albums chart, the US Billboard Top Latin Songs chart, performing all over the US and Mexico, and winning music awards. In 1993 she released her third studio album “Live!” for which she won Best Mexican/American Album at the 1994 Grammy Award, becoming the first female Tejano artists to win a Grammy. Her successes broke barriers in the Latin music world, and she was referred to as the Queen of Tejano music. In 1990, a fan named Yolanda Saldívar founded the official Selena fan club, and Saldívar started working for Selena. Selena’s father discovered that Saldívar had embezzled more than $30,000 from the fan club. On March 31, 1995, Selena confronted Saldívar in a hotel. Saldívar took a gun out of her purse and shot Selena while she attempted escaping. Selena died on the way to the hospital when she is only 23 years old. About 35,000 fans came to the funeral to pay their last respect while the funeral was broadcasted live by the local radio station.   Read more...

Born in 1930 to a Mexican immigrant family in a small mining town in New Mexico. When she was 3 years old, her parent got divorced. She moved with her mother and two brothers to Stockton, California, to a diverse farm worker’s community. Growing up, she faced racism and discrimination several times. This and her parent’s activism and kindness inspired and shaped her. She finished high school, got married, had two children, and shortly after, got divorced. She finished studying at the local college and became a teacher. Still, after witnessing the poverty conditions of the farmworkers’ families and their brutal working conditions, she decided to change this injustice and started her activism journey. At 25 years old, Huerta became one of the leaders of the Stockton Chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO). During this time, she got married, had five children, but later on, she got a divorce. In the CSO, she met her colleague, Cesar Chavez. Both had shared interest in organizing farmworkers, and in 1962, they co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became United Farm Workers’ Union (UFW). Huerta served as its vice president till 1999. As a UFA leader, Huerta organized, negotiated, and lobbied for the farmworkers. She organized nonviolent rallies, demonstrations, strikes, and boycotts. She stood in the front picket lines facing sexism and sometimes violence. Due to her driving force, the first-ever union contract was signed in 1970. In addition to the fieldwork, she was active at the legislative level, lobbying and promoting California laws to improve immigrants’ and farmworkers’ work conditions. One of her achievements is the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act. During her 70s, she decided to dedicate her activism to women’s rights and campaign to increase the number of women and Latinas running for office. In 2002, she founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and even in her 80s and 90s, she is still traveling across the country, promoting social justice. Read more...

Born in NYC to parents who migrated from Puerto Rico. Soon after her birth, the family relocated back to Puerto Rico, and Rodríguez Trías spent her early years there. When she was 10 years old, they returned to the US, where she experienced racism and discrimination due to her Puerto Rican heritage. Her passion for science and people led her to enroll in medical studies at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan. Influenced by the political environment at the university, she participated in students’ strikes against the school anti-Nationalist policy, and due to her brother’s disapproval and threats to cut off her college expenses, she returned to NYC, got married and had 3 children. At 28, determined to finish her BA degree, Rodríguez Trías returned to the University of Puerto Rico, graduated with highest honors, and continued to UPR’s school of medicine. At the age of 31, soon after having her fourth child, she earned her medical degree. During her residency in San Juan, Rodríguez Trías established the first center for the care of newborn babies in Puerto Rico. Within three years, the hospital’s death rate for newborns decreased by 50%. After divorcing her husband, she came back to NYC and shifted her focus to community medicine. She became the head of the pediatric department at Lincoln Hospital, where she promoted administrative and patient-care issues and raised awareness of cultural matters regarding health care among the Puerto Rican community. In addition to her medical practice, she taught at Columbia and Fordham universities and served as an associate at the Yeshiva University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.   Throughout the 70s’, Rodríguez Trías was an active advocate of the women’s health movement, claiming that women need to bring their feminist perspective to female health issues such as maternal health and abortions. She was one of the founders of the Committee for Abortion Rights, the Women’s Caucus of the American Public Health Association, and the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse. She helped draft the federal sterilization guidelines, which require written consent to sterilization in a language the woman understands and set a waiting period between the consent and the procedure. In the 80s’, Rodríguez Trías was appointed as the medical director of the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute. In this position, her focal point was women from minority groups who were infected with HIV. In the next decade, she served as health co-director of the Pacific Institute for Women’s Health, was a founding member of the Women’s Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus of the American Public Health Association, and became the first Latina to serve as the president of the organization. Rodríguez Trías was a key figure in the expansion of public health services for women and children in the US as well as in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. She died of cancer at the age of 72, a year after receiving the Presidential Citizen’s Medal for her work with people with AIDS and HIV. Read more...

Born as Ray Rivera in NYC to parents of Venezuelan and Puerto Rican descent. Her father abandoned the family soon after she was born, and she became an orphan at the age of 3 after her mother committed suicide. Afterward, Rivera was raised by her grandmother, who disapproved of her feminine behavior. Bullied both at home and school, 11 years old Rivera left her grandmother’s house to live on the streets, where she worked as a child prostitute. A local community of drag queens took her under their protection and gave her the name “Sylvia.” At 18, after the Stonewall riots, Rivera joined the Gay Activists Alliance, where she fought for gay rights and especially for the inclusion of drag queens in the LGBT community. Together with Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to support homeless queer youth. Her focus as a gay liberation advocate was on the rights of people of color, homeless youth, and gay prisoners. She was also a loud supporter of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York – a law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, education, housing, credit, public accommodations, and the exercise of civil rights. In 1973, Rivera and Johnson were banned from a gay rights rally because “drag queens giving the community a bad name”. Rivera burst onto the stage and made a speech in which she criticized the gay community for ignoring trans people and marginalizing the already repressed. After the rally, she had a breakdown, and she attempted suicide. She was found and saved, disbanded STAR, and left activism for almost 20 years. The death of Marsha P. Johnson in 1992 had a significant impact on her, returning to substance abuse and living on the streets. But once again, Rivera was managed to rehabilitate herself and resumed her political activity. She worked at the food pantry of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, gave speeches promoting Trans rights, and in 2000, she traveled to Italy for the Millennium March, where she was announced as the “mother of all gay people.” In 2001, Rivera renewed STAR as a political organization, which fought for trans-inclusive and promoted the NYC Transgender Rights Bill. Even on her deathbed, she kept on fighting for the inclusion of trans and gender-nonconforming people. She died from liver cancer at the age of 51. Read more...