Hispanic Americans have long contributed to politics, science, movies and TV, the arts, and sports, among many other industries. Latin American talent includes musicians who have exploded onto the scene like Bad Bunny did in the mid-2010s and civil rights activists like Sylvia Mendez who helped desegregate schools. Famous Hispanic actors have taken on beloved fictional roles, like Jenna Ortega did with the iconic character Wednesday Addams, and true stories in biopics—looking at you, Jennifer Lopez, and your Selena portrayal. And some Hispanic Americans are known for creating masterful works of art like Lin-Manuel Miranda did with his Broadway hit Hamilton.
All of these accomplishments center the stories and experiences of the Latinx community to entertain mass audiences and, in some cases, help shape American history. To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 through October 15, get to know some of the most notable Latin American figures who have influenced pop culture, politics, and beyond.
Rita Moreno
Rita Moreno, 91, has been a household name for decades, ever since she captivated audiences with her fierce portrayal of Anita in 1961’s West Side Story. Moreno would go on to cement her name in history by winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role, becoming the first Hispanic American woman to win an Academy Award.
Born Rosa Alverio on December 11, 1931, in Humacao, Puerto Rico, the actor later changed her last name to match her stepfather’s after she immigrated to New York City with her mom in 1936. Moreno made her Broadway debut in Skydrift at age 13, with her career taking off after that.
The pioneering actor went on to star in dozens of film, TV, and stage shows through her decades-long career. She became only the third person ever to achieve the coveted EGOT, winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award by 1977. In 2019, she added a P to the achievement with a Peabody Award, one of only three performers to accomplish this feat.
Cesar Chavez
Born in Arizona to a Mexican American family, Cesar Chavez grew up around the people he later helped through his activism. The defining moment in Chavez’s life came when his family moved to California during the Great Depression to become farm workers, inspiring his fight for farmers rights.
After receiving an honorable discharge from the Navy, Chavez worked as a lumber handler in San Jose, where he helped set up a chapter of the Community Service Organization, a pivotal civil rights organization for Latinos in California. Chavez made the CSO his full-time job after he was laid off, meeting fellow activist Dolores Huerta while traveling to chapters around the state of California. The two went on to found the National Farm Workers Association, later the United Farm Workers labor union, becoming primary figures for Latin American civil rights.
Although Chavez later received criticism from within for his singular control of the union, including times in which he fired those who opposed him, the activist is still regarded as an important civil rights leader and posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom the year after his death, in 1993, at age 66.
Selena Quintanilla
Selena Quintanilla was a Mexican American singer born in Texas on April 16, 1971. Known simply as Selena, the Queen of Tejana Music released several hits including “I Could Fall in Love,” “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” “Dreaming of You,” “Amor Prohibido,” and “Como La Flor.” Selena won a Grammy award for Best Mexican American Album in 1994, making her the first Tejana to win in this category.
Tragically, Selena’s life was cut short when she was shot by one of her employees and fan club manager, Yolanda Saldívar, on March 31, 1995. Droves of fans were left bereaved as they mourned the loss of the beloved singer who passed days before her 24th birthday.
Selena’s superstardom inspired movies, shows, and product launches that include 1997’s Selena, starring Jennifer Lopez in the titular role as well as Netflix’s Selena: The Series, which released in 2020. That same year, MAC Cosmetics released its second Selena-inspired makeup line after its first Selena-themed collection immediately sold out online and in-stores in 2016.
Selena’s legacy continues to live on through the profound impact she had on Latin American music and culture. In 2021, she won a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
In just a few short years, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has become one of the major leading voices for Hispanic Americans in politics. Also known by her initials AOC, the 33-year-old was born in 1989 in the Bronx, one of New York City’s boroughs, to a Puerto Rican mother and a Bronx-born father of Puerto Rican descent. She excelled through high school after her family moved to the suburbs and was in her second year at Boston College when her dad tragically died of lung cancer in 2008.
After graduating college in 2011, Ocasio-Cortez returned to the Bronx and later campaigned for Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. She visited Flint, Michigan, and the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota after the general election, where she attended the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and decided to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ocasio-Cortez eventually challenged Democratic incumbent Joe Crowley, the first to do so since 2004, and pulled off a surprise primary win in June 2018. Through a grassroots campaign, she became the youngest person elected into the House during the midterm elections that year. Since her arrival in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez’s vocal support of left-leaning ideas, including co-sponsoring the Green New Deal to combat climate change, has made her a popular figure in progressive politics. She was reelected to serve New York’s 14th congressional district in 2020 and 2022—running unopposed in the latter.
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Roberto Clemente
A pioneer of the game, Roberto Clemente paved the way for Hispanic Americans in Major League Baseball. The prolific right fielder was born in 1934 in Puerto Rico, joined the island’s amateur baseball league when he was 16, and made the professional league two years later at 18.
Another two years and Clemente was off to Montreal to play in the minor leagues in 1954. That same year, the Pittsburgh Pirates scouted him during training in Richmond, Virginia, and Clemente was called up to the majors by November of that year in the rookie draft. Clemente, wearing the iconic number 21, went on to become the first Latin American and Caribbean to win a World Series as a starting player in 1960.
The athlete died in a plane crash in 1972 while on his way to Nicaragua to deliver aid to earthquake victims when he was 38. In his honor, the MLB renamed the Commissioner’s Award to the Roberto Clemente Award, given to the player who all-around exemplifies sportsmanship and community outreach. He was also inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, making him the first Latin American and Caribbean honoree.
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Julia Alvarez
Dominican American writer Julia Alvarez, 73, has been enchanting readers with her words since the early 1990s.
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
She was born in New York City in 1950 before her family moved to the Dominican Republic when she was a baby. They stayed there throughout Alvarez’s childhood until her father’s involvement in a failed attempt to overthrow the militant dictator forced the family to flee to the United States in 1960.
The traumatic event has since made its way into several of Alvarez’s works, including the poem “Exile” in which she recounts the night her family fled. She has become one of the most critically revered Latina writers and has published poems, novels, and essays throughout her career. Some of her most famous books include In the Time of Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. President Barack Obama presented Alvarez the National Medal of Arts during a 2014 ceremony.
Jennifer Lopez
“Jenny from the Block” has always paid tribute to her Latin roots throughout her success. Jennifer Lopez was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1969 to Puerto Rican parents who supported her ambitions to become a singer. She started taking singing and dancing lessons at 5 years old. This changed when Lopez dropped out of college to pursue acting, with her parents strongly opposing her aspirations.
After touring the world with various productions, Lopez made her breakthrough performance in Selena. The 1997 movie, in which she played the beloved Mexican singer Selena Quintanilla, earned Lopez praise and put her on the fast track to superstardom.
Since then, the 54-year-old has remained one of the most notable Hispanic American figures in the movie and music industry, often proving her triple threat status. She also earned critical acclaim for her role in 2019’s Hustlers, which generated Oscar buzz that resulted in strong opposition to her being snubbed for the awards show. In 2020, Lopez received the career-defining opportunity to perform during the Super Bowl Halftime Show with Shakira.
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Sylvia Rivera
In addition to being an influential Hispanic American, drag queen Sylvia Rivera is also an iconic figure in the gay and transgender rights movement.
Rivera, born in New York City in 1951 of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan descent, had a rough upbringing. Her father left the family when she was a baby, and her mother later died by suicide when Rivera was just 3 years old. Then still known as Ray, the young child was raised by her Venezuelan grandmother who strongly rejected the beginnings of Rivera’s transgender identity formation.
Rivera was forced to leave home when she was 10, making her way through the rough streets of New York City. She often faced discrimination and violence, compelling her to begin her transgender and gay rights activism. “We were sick and tired of being put down,” Rivera wrote in The Question of Equality: Lesbian and Gay Politics in America Since Stonewall. “Things just started happening.”
Rivera and her friend Marsha P. Johnson, both sex workers, made an indelible mark in the advancement of LGBTQ rights. Both are credited with forming the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), later changed to Transgender, which helped house and support LGBTQ youth and sex workers in Manhattan. They also worked with the Gay Liberation Front, founded after the Stonewall Riot in 1969.
Rivera died at age 50 in February 2002 due to complications of liver cancer. Alongside Johnson, the women have since been heralded as the mothers of the gay rights movement. Rivera was honored as one of the 50 activists included in the Stonewall National Monument, the first national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights.
Ellen Ochoa
Ellen Ochoa, 65, made her mark by becoming the first Hispanic American woman to go to space with a nine-day mission in 1993. Ochoa was born in 1958 in Los Angeles, years after her paternal grandparents immigrated from Mexico. She first obtained her physics degree from San Diego State University and by 1985 also had earned her master’s and doctorate degrees from Stanford University’s Department of Electrical Engineering.
Through her impressive research work, NASA selected Ochoa to become an astronaut in 1991. Two years later, Ochoa made history on board the space shuttle Discovery on a mission to study the Earth’s ozone layer. She later completed three more missions.
Ochoa became the first Hispanic American director of the Johnson Space Center in 2013, only the second woman to take the helm. After retiring with 30 years of service, Ochoa continues to advocate for women in STEM. “I think we need all the best and brightest people working in science and engineering fields, and that is certainly not limited to men or white men or anything like that,” she told NBC News in 2019.
Bad Bunny
Three-time Grammy-winning artist Bad Bunny, whose legal name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, has had a meteoric rise to fame with singles like “Soy Peor” and collaborations with big name musicians including Cardi B, J Balvin, and Drake.
The 29-year-old reggaetonero, sometimes affectionately called Benito, was born and raised in Puerto Rico and showed an interest in music early in life. At 14, Bad Bunny began writing songs and posting them on SoundCloud. He was signed to a record label in 2016.
Bad Bunny won his first Grammy in 2021 for the Best Latin Pop or Urban Album for YHLQMDLG (short for Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana, or “I do what I want”). In 2022, his winning streak continued with the Grammy for Best Música Urbana Album for El Último Tour Del Mundo, and this year, he won again in that category for his album Un Verano Sin Ti.
Marco Rubio
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has made his mark in politics as a leading member of the Republican party. A Miami native, the 52-year-old was born in 1971 to Cuban immigrants who fled the Batista regime in 1956, two years before Fidel Castro took over through the Cuban Revolution. Although Rubio obtained citizenship through his birth, his parents didn’t become naturalized citizens until 1975.
Rubio went to Tarkio College in Missouri for one year on a football scholarship in 1989 before returning to Florida and later transferring to the University of Florida. He earned his bachelor’s degree in political science in 1993 there and later earned his law degree from the University of Miami in 1996.
His career in politics started just three years later when he won a run-off election for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives. He rose through the ranks and became House Speaker in 2005, the first Cuban American to do so.
The politician announced his intention to run for U.S. Senate in 2009 and was elected the next year during the midterm elections. Rubio later entered the Republican presidential primary race in April 2015, becoming one of the first Hispanic Americans to seek the highest office.
Although Rubio ended his campaign in March 2016 after placing second in Florida, the senator did pick up three primary victories in Minnesota, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C. He pivoted and ran for Senate reelection that year instead, beating out his Democrat opponent Patrick Murphy with 52 percent of the vote. Rubio won a third term in 2022.
Sonia Sotomayor
A Bronx native of Puerto Rican descent, 69-year-old Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic American to serve as a member of the Supreme Court.
Sotomayor was born in 1954 in New York City, where she grew up in a predominantly Catholic and Puerto Rican community. She quickly made education a priority through her mother’s insistence after her dad died when she was 9 years old. “I was going to college, and I was going to become an attorney, and I knew that when I was 10. 10. That’s no jest,” she told New York Daily News in 1998.
The future judge went on to graduate valedictorian from high school and earned a full scholarship to Princeton University. She graduated in 1976 after establishing herself as a student advocate, working hard to ensure Princeton began hiring Latin American faculty. She went on to Yale Law School and graduated in 1979, earning her acceptance to the New York Bar the next year.
After working for over four years as an assistant district attorney in New York and stepping away to work in private practice, Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991 and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by President Bill Clinton in 1997. Twelve years later, Sotomayor made history when President Barack Obama picked her as his first nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009.
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Lin-Manuel Miranda
![lin manuel miranda smiling for a photograph at a film screening](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/lin-manuel-miranda-poses-at-the-nyc-opening-night-screening-news-photo-1694708205.jpg?crop=0.941xw:1.00xh;0.0590xw,0&resize=980:* "Lin-Manuel Miranda appears at an opening screening of "Theater Camp"")
Few Hispanic Americans have made a bigger impact in recent pop culture than Lin-Manuel Miranda. He was born in 1980 in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City to Puerto Rican parents, who immigrated to New York to pursue academics. Miranda’s mother, Luz Towns-Miranda, is a clinical psychologist, and his father, Luis A. Miranda Jr., is a Democratic Party consultant and immigrant advocate.
Miranda, 43, was raised around musicals and started writing his first title at Wesleyan University in 1999 during his sophomore year. In the Heights, loosely based on his own experiences growing up, opened on Broadway in March 2008. Miranda won his first Tony Award that summer after the show received 13 nominations and took home four, including for Best Musical. Influenced by his upbringing in the predominantly Latin neighborhood Washington Heights and his frequent vacations in Puerto Rico, the musical was heralded for featuring a largely Latin American cast with characters often singing and speaking in Spanish.
But Miranda’s largest mark on culture to date came when his musical Hamilton opened on Broadway in 2015. Following the life of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda reimagined the beginnings of America told by all actors of color, whose ancestors didn’t have a say in how the country was built. The hip-hop musical quickly became one of the most profitable shows to ever hit Broadway. Miranda won two Tony Awards—Best Original Musical Score and Best Book of a Musical—for Hamilton, which was named Best Musical.
Miranda has also built a successful movie career. He directed the 2021 film Tick, Tick... Boom! starring Andrew Garfield and also composed music for the hit 2021 Disney movie Encanto.
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Ted Cruz
Much like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz has elevated the representation of Hispanic Americans in Congress. The 52-year-old was born Rafael Edward Cruz in Calgary, Canada, in 1970 to an American mother and a Cuban father who had been living in Canada for three years. His father initially left the family and moved to Texas, though his parents reconciled for a time, and the family relocated to Houston in 1974.
The future politician graduated valedictorian from his high school and went to Princeton, where he earned a bachelor’s in public policy in 1992. Cruz went on to Harvard Law School, obtaining his degree in 1995.
Cruz quickly entered politics, joining George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 1999 to assist building Bush’s legal team during the Florida presidential recounts. After serving as Texas Solicitor General from 2003 to 2008, Cruz stepped away to work in private practice. He returned to public policy when he was elected a U.S. Senator of Texas in the 2012 election.
Now a well-known national politician, Cruz ran for president in 2016. He entered the primary race in March 2015, winning 12 states and receiving 7.8 million votes during his White House bid. He suspended his campaign in May 2016, weeks before the Republican National Convention that made future-President Donald Trump’s nomination official.
Cruz has said he will seek a third term in the Senate in the 2024 elections.
Dolores Huerta
At 93 years old, Dolores Huerta still stands as a giant in the fight for Hispanic American labor rights. Born in 1930, the New Mexico native of Mexican descent grew up in a farm worker community in Stockton, California, with her mom and two brothers. She briefly worked as an elementary school teacher after attending college but before setting off on the path of civil rights activism.
Huerta joined the Community Service Organization, where she later met fellow activist Cesar Chavez. She co-founded the Agricultural Workers Association in 1960 and collaborated with Chavez to found the National Farm Workers Association in 1962.
Her activism continued in California, where she made a name for herself by supporting and leading various strikes for workers’ rights. She later stepped away from the union to focus on women’s rights after she was badly beaten by a San Francisco police officer during a peaceful raid, resulting in a long recovery.
Huerta now runs the Dolores Huerta Foundation and has received several accolades, including an inaugural Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights in 1998 from President Bill Clinton and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012. In 2017, Huerta was the subject of the PBS documentary Dolores about her life and activism.
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Julián Castro
Democrat Julián Castro has been another rising star in American politics. Castro, who turns 49 on September 16, is of Mexican descent and was born with his twin brother, Joaquin, in San Antonio in 1974. His roots in Texas trace back to 1920, when his grandmother immigrated as a child to live with extended family. Castro credits his mother, a Chicana political activist, for his life in public service. He counted her influence as the reason why he and his brother, a U.S. Representative for Texas, are politicians.
“Growing up, she would take us to a lot of rallies and organizational meetings and other things that are very boring for an 8-, 9-, 10-year-old,” Castro told The New York Times in 2012. “What I did get from my mother was a very strong sense that if you did public policy right, and you did well in public service, that it’s a positive influence on people’s lives.”
He graduated from Stanford University in 1996, interning for Clinton administration at the White House between his sophomore and junior year, and later attended Harvard Law School, earning his degree in 2000.
Castro was elected to San Antonio City Council the next year and ran for mayor in 2005, coming in second by a small margin of votes. His second mayoral campaign, in 2009, which followed a stint running his own law practice. Castro was reelected in 2011 and 2013. He resigned as mayor in 2014 after accepting President Barack Obama’s offer to become the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He served in the role until Obama’s term ended in 2017.
Castro was one of the first Democrats to announce his 2020 presidential campaign, making it official in January 2019. A year later, Castro suspended his campaign and endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Gloria Estefan
Singer Gloria Estefan, 66, is often synonymous with Latin music in the United States. Born in Cuba in 1957, Estefan’s family fled to Miami during the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Her father enlisted in the military shortly after they immigrated and took part in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, where he was captured by his cousin and held prisoner for two years.
While performing in a church ensemble in 1975, Estefan first met her future husband, Emilio Estefan, who had recently formed a band in Miami. She and her cousin were invited to join his band and renamed it Miami Sound Machine, leading to hits like “Conga,” “Anything for You,” “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You,” and “Hot Summer Nights.” The band’s name was dropped in 1989, with Gloria embarking on a successful solo career ever since.
Gloria married Emilio in 1976, and the couple welcomed two children, Nayib and Emily. Her lengthy career has earned her three Grammy Awards and a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2015, as well as the Kennedy Center Honors in 2017. The musical On Your Feet, telling the story of her and Emilio’s life, premiered on Broadway in 2015.
In June 2023, Estefan became the first Hispanic woman to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has also recently took a turn in movies, having a voice role in 2021’s Vivo and appearing Father of the Bride in 2022.
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Jenna Ortega
Jenna Ortega, 21, is a Hispanic actor of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent who is widely known for her Emmy-nominated portrayal of Wednesday Addams in Netflix’s wildly successful series Wednesday. She is only the third Latina leading actress to be nominated for an Emmy.
Born and raised in California, Ortega began acting from a young age and has since appeared in several TV shows and movies including Disney’s Stuck in the Middle and the rebooted Scream franchise. Next year, she will star in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice 2.
Ortega has been vocal about where her family comes from and her pride in her roots. In a 2016 essay for PopSugar, she described how some of her family had migrated into the United States for better opportunities and how when she started acting, “it was hard” because there weren’t many roles she fit into. Ortega also noted that she’s seen an increasing number of Latinas in leading roles more recently but knows there’s still room for improvement “There are not as many Hispanic leading ladies out there as I would like, but I want to help change that in the future,” she wrote. Eight years later, she’s well on her way to doing just that.
Carolina Herrera
Venezuelan-born designer Carolina Herrera has been creating haute couture pieces for her eponymous brand since 1981 when she moved from her hometown of Caracas to New York City to pursue a career in fashion. The 84-year-old, whose business only had 20 dresses when she first launched it, has outfitted former first ladies including Michelle Obama and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and has a large A-list fanbase that includes actors Zendaya and Lupita Nyong’o, singer Katy Perry, and Princess Kate Middleton.
Herrera’s line is especially beloved among brides, and some of her high-fashion wedding gowns are priced upward of $10,000. Herrera is proud of her Latin heritage and has implemented elements of it into her designs including using the colors of the Venezuelan flag in some of her pieces.
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Sylvia Mendez
Civil rights activist Sylvia Mendez, 87, is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent and was at the center of Mendez v. Westminster in 1947. Mendez’s parents brought the lawsuit against a school in Westminster, California, when it refused to allow Mendez and her siblings to enroll because they were Hispanic.
Other Hispanic families joined the case, and in 1946, a judge ruled in favor of ending the segregation of Hispanic kids across four school districts. The ruling helped usher in a ban on segregation in all public California schools in 1947. Mendez’s case set the precedent eight years later for 1954’s landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education that segregating students based on race was unconstitutional.
Mendez went on to enroll in a newly desegregated Westminster elementary school, eventually attending Orange Coast Community College and then California State University (Los Angeles) where she earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing. For her work as a civil rights activist, including speaking at schools about the value and importance of getting an education and lobbying politicians to include Mendez v. Westminster in California history books, Barack Obama awarded Mendez the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.
