Hispanic Heritage at SBVC & Beyond

César Chávez

César Chávez (March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) (born Cesario Estrada Chavez) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union. Ideologically, his world-view combined leftist politics with Catholic social teachings.

He became an icon for organized labor and leftist groups in the U.S. and posthumously became a "folk saint" among Mexican Americans. His birthday is a federal commemorative holiday in several U.S. states, while many places are named after him, and in 1994 he posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

 

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Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta 

Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta (April 10, 1930 – Present) is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with César Chávez, is a co-founder of the United Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers' contract that was created after the strike.

Huerta has received numerous awards for her community service and advocacy for workers', immigrants', and women's rights, including the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Outstanding American Award, the United States Presidential Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was the first Latina inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, in 1993.

Huerta is the originator of the phrase "Sí, se puede". As a role model to many in the Latino community, Huerta is the subject of many corridos (Mexican or Mexican-American ballads) and murals.

 

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Richard Anthony “Cheech” Marin

Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin (July 13, 1946 - Present) is an American comedian, actor, musician, and activist. He gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s with Tommy Chong and as Don Johnson's partner, Insp. Joe Dominguez, on Nash Bridges. He has also voiced characters in several Disney films, including Oliver & Company, The Lion King, the Cars series, Coco and Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

Marin is an avid collector of Chicano art and started his collection in the 1980s. Two national touring exhibitions have featured works from his private collection. He feels that it's important to "use his celebrity status to call attention to what he saw as an under-appreciated and under-represented style of art". In collaboration with the city of Riverside, California, and the Riverside Art Museum, Marin established The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry, in the City of Riverside, which opened June 18, 2022.

 

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Portrait of Cheech Marin
Lin Manuel Miranda Smiling

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda (January 16, 1980 - Present) is an American songwriter, actor, filmmaker and playwright. He is known for creating the Broadway musicals In the Heights (2005) and Hamilton (2015), and the soundtracks for the animated films Moana (2016), Vivo, and Encanto (both 2021). His numerous accolades include three Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards, five Grammy Awards, two Laurence Olivier Awards, an Annie Award, a MacArthur Fellowship Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Pulitzer Prize.

His television work includes recurring roles on The Electric Company (2009–2010) and His Dark Materials (2019–2022). Miranda hosted Saturday Night Live in 2016 and had a guest role on Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2018; he was nominated twice for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. He has been politically active on behalf of Puerto Rico. Miranda met with politicians in 2016 to speak out in favor of debt relief for Puerto Rico and raised funds for rescue efforts and disaster relief after Hurricane Maria in 2017.

 

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (October 13, 1989 - Present), also known by her initials AOC, is an American politician and activist. She has served as the U.S. representative for New York's 14th congressional district since 2019, as a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes the eastern part of the Bronx, portions of north-central Queens, and Rikers Island in New York City

Taking office at age 29, Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever to serve in the United States Congress. She has been noted for her substantial social media presence relative to her fellow members of Congress. Ocasio-Cortez attended Boston University, where she double-majored in international relations and economics, graduating cum laude. She was previously an activist and worked as a waitress and bartender before running for Congress in 2018.

 

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez

 
Selena Quintanilla

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (April 16, 1971 – March 31, 1995), known mononymously as Selena, was an American Tejano singer. Referred to as the "Queen of Tejano Music", her contributions to music and fashion made her one of the most celebrated Mexican-American entertainers of the late 20th century. In 2020, Billboard magazine put her in third place on their list of "Greatest Latino Artists of All Time", based on both Latin albums and Latin songs chart. Media outlets called her the "Tejano Madonna" for her clothing choices. She also ranks among the most influential Latin artists of all time and is credited for catapulting the Tejano genre into the mainstream market.

Selena released Entre a Mi Mundo (1992), which peaked at number one on the US Billboard Regional Mexican Albums chart for eight consecutive months. The album's commercial success led music critics to call it the "breakthrough" recording of her musical career. One of its singles, "Como la Flor", became one of her most popular signature songs. Live! (1993) won Best Mexican/American Album at the 1994 Grammy Awards, becoming the first recording by a female Tejano artist to do so. In 1994, she released Amor Prohibido, which became one of the best-selling Latin albums in the United States. It was critically acclaimed as being responsible for Tejano music's first marketable era as it became one of the most popular Latin music subgenres at the time.

 

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Dr. Tom Rivera

Dr. Tom M. Rivera (September 22, 1939 – March 8, 2022), or "Dr. Tom,” as he was commonly known, had over 47 years of experience in education, including at the elementary school, community college, and university levels. Rivera served as a Counselor/Human Relation Coordinator at San Bernardino Valley College from 1970 to 1972. He retired from California State University, San Bernardino in 2011, after serving nearly 40 years as an administrator. There he initiated numerous programs to motivate underrepresented students to graduate from college.

A defining moment in Tom's life was when Susan Castro, Frank Acosta, Henry Vasquez, and Bill Allison asked him to help them start an organization that would address the dropout rate of Hispanics. Today, 38 years later, the Inland Empire Future Leaders Program continues as an all-volunteer leadership training program for 8th and 9th graders.

In the last decade of his life, Tom became a co-researcher in the South Colton Oral History Project with friends Frank Acosta and Henry Vasquez. Their interviews with long-time South Colton residents leave a historical record of early life in that segregated community. Tom's impact on a multitude of lives was not obstructed by Guillain Barre Syndrome, which left him wheelchair-bound for nearly 40 years. He was positivity personified, with no stop signs in his head.

 

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Dr. Tom M. Rivera

 
Sylvia Rivera

Sylvia Rivera (July 2, 1951 – February 19, 2002) was an American gay liberation and transgender rights activist who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag queen for most of her life and later as a transgender person, participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front.

With close friend Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women.

As an active member of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, Rivera ministered through the Church's food pantry, which provides food to hungry people. As well, recalling her life as a child on the streets, she remained a passionate advocate for queer youth. MCC New York has a food pantry called the Sylvia Rivera Food Pantry, and its queer youth shelter is called Sylvia's Place, both in her honor.

 

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Ruben Salazar

Ruben Salazar (March 3, 1928 – August 29, 1970) was a civil rights activist and a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, the first Mexican journalist from mainstream media to cover the Chicano community, in the US.

Salazar's strong support for the Chicano movement as a Mexican-American distinguished him early on from other journalists in mainstream media. With a strong disparity of racial minorities in news organizations nationwide, Salazar felt it was his personal and professional responsibility to give necessary attention to the actions led by his fellow Chicanos in East Los Angeles. In February 1970, just six months prior to his death, Salazar made his support for the Chicano movement particularly clear when he authored an article in the Los Angeles Times, titled, "Who Is A Chicano? And What Is It the Chicanos Want?" In this piece, Salazar not only describes the evolving identity of Chicanos and the historic importance of the movement, but he details his frustration with the lack of Mexican-American representation among the elected representatives in the Los Angeles city council. Salazar writes, "Mexican-Americans, though large in numbers, are so politically impotent that in Los Angeles, where the country's largest single concentration of Spanish-speaking live, they have no one of their own on the City Council. This in a city politically sophisticated enough to have three Negro council-men.

 

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Ruben Salazar
Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Maria Sotomayor

Sonia Maria Sotomayor (June 25, 1954 - Present) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since August 8, 2009. She is the third woman, first woman of color, the first Hispanic, and first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court

In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice David Souter. Her nomination was confirmed by the Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68–31. While on the Court, Sotomayor has supported the informal liberal bloc of justices when they divide along the commonly perceived ideological lines. During her Supreme Court tenure, Sotomayor has been identified with concern for the rights of defendants and criminal justice reform, and is known for her impassioned dissents on issues of race, ethnic, and gender identity, including in Schuette v. BAMN, Utah v. Strieff, and Trump v. Hawaii.

 

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