Hispanic Heritage Month: 5 Hispanics who have marked US history

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(CNN Spanish) - The month of Hispanic Heritage has already begun and during this month we will celebrate and recognize the contributions that Hispanics have made in the culture of the United States.

When we speak of Hispanics or Latinos, we refer to the almost 60 million people in the United States who identify themselves as such, whose roots are “of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South American or Central American origin or other Spanish culture, regardless of race” .

In 1968 this was known as Hispanic Heritage Week, but it was in 1988, with President Ronald Reagan, when he became a month of celebrations to highlight the history, language, future and past of Latinos in the United States .

For this year, the organizers of Hispanic Heritage Month seek to highlight the contributions that Hispanics have made to the culture of the United States, as many of them have served “with honor and value in all aspects” of the country's formation, said Veronica Vasquez, president of National Image Inc, which organizes this celebration.

These are just some of the most prominent Latinos or Hispanics who have helped shape the history of the United States.

• Instagram rewards five Latinos in Hispanic Heritage Month

Luis Walter Álvarez

Luis Walter Álvarez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968. (Credit: NOBELPRIZE).

This American physicist, inventor and professor (San Francisco, 1911) won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 “for his decisive contributions to elementary particle physics, in particular the discovery of a large number of resonant states, made possible by his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chambers and data analysis. ”

Although Alvarez was born in the United States, his grandfather was an immigrant doctor who lived in Spain and Cuba and later moved to the United States, according to the Hispanic Heritage Month page.

During World War II, Álvarez created, among others, a system that prevents enemy submarines from discovering that they had been detected by microwave radars in the air. In addition, in the 1940s, he developed a device with which he measured the effect of the explosion of the Little Boy bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

Álvarez died on September 1, 1988 due to complications derived from cancer.

Baruch Benacerraf

Baruch Benacerraf, Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1980. (Credit: NOBELPRIZE)

Baruch Benacerraf was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1920 and after moving to Paris in 1925, they arrived in the United States in 1940.

Benacerraf won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1980 for the discovery "about genetically determined structures on the cell surface that regulate immunological reactions."

He studied Science at Columbia University and later studied Medicine at the University of Virginia. The Venezuelan was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971, won the Rous-Whipple Award of the American Association of Pathologists in 1985, the National Medal of Science in 1990, the Gold-Headed Cane Award of the Association American Research Pathology in 1996, and the Charles A. Dana Award for pioneering achievements in Health and Education in 1996.

He died in August 2011 of pneumonia in Massachusetts.

• That was Roberto Clemente, the first Latino to arrive at the Baseball Hall of Fame

Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor (New York, 1954) was the first Hispanic judge of the United States Supreme Court (2009), the first Hispanic person to be appointed to the New York judicial branch, and the third woman to be appointed throughout history of the Supreme Court of that country.

She is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents, who moved to the United States in the 1940s.

Between 1992 and 1998, she was nominated by President George HW Bush as an associate judge in the Southern District Court of New York, and for 1995 issues a court order ending the Major League strike that lasted eight months.

The judge has been an adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law and a law professor at Columbia University.

Franklin Ramón Chang Díaz

Chang Díaz (San José, Costa Rica; 1950) began his career at NASA in 1980 when he was selected to be an astronaut. The Costa Rican made his first trip aboard Space SHuttle in 1986 and participated in six more missions between 1989 and 2002.

According to NASA, when Chang Diaz arrived in the United States without knowing English and with $ 50,000 in his pocket in 1968. Upon arriving in the United States, he went to study at Hartford High School, and although he failed the first two quarters, in the Third and fourth he did so well, that he won a scholarship at the University of Connecticut, says NASA, where he graduated in 1973 from Mechanical Engineering Sciences. He later obtained a doctorate in applied plasma physics and fusion technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977.

Upon entering NASA, where he became an astronaut in 1981, Chang-Díaz initiated an investigation into the design and control of nuclear reactors and was also a specialist in the STS-91 mission.

He retired from NASA in 2005.

Emilio and Gloria Estefan

Under the Presidency of Barack Obama, Emilio and Gloria Estefan were awarded the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, the greatest civil honor in that country, which is given to “individuals who have made meritorious contributions to the security or interests of United States, world peace or cultural efforts, ”according to the White House.

Emilio Estefan was awarded for his long career as a producer and musician who, with his decades-long work, helped to train countless artists and popularize Latin music in the world.

On the other hand Gloria Estefan, was awarded for presenting Latin music "to a global audience." The White House highlighted its work with which until that moment, 2015, it had won seven Grammy Awards and for being one of the artists that has sold the most records in the history of music, with 100 million albums sold worldwide.

Other Featured Hispanics

The Hispanic Heritage Month Organization has highlighted, among others, several Latinos who have contributed to the culture and politics of the United States.

Among them are Nydia Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican woman to be elected to the United States House of Representatives; Julian Castro, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Barack Obama administration between 2014 and 2017; Felix Longoria and Hector P. Garcia, who helped give recognition to Hispanic veterans of World War II; Cesar Chávez and Dolores Huerta, co-founders of the United Farm Workers Union of the United States; Richard E. Cavazos, first Hispanic four-star general; and Oscar de la Hoya, world boxing champion.

Hispanic Heritage Month