Hispanic Heritage Month

What Happened: Hispanics, including Mestizos, indigenous and Afro-descended people from the area today known as Mexico, explored North America almost a century before the British first founded Jamestown. Why It Matters: Hispanics aren't foreigners in this country. Latinos, particularly those with Mesoamerican roots, have deeper roots in North America than those with other European backgrounds.

Carlos Santana, a Mexican-American guitar player who created the “World Rock”, and considered as one of the best guitar player of all time (in the magazine Rolling Stone ranking, notably)

And it is the same situation for South-American directors who are often at the helm of blockbusters (Alfonso Cuaron with Gravity, Robert Rodriguez with the Spy Kids trilogy etc.). These people can play in or direct movies which are more personal or with a little budget. Nevertheless, even if it is less and less the case nowadays, some Hispanic actors and actresses stay confined to roles of Hispanics.

*The importance of this celebration can be emphasized by the fact that the movie 007 : Spectre takes place during this day (at the beginning).

Miguel Jontel Pimentel better known as Miguel is an American singer, songwriter and producer. Miguel was born and raised in Los Angeles (more precisely in San Pedro). He is the son of a Mexican American father and an African American mother. Since the age of  13, the young Miguel has been fascinated by all kinds of music, notably Funk, Soul, and Latino music. He is often compared to Prince. Miguel reached international recognition with his title Adorn, which obtained a Grammy Award for the best R&B song in 2012. Moreover, he recorded songs with famous singers like Mariah Carey, Kendrick Lamar or Alicia Keys. Once again, Miguel is a good example of integration for a young person who is native of immigrated parents, and he proves that people with South American origins are not only reduced to practice their art with a ‘’Latino style’’, but that they can do music or films like all the other Americans, regardless of their origins.

Matt Biondi, 11 Time Olympic Medalist for the USA, son of a Venezuelan mother and an Italian father.

I’m Mexican ?

2. Counties where the Hispanic population is now the largest in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2011.

Oscar Guttierez Rubio, better known as Rey Misterio is a Mexican-American professional wrestler. He integrated the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE, the main professional wrestling corporation in the USA) in 2002, and he was fastly considered as one of the most talented wrestlers of his generation. Actually, he imported the style of the ‘’Mexican Lucha Libre’’ in the United States. It was a real revolution in the wrestling world. Indeed, the American public had never seen such acrobatic jumps and it was really astonishing for them. He became a star in the USA, and the new idol of wrestling fans, young or not. Rey Misterio represents well the growing integration of South-American Hispanic culture in the USA, and it proves that this integration is expanding in all fields, in sport as well as movies, literature, etc.

Marco Rubio,  Youngest Senator from Florida of the US History

Roberto Clemente remains one of the most famous baseball players in the history of the MLB (the professional league of baseball in the USA). Native of Porto Rico, he was at the top of American professional baseball with the Pittsburgh’s Pirates, before dying tragically in an airplane crash. Even if he was Portorican, he had a black skin, and he was one of the first players able to play in the “white” league, which became a mixed league. He is one of the rare players to figure in the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum. This baseball player is another example of integration for an Hispanic (here, a Portorican) person in the United States.

Blood in, Blood Out, (also known as Bound by Honour) is a movie directed in 1993 by Taylor Hackford. The particularity of this film is that its director is not native of Latin America, but he was keen to do it. This film is produced by one of the companies of Walt Disney Pictures. The movie was rated R at the release (prohibited for minors) because of the violence between Mexican gangs in Los Angeles which is depicted without concessions. The film was considered as a precursor work for its topic which was previously unseen in the 90′s.

The TV Series Narcos, released last year on the Video-On-Demand platform Netflix, illustrates the increasing interest in Hispanic culture in the USA. Indeed, the fact that Netflix dedicates an entire TV Series to Colombian characters shows that this Hispanic culture is nowadays a fully-fledged part of the American culture. Moreover, the choice of Netflix to let the characters talk in Spanish (with English subtitles) between them, instead of choosing American actors illustrates well the will of the American producers to promote Hispanic culture in the United States.

Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer, politician, and  journalist who received the Nobel Prize in Litterature in 2010. Known for his particular literary style, which is almost in opposition with his fellows (the South-American authors of his generation are know for a style entiltled ‘’Magic Realism’’) he wrote some famous novel as The Green House, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, or The Time of the Hero. In spite of his communistic politic opinion, and his support at the Fidel Castro system in Cuba in the 1990, his novels are particularly appreciated by the American readership. Some of his novels were adapted for film in the United States, which proves his influence in the American culture, art, etc., and more largely, the influence of the South-American culture in the American society.

Alejandro González Iñárritu is a Mexican film director, producer, and screenwriter. Already known in Mexico, and by a small public in Europe for movies like Amores Perros, 21 Grams, or Babel, he reached worldwide renown with his two American movies (produced and directed in the USA) Birdman and The Revenant. This man is a good example of success of a South American person in the USA and he shows the influence of this population in the United States.