2023 Hispanic Heritage Month Spotlight Profiles

September 15 to October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month. Check out our profiles of influential Hispanic figures below.

Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)

A true American hero, Cesar Chavez was a civil rights, Latino and farm labor leader, a genuinely religious and spiritual figure, a community organizer and social entrepreneur, a champion of militant nonviolent social change and a crusader for the environment and consumer rights. Cesar’s career in community organizing began in 1952 when he was recruited and trained by Fred Ross, a legendary community organizer who was forming the San Jose chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO), the most prominent Latino civil rights group of its time. Cesar spent 10 years with the CSO, coordinating voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, leading campaigns against racial and economic discrimination and organizing new CSO chapters across California. Learn more.

Originally Published by Cesar Chavez Foundation

Julia Alvarez (1950-present)

Dominican American writer Julia Alvarez, 73, has been enchanting readers with her words since the early 1990s. 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. Learn more.

Originally Published by Biography.com

Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002)

A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising, Sylvia Rivera was a tireless advocate for those silenced and disregarded by larger movements. Throughout her life, she fought against the exclusion of transgender people, especially transgender people of color, from the larger movement for gay rights. In 1963, Rivera met Marsha P. Johnson and it changed her life. Johnson, an African American self-identified drag queen and activist, was also battling exclusion in a movement for gay rights that did not embrace her gender expression. The two were actively involved in the Stonewall Inn uprising on June 28, 1969 when patrons of the Stonewall Inn—a gay bar in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan—rebuffed a police raid and set a new tone for the gay rights movement. For six nights, the 17-year-old Rivera refused to go home or to sleep, saying “I’m not missing a minute of this—it's the revolution!” Learn more.

Originally Published by the National Women’s History Museum

Juan Felipe Herrera (1948-present)

Juan Felipe Herrera was the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015-2017—the first Latino to be appointed to the post. The son of migrant farm workers in California, Herrera’s was a nomadic childhood. His mother recited poetry and taught him songs from the Mexican Revolution. Inspired by her spirit, he has spent his life, as The Washington Post put it, “crossing borders, erasing boundaries and expanding the American chorus.” Herrera’s political activism dates back to his college efforts to bring visibility to Mexican- Americans, and their stories and histories, as a member of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. He continues his work as a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth. Learn more.

Originally Published by Smith College

Antonia Novello (1944-present)

When Dr. Antonia Novello was appointed Surgeon General of the United States by President George Bush in 1990, she was the first woman—and the first Hispanic—ever to hold that office. Her appointment came after nearly two decades of public service at the National Institutes of Health, where she took a role in drafting national legislation regarding organ transplantation. Through the prestige and authority of this office, the Surgeon General can more effectively exhort and educate the public on pervasive health issues. As surgeon general, Novello focused on the health of young people, women, and minorities. She issued reports and spoke out on under-age drinking, smoking, drug abuse AIDS (especially among women and adolescents), childhood immunization and injury prevention, and improved health care for Hispanics and other minorities. Learn more.

Originally Published by the National Institutes of Health