Joseph Marion Hernandez (1788 – 1857)
Known For: First Hispanic American to serve in U.S. Congress.

Hernandez was an American politician, plantation owner, and soldier. He was the first Delegate from the Florida Territory and a member of the Whig Party. He served from September 1822 to March 1823.

Philip Bazaar (Died on December 28, 1923)
Known For: Receiving a Congressional Medal of Honor in 1865.

Bazaar was Born in Chile, South America. He became a United States Navy Seaman and disguised himself during the battle for Fort Fisher of the American Civil War. He was awarded for his valor with Congressional Medal of Honor in 1865. 

David G. Farragut (1801 – 1870)
Known For: He became the first U.S. naval officer ever to be awarded the rank of admiral in 1866.

Farragut is remembered for his order at the Battle of Mobile Bay, which is paraphrased as “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” in U.S. Navy tradition. He was a Southern Unionist who strongly opposed Southern secession and remained loyal to the Union after the outbreak of the Civil War.

Estevan Enrique “Steve” Bellán (1849 – 1932)
Known For: The first Latin American born individual to play Major League Baseball in the United States.

Bellán a Cuban-American professional baseball player. He was a third baseman for six seasons in the United States, three in the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) from 1868 to 1870, and three in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP) from 1871 to 1873. He is also credited for organizing the first Cuban baseball game.

María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (1832 – 1895)
Known For: The first female Mexican-American author to have her works published in English.

Ruiz de Burton published two books: Who Would Have Thought It? (1872) and The Squatter and the Don(1885); and one play: Don Quixote de la Mancha: A Comedy in Five Acts: Taken From Cervantes’ Novel of That Name (1876). Her literary works are considered  a precursor to Chicano Literature. They share the perspective of the conquered Mexican population that, despite their citizenship through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, continued to be a marginalized national minority. 

Jovita Idár (1885-1946)
Known For:  She was an American journalist, teacher, political activist, and civil rights worker who championed the cause of Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants.

Idár’s career in journalism allowed her to bring attention to issues facing Mexican-Americans. She always worked towards making a positive change. She served as the president of the League of Mexican Women—La Liga Femenil Mexicanista—in October 1911. She was also active in the Primer Congreso Mexicanista.

Octaviano Larrazolo (1859 – 1930)
Known For: He was the first Mexican-American United States Senator in 1928.

Larrazolo was a Republican politician who was New Mexico’s 4th governor and first Hispanic Senator. He was very outspoken about Hispanic-American rights.

Gabriela Mistral (1889 – 1957)
Known For: She became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1945.

Mistral was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and humanist. The themes of her poetry include nature, betrayal, love, a mother’s love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Native American and European influences. Her portrait also appears on the 5,000 Chilean peso bank note.

Luis Walter Alvarez (1911-1988)
Known For: His work as an experimental physicist, inventor, and professor who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968. 

Alvarez was involved in the development of the hydrogen bubble chamber which enabled the discovery of resonance states in particle physics. This earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968.

Guy Louis Gabaldon(1926 – 2006)
Known For: In 1944, during World War II, he persuaded over 1,300 Japanese soldiers and civilians to surrender during the battles for Saipan and Tinian islands.

Gabaldon was a United States Marine. He received the Silver Star, which was upgraded by the Marine Corps to the Navy Cross in 1960. This was awarded to him for his service in WWII for persuading 1,300 Japanese soldiers to surrender. His experience with the Japanese language and culture came from his experience living with the Nakano family, who were of Japanese heritage. He considered them his extended family.

Cesar Chavez (1927 – 1993)
Known For: Leading figure of Hispanic and Latino American civil rights and co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA).

Chavez helped to organize strikes among farm and labor workers. He was inspired by Ghandi’s use of non-violent protesting methods. He encouraged the peaceful use of pickets and boycotts to pressure farm owners into granting strikers’ demands. The Delano grape strike of 1965–1970 was one of the most successful strikes that he helped to organize. In 1994 he posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Ruben Salazar (1928 -1970)
Known For: Being the first Mexican-American journalist from mainstream media to cover the Chicano community.

Salazar used his platform as a mainstream journalist to bring much needed attention to the Chicano community and the struggles that they faced. Many of his pieces were critical of the Los Angeles government’s treatment of Chicanos, particularly after he came into conflict with police during the East L.A. walkouts. During the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War on August 29, 1970 Salazar was tragically killed by a tear-gas projectile fired by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy Thomas Wilson. 

Richard E. Cavasos  (1929-2017)
Known For: Becoming the United States Army’s first Hispanic four-star general.

During the Vietnam War, as a lieutenant colonel, Cavazos was awarded a second Distinguished Service Cross. In 1976, Cavazos became the first Mexican American to reach the rank of brigadier general in the United States Army. Cavazos served for thirty-three years, with his final command as head of the United States Army Forces Command.

Dolores Huerta (1930 – Present)
Known For: She is an American labor leader and civil rights activist. She co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) alongside Cesar Chavez.

Huerta has received numerous awards for her community service and advocacy for workers’, immigrants’, and womens’ 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. 

Rita Moreno (1931 – Present)
Known For: Being a Puerto Rican actress, dancer, and singer. Her most famous roles were in the musical films Singin’ in the Rain (1952), The King and I (1956) and West Side Story (1961).

Moreno has had the honor of winning all four major American entertainment awards: An Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. She has won numerous other awards, including various lifetime achievement awards and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2015, she was awarded a Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for her contribution to American culture, through performing arts. And she was also awarded the Peabody Career Achievement Award in 2019.

Roberto Clemente (1934 – 1972)
Known For: Puerto Rican professional baseball right fielder who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was the first Latin American and Caribbean player to be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Clemente was a very skilled baseball player who won many honors. He was an All-Star player for 13 seasons, a National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1966, an NL batting leader, and a two-time World Series Champion. He was also known for his charity work in Latin American and Caribbean countries during the off-seasons. He tragically died in a plane crash at the age of 38 while en route to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. The Pirates retired his uniform number 21, and MLB renamed its annual Commissioner’s Award in his honor. It is now known as the Roberto Clemente Award.

Sylvia Mendez  (1936 – Present)
Known For: Being an American civil rights activist of Mexican-Puerto Rican heritage. At age eight, she played an instrumental role in the “Mendez v. Westminster” case, the landmark desegregation case of 1946.

Mendez grew up during a time when most southern and southwestern schools were segregated. When Mendez was a girl, she was denied enrollment to a “Whites” only school, an event which prompted her parents to take action and organized various sectors of the Hispanic community to file a lawsuit in the local federal court. This act eventually brought an end the era of segregated education. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor, on February 15, 2011.

Carolina Herrara (1939 -Present)
Known For: Being a Venezuelan fashion designer known for “exceptional personal style”, and for dressing various First Ladies, including Jacqueline Onassis, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama.

Herrara founded her clothing brand, Carolina Herrera New York, in 1980. In the late 1980s, the Spanish fragrance company Puig licensed the Carolina Herrera name to develop and market a line of perfumes. Herrara has received many awards for her work in the fashion industry. Some of these awards include the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award, “Womenswear Designer of the Year” award, The International Center in New York’s Award of Excellence as well as Spain’s Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts, which was presented to her in 2002 by King Juan Carlos I. She has also been awarded the Gold Medal of the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute.

Raul Juliá (1940 – 1994)
Known For: He was a famous Puerto Rican actor and won many awards for his work in film.     

Juliá’s career took off when he moved to New York. He performed in many theater plays and eventually received roles in two television series, Love of Life and Sesame Street. In 1978, he famously starred alongside Meryl Streep in an electric revival of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew at the Delacorte Theater.Between 1974 and 1982, Juliá received Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical nominations for Where’s Charley?, The Threepenny Opera and Nine. He also acted in many movies, and is well known for his portrayal of Gomez Addams in two film adaptations of The Addams Family.

Ritchie Valens (1941 – 1959)
Known For: Being a rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement.

Valens had several hits, most famous was “La Bamba”, which he had adapted from a Mexican folk song. It became a hit in 1958, which made him a pioneer of the Spanish-speaking rock and roll movement. He also had an American number-two hit with “Donna”. Valens tragically died on February 3, 1959 due to a plane crash. To honor his legacy, Valens was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Danny Trejo (1944 -Present)
Known For: Being an American actor and restaurateur who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films.

Examples of Trejo’s filmography include Heat (1995), Con Air (1997), Bubble Boy (2001), and Desperado (1995). Trejo is perhaps most recognized as the character Machete, a character that was expanded on in Trejo’s own series of films for mature audiences. He has appeared in a number of popular TV shows as well, such as Stargate Atlantis, Breaking Bad, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The X-Files, King of the Hill, The Flash, and Sons of Anarchy.

Linda Maria Ronstadt (1946 – Present)
Known For: American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, and Latin. 

Ronstadt began her career in the 1960s and went on to become a Rock and Roll icon. She appeared six times on the cover of Rolling Stone and on the covers of Newsweek and Time. Her success  opened many doors for women in rock and roll and other musical genres. She has won several awards throughout her career including 10 Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, and an ALMA Award. Additionally, many of her albums have been certified gold, platinum or multiplatinum in the United States and internationally. She retired in 2011.

Judith Baca (1946-Present)
Known For: American Chicana artist, activist, and University of California, Los Angeles professor of Chicana/o Studies in the School of Social Sciences and a professor of World Arts and Cultures in the School of Art and Architecture.

Baca is the co-founder and artistic director of the Venice, California-based Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). She is most well known for being the director of the Great Wall of Los Angeles Mural, one of the largest murals in the world.. As a Chicana woman, she wanted to empower women of color and bring communities together. Baca accomplished this by creating public art that positively portrayed the beauty of Chicana culture.

Carlos Santana (1947-Present)
Known For: Mexican and American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, which pioneered a fusion of rock ‘n’ roll and Latin American jazz.

Santana learned to play the guitar at a young age and was inspired by Ritchie Valens. His band had a breakthrough in 1969 when it was invited to play at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival. Their first album was released later that year and became a huge hit, reaching #4 on the U.S. album charts. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine listed him at No. 20 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists. He has received 10 Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards, and was inducted along with his namesake band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

Juan Felipe Herrera (1948 – Present)
Known For: Being a poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera was the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017.

Herrera’s publications include fourteen collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels and picture books for children. He won the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award in 1997 for his children’s book Calling the Doves which was influenced by his own experiences of being the child of migrant farmers. He has received many honors and awards for his art and literature. In 2015, Herrera was appointed as the nation’s first Chicano poet laureate.

Franklin Chang-Diaz (1950 – Present)
Known For:  Being a Costa Rican American mechanical engineer, physicist and former NASA astronaut.

Franklin Chang-Diaz is a veteran of seven Space Shuttle missions, tying the record, as of 2018 for the most spaceflights. He is also a member of the NASA Astronaut Hall of Fame. After leaving NASA, Chang Díaz set up the Ad Astra Rocket Company. After years of research and development the company has produced the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), an electrical propulsion device for use in space. He is also an advocate for environmental protection and raising awareness about climate change.

Julia Alvarez (1950 -Present)
Known For: Being a Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist.

Alvarez gained popularity when she published the novels How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991), In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), and Yo! (1997). Some of her popular poetry works include Homecoming (1984) and The Woman I Kept to Myself (2004). Alvarez is considered to be one of the greatest Latina writers and has achieved international success. Many of her works are inspired by her experiences as a Dominican in the United States, and focus heavily on issues of assimilation and identity. 

Sylvia Rivera (1951-2002)
Known For: Being a Puerto Rican American transgender and gay rights activist.

Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Marsha P. Johnson. STAR is a group dedicated to helping homeless young drag queens, gay youth, and trans women. Rivera struggled with poverty and homelessness throughout her own life and wanted a way to help others like her.

Sonia Sotomayor (1954 – Present)
Known For: Being the first Hispanic and Latina member of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

Sotomayer knew she wanted to become an attorney since she was just ten years old, she was partially inspired by the popular television s Perry Mason. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976 and received her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1979. She was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  Finally, in May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. 

Sandra Cisneros (1954 – Present)
Known For: Being a Chicana writer. She is best known for her first novel, The House on Mango Street (1983).

Cisneros has won many awards for her literary works, and her novel, The House on Mango Street, is taught in many schools as a coming of age story. It has also been translated in several languages and has sold copies worldwide. Cisneros is a highly respected and celebrated figure of Chicana literature. She has worked in many varying occupations, she has been a teacher, a counselor, a college recruiter, a poet-in-the-schools, and an arts administrator. Literature has always been a huge part of her life and in in 2000 she founded the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation, which awards talented writers.

Andy Garcia (1956-present)
Known For:  Being an American actor and director.

Garcia’s first rise to fame as an actor occurred when he performed in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987). He was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Godfather Part III (1990). He has acted in many popular Hollywood films such as Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and its sequels. He also produced and acted in the HBO television film, For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000), where he received a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for his performance.

Monica Lazano (1956-present)
Known For: Being an American publisher.

Lazano is currently the president of the College Futures Foundation, which is located in San Francisco. However, she is more widely known for her work as a publisher and newspaper editor. She worked as the Chief Executive Officer of La Opinión, which is the largest Spanish publication in the U.S. Lazano was also the CEO of its parent company, ImpreMedia, LLC. 

Gloria Estafan (1957-present)
Known For: Being a famous Cuban-American singer, songwriter, actress and businesswoman.

Estafan initially gained fame as the lead singer for the Miami Sound Machine. In 1985, her song “Conga” gained worldwide recognition and popularity. And in 1988, she and the band got their first number-one hit with the song “Anything for You”. Estafan continued to create hits, even after suffering from critical injuries sustained from a bus accident. She is one of the best-selling female singers of all-time, with over 75-million sales worldwide. She has won many awards and honors including three Grammy Awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Las Vegas Walk of Fame, as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among others. 

Jorge Ramos (1958 – Present)
Known For: Being a Mexican-American journalist, news anchor, and author. 

Ramos is considered to be the best Spanish-Language news anchor in the United States. He has reported for many important historical events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the War in Afghanistan. Ramos anchors for the Univision news television program Noticiero Univision, the Univision Sunday-morning political news program Al Punto, and the Fusion TV English-language program America with Jorge Ramos. He has won ten Emmy Awards for his work and the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, an award that honors his accomplishments as a journalist. 

Ellen Ochoa (1958 – Present)
Known For:  She was the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discover.

Ochoa became a NASA astronaut in 1991 and became the first Hispanic woman to go to space during the 1993 Space Shuttle Discover mission to study the Earth’s ozone layer. She has logged about 1000 hours total in space. She was also the first Hispanic director and the second female director of the Johnson Space Center. She has had a handful of schools named in her honor and was named Vice Chair of the National Science Board for the 2018–2020 term.

George Lopez (1961-Present)
Known For: Being an American comedian and actor. He starred in his own self-produced ABC sitcom. 

Lopez’s sitcom, George Lopez, was picked up in 2002 by the ABC network which made Lopez one of few Hispanic Americans to star in his own television series. The sitcom continues to air reruns on television. Since his sitcom, Lopez has acted and voice acted in a number of films. He is also known for being involved with charity work. In 2005, he was named one of “The Top 25 Hispanics in America” by Time magazine.

Cecilia Muñoz (1962-Present)
Known For: Being an American political advisor who served as Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Obama.

Muñoz worked for five years as the Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Before that position, she served as the White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for three years. She was also the Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the United State’s largest Latino advocacy organization. In 2000, she was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work on civil rights and immigration.

Anthony Romero (1965-Present)
Known For:  Being the first Latino and openly gay man to be executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. 

Romero became the director of the American Civil Liberties Union in 2001. Following the attack on 9/11, Romero launched a national campaign called “Keep America Safe and Free”. This campaign was set in place to protect American civil liberties, it successfully uncovered thousands of documents which revealed the illegal torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. This campaign also won many court victories against the Patriot Act. Under Romero, the ACLU experienced massive growth which allowed for the organization to expand its activities with regard to racial justice, religious freedom, privacy rights, reproductive freedom, and LGBT rights.

Salma Hayek (1966-Present)
Known For: Being a famous Mexican and American film actress and producer.

Salma Hayek started her career with a Mexican telenovela  called “Teresa”, she was nominated for an Ariel Award for the role she played. In 1991, she began working in Hollywood. She rose to fame in the 2002 when she starred in Frida, a film about the life of the artist Frida Kahlo. She was nominated for Best Actress for the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award. She has starred in other popular movies and has guest starred on multiple tv shows. 

Jennifer Lopez (1969-Present)
Known For: known by her nickname J.Lo, is an American actress, singer, and dancer.

Jennifer Lopez began her career in 1991, as a returning dancer on In Living Color. In 1993 she began pushing for an acting career and had a breakthrough in 1997 for her first leading role in the Selena biopic of the same name, she subsequently became the first Latin actress to earn over US$1 million for a film. In the late 1990s she broke into the music industry with her debut studio album On the 6 (1999), which helped to propel the Latin pop movement in American music. Jennifer Lopez has gone on to have a very successful career. She is considered a pop culture icon. She is called a “triple threat entertainer”: a dancer, singer, and actress. 

Ted Cruz (1970- Present)
Known For: Being an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator for Texas since 2013. 

Cruz is an American Politician who aligns himself with the Republican Party. In 2012, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, and became the first Hispanic American to serve as a U.S. senator from Texas. He has very conservative views and played a leading role in the 2013 United States federal government shutdown, seeking to force Congress and President Barack Obama to defund the Affordable Care Act. In 2016, Cruz ran for President of the United States, placing second behind Donald Trump in the Republican primary. In January 2021, Cruz was criticized for giving credence to the baseless conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from Trump. After a violent mob of Trump supporters, motivated by the beliefs Cruz and others promoted, stormed the United States Capitol, figures from across the political spectrum condemned him and argued that he carries responsibility for the riot which caused horrific damage to the Capitol and resulted in five deaths.

Sofía Vergara (1972- Present)
Known For: a Colombian-American actress, television producer, presenter and model. She has been the highest paid actress in American television for seven consecutive years, from 2013 to 2020.

Vergara is probably most well known for her role as the character “Gloria Delgado-Pritchett” in the popular ABC comedy show, Modern Family. Her role on the show has earned her nominations for five Golden Globe Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards. She has acted in quite a few films and has had many voice acting jobs as well. 

Oscar De La Hoya (1973-present)
Known For: Being an American former professional boxer who, in 2002, also became a boxing promoter and, in 2018, a mixed martial arts (MMA) promoter.

Oscar De La Hoya competed as a professional boxer from 1992 to 2008. During his boxing career he won 11 world titles in six weight classes, including the lineal championship in three weight classes and is considered to be the 16th best boxer of all time. At the 1992 Summer Olympics, he was nicknamed “The Golden Boy of Boxing” after winning a gold medal in the lightweight division. He is also the first American of Mexican descent to own a national boxing promotional firm.

Alexander Enmanuel Rodriguez aka “A-Rod”  (1975-present)
Known For: Being a professional baseball shortstop and third baseman for Major League Baseball.

Rodriguez played Major League Baseball for 22 seasons. The teams he played on include the Seattle Mariners (1994–2000), Texas Rangers (2001–2003), and New York Yankees (2004–2016). He is considered to be one of the greatest baseball players of all time despite some of his more questionable actions such as his use of performance-enhancing drugs. Some of his records and accomplishments include a .295 batting average, over 600 home runs (696), over 2,000 runs batted in (RBI), over 2,000 runs scored, over 3,000 hits, and over 300 stolen bases. He was also a 14-time All-Star, winning three American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards, 10 Silver Slugger Awards, and two Gold Glove Awards.

Michelle Rodriguez (1978 – Present)
Known For: Being a famous actress.

Michelle Rodriguez, according to a 2013 Entertainment Weekly article, is “arguably the most iconic actress in the action genre, as well as one of the most visible Latinas in Hollywood.” Her acting debut in the independent film Girlfight (2000) was met with critical acclaim, and also earned her several awards, including the Independent Spirit Award and the Gotham Award. She has gotten significant roles in a number of action films, including The Fast and Furious movie franchise, Avatar, Resident Evil, S.W.A.T., Battle Los Angeles, among others.

Lin-Manuel Miranda (1980 – Present)
Known For: Being an American actor, singer, songwriter, rapper, director, producer, and playwright.

Miranda created and starred in the Broadway musicals “In the Heights” and “Hamilton”. His musical, “Hamilton”, which he wrote the script, music and lyrics for, gained instant popularity and recognition since its Broadway debut in 2015. It is already considered to be a pop culture classic. The show earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, and was nominated for a record 16 Tony Awards, of which it won 11, including Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book. Miranda has won many additional awards for his full body of work.

Carmen Maria Machado (1986 – Present)
Known For: Being an American short story author, essayist, and critic frequently published in The New Yorker, Granta, Lightspeed Magazine, and other publications.

Machado earned her MFA through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has also received a number of fellowships and residencies through various foundations. Some of her writing inspirations include Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, and Yōko Ogawa, and in particular, by Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Her stories have been reprinted in Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best Horror of the Year, The New Voices of Fantasy, and Best Women’s Erotica. In 2019, she published her memoir, In the Dream House and has been shortlisted for the 2021 Folio Prize.

Raffi Freedman-Gurspan (1987-Present)
Known For: An American transgender rights activist and the first openly transgender person to work as a White House staffer.

Raffi Freedman-Gurspan was was hired by President Barack Obama as Outreach and Recruitment Director in the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House. President Obama also appointed her as the White House’s primary LGBT liaison in 2016. A year later, in 2017, President Obama appointed her to a 5-year term as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the Board of Trustees of the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. She is a longtime activist and public policy specialist on matters concerning human rights, gender, and LGBT people. She is currently working as the Deputy Campaign Director for the All on the Line Campaign in an effort to end gerrymandering. 

Selena Gomez (1992-Present)
Known For: Being an American singer, actress, and producer.

Gomez first rose to fame for her role as the teenage Alex Russo in the Emmy Award–winning Disney Channel television series Wizards of Waverly Place (2007–2012). She has acted in several movies and has also created music albums. She has sold approximately over seven million albums and 22 million singles worldwide, according to Billboard. She has also received various accolades for her performances. 

Demi Lovato (1992 – Present)
Known For: Being an American singer and actress.

Lovato gained popularity for her role as Mitchie Torres in the Disney Channel musical television film Camp Rock (2008) and its sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010). She has sold over two million albums and 20 million singles in the United States. Some of her accolades include an MTV Video Music Award, 14 Teen Choice Awards, five People’s Choice Awards, and two Latin American Music Awards. Lovato is also a dedicated activist and won the Vanguard Award in 2016 from GLAAD for her LGBT activism. 

Emma González (1999-Present)
Known For: Being an American activist and advocate for gun control.

González is a survivor of the February 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. In response to this tragedy González organized and co-founded the gun-control advocacy group Never Again MSD. They gave a viral speech against gun violence which boldly proclaimed “We call B.S.” on the lack of action taken by politicians funded by the NRA. Subsequently, González continues to fight for gun-control and stays active on social media. They also helped to organize the March for Our Lives. In 2018, González was included in Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2018.