Latino Firsts: Trailblazers and Milestones in United States History

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Salute the Latino legends, pioneers, and trailblazers! Celebrate the Hispanic milestones, accomplishments, and victories!

An inspiring exploration of groundbreaking individuals and pioneering events, Latino Firsts: Trailblazers and Milestones in United States History honors the an indelible mark Hispanics have made on American history and society. Featured are brigadier general Richard E. Cavazos, Nobel laureate Gabriela Mistral, actress America Ferrera, playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Francisco Ayala, artist Jen-Michel Basquiat, weightlifter Sarah Elizabeth Robles, and more than a thousand other notable people and accomplishments, such as ...

Astronaut Frank Rubio (1975-) set he American record for the longest spaceflight of 371 days aboard the International Space Station

Oscar Muoz CEO of United Airlines; Roberto Goizueta, CEO of Coca-Cola

Spanish-born philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) was the first Latino philosopher and writer to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard

Fashion designers Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera

Film director/producer Eva Longoria was named USA Today's Women of the Year in 2024

Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to set up settlements in Alaska and Canada's Pacific Coast, at least twelve of them

Cattle and ranching first introduced to Hawaii by Hispanic cowboys from the Southwest

The first admiral of the US Navy, David Farragut, was the son of a Spaniard and a US Revolutionary War hero

Spanish immigrant Rafael Guastavino, architect and designer, whose landmark designs include Grand Central Station, Carnegie Hall, the old Penn Station, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Many US laws are based on Hispanic-Mexican law, including family law (community property, common-law marriage, homestead law, adoption law) and water and land rights laws

The recent changing of names for military bases from Confederate soldiers has resulted in the naming of Fort Hidalgo

Before slavery was abolished in the United States, Latinos in Florida and Texas operated extensive "underground railroads" assisting escaped slaves to reach freedom in Hispanic Florida, Texas and Mexico

Hernandez v. Texas, a 1964 Supreme Court case brought by Mexican American attorneys that desegregated juries, was a precedent for Brown v. Board of Education

Astronaut Ellen Ochoa later served as the Director of NASA's John Space Center

Latinos from the Caribbean and Mexico introduced the cotton, cattle and sugar industries to the United States

Virologist/bacteriologist Sarah Stewart, the first woman, and Latina, to earn a medical degree from Georgetown University Medical School, whose research showed that viruses can cause various types of cancer

Carlos Juan Finlay, a Cuban doctor educated in Philadelphia, who discovered that yellow fever was spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito

baseball players such as Roberto Clemente, considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time and Alex Rodriguez, the highest paid ballplayer at the time

multiple Oscar winners, including Anthony Quinn and Rita Moreno

And thousands of other milestones and firsts!

Milestones, victories and success are not always noticed when they happen. Sometimes an achievement is only recognized years later. Revel and rejoice in the renowned and lesser-known, barrier-breaking trailblazers in all fields-arts, entertainment, business, civil rights, education, government, invention, journalism, religion, science, sports, music, and more. Latino Firsts illuminates the rich and important history of Hispanic Americans!

Author Bio

Nicols Kanellos is the director of Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Heritage of the United States, the premier center for research on Latino documentary history in the United States, and, since 1980, a professor at the University of Houston, where, in 1996, he became the first Brown Foundation Professor of Hispanic Studies. He is founding publisher of the noted Hispanic literary journal The Americas Review and the nation's oldest and most esteemed Hispanic publishing house, Arte Pblico Press. Arte Pblico Press is the oldest and largest publisher of Latino literature in the United States. In 2019 it was awarded the Ivan Snadroff Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Book Critics' Circle. In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Kanellos to the National Council on the Humanities, and he received the 1996 Denali Press Award of the American Library Association. In 2009 he was the first U.S. Latino to be inducted into the Spanish American Royal Academy of Literature, Arts & Science, Cadiz, Spain. In 2014, he was awarded the Anderson Imbert Lifetime Achievement Award by the North American Academy of the Spanish Language. In 2016, he was awarded the Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic Queen, the highest decoration given to a civilian by the Spanish government. He has authored or contributed to numerous books on Latino history, culture and literature, including Visible Ink Press' Latino Almanac: From Early Explorers to Corporate Leaders as well as the Hispanic Literature of the United States: A Comprehensive Reference, and the Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States. He resides in Houston, Texas.