Ellen Ochoa

Ellen Ochoa was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1958.

When she was youg, she did not want to be an astronaut. She studied sciences (which were her favourite subject) at the high school and at the university (obtaining a science bachelor and a degree in physics in Stanford), but she did not think about becoming an astronaut until she was selected by the NASA in 1990 to do so. This made her the first Hispanic woman to go to space in 1993 on board of the Discovery.

Apart from this, she has investigated optical systems and she has already patented one. Moreover, she has participated in other three more patents.

What her life shows us is that we never know what tomorrow may bring, so she can be an inspiration of our lives, too.


Webgraphy:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/spanish/news/releases/2003/HQ03_207_span.html
http://www.biography.com/people/ellen-ochoa-10413023
http://www.mujeresdeempresa.com/ellen-ochoa-la-primera-hispana-en-llegar-al-espacio/

Soledad O'Brien

Soledad O’Brien is an award-winning journalist, documentarian, news anchor and producer. O’Brien is one of the most sought-after journalists today. In June 2013, O’Brien launched Starfish Media Group, a multi-platform media production and distribution company, dedicated to uncovering and producing empowering stories that take a challenging look at the often divisive issues of race, class, wealth, poverty, and opportunity through personal narratives.

O’Brien was the originator of the highly successful CNN documentary series, “Black in America” and “Latino in America,” which continues to be produced under Starfish Media Group (“SMG”).

In 2003, O’Brien joined CNN, where she anchored the morning news program for many years. O’Brien’s coverage of race issues has won her two Emmy awards and she earned a third for her reporting on the 2012 presidential election. Her coverage of Hurricane Katrina for CNN earned her and the network a George Foster Peabody Award.

O’Brien was named journalist of the year in 2010 by the National Association of Black Journalists and one of Newsweek magazine’s “10 People who Make America Great”, in 2006.

In 2013, Harvard University, her alma mater, named O’Brien a Distinguished Fellow. She was also appointed to the board of directors of the Foundation for the National Archives that same year.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, O’Brien and her husband, Brad, created the Soledad O’Brien & Brad Raymond Starfish Foundation to help disadvantaged young women get to and through college. Participants engage in activities and experiences that break down stereotypes and remove the limitations society has assigned due to gender, race and economic and social inequalities. By providing resources to overcome barriers, the Foundation helps each young woman reach her highest potential.

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru in 1942. She was the daughter of Francisca Llona and Tomás Allende, who was at the time a second secretary at the Chilean embassy. Her father was a first cousin of Salvador Allende, President of Chile from 1970 to 1973. In 1945, after Tomás had disappeared, Isabel’s mother relocated with her three children to Santiago (Chile) where they lived until 1953.

Later, from 1959 to 1965, Allende worked with the United Nations Food and Agrilture Organization (FAO) in Santiago. For a brief while in Chile, she also had a job translating romance novels from English to Spanish. However, she was fired for making unauthorized changes to the dialogue of the heroines to make them sound more intelligent as well as altering the Cinderella endings to let the heroines find more independence and do well in the world.

Foundation

Allende started the Isabel Allende Foundation on 9 December 1996 to pay homage to her daughter Paula Frías Allende, who had a rare blood disorder that nowadays should not be fatal, but there was negligence in the hospital because she was given the wrong medication and she fell into a coma. Paula was 28 years old when she died in 1992.

The foundation is "dedicated to supporting programs that promote and preserve the fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected”. The foundation supports select nonprofits in Chile and California whose missions are to provide vulnerable women and children with access to:

Reproductive rights

Healthcare

Education

Protection from violence

The Isabel Allende Foundation is focused on achieving a world in which women and girls have economic and social justice, empowerment, and protection.

Alicia Dickerson Montemayor

As Jovita Idár, Alicia Dickerson Montemayor was a Latina from Laredo, Texas. She was born in 1902 and she became an American civil rights activist.

Montemayor studied law at the university. In 1936, she was invited by Esther Machuca to join the LULAC (League of United American Citizens), and she became the first woman elected in this organization. By 1940 she was the associate editor of the organization’s newspaper, the director of Junior LULAC. She had to lead the voice of women at the national level, so she propmoted the creation of more ladies council, but also she wrote articles in which she denounced the male superiority and pushed for a more active role for women. Finally, in 1940 she decided to leave the LULAC.

After that, she became a school registrar and she retired of it in 1972. Then, she established herself as a folk artist and started painting. Her art has become very famous.

She finally died in 1989.

Why was she so important? Because she showed how to be a wife, a mother, a businesswoman, a middle-class American woman, and at the same time, an independent radical feminist and a political activist. She could do everything at the same time, and her example can still make us be sure that we can also do it if we want.

Webgraphy:

http://wiselatinaslinked.blogspot.com.es/2012/09/hispanic-heritage-month-alicia.html

http://www.idra.org/IDRA_Newsletter/March_1996_Gender_Equity/Alice_Dickerson_Montemayor's:_Feminist_Challenge_to_LULAC_in_the_1930s/

Idar Jovita

Jovita Idar was a pioneering Mexican-American female journalist.

Since she was  a child, she worked in the newspaper of her family. In 1903 she became a teacher in Ojuelos. However, her inability to improve the poor conditions of the school incited her to resign and join the family weekly newspaper, La Crónica. It was a vocal in criticizing certain aspects of Hispanic-Anglo relation. The newspaper also supported efforts of the revolutionary forces in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.
In 1911 Idar became the first president of the League of Mexican Women to promote the education of poor children.

"Mexican children in Texas need an education...There is no other means to do it but ourselves, so that we are not devalued and humiliated by the strangers who rurround us"

That same year, she founded the Liga Femenil Mexicanista, a social, cultural, political, and charitable organization for Mexican-American women. Several of women operated their own schools and allowed the children of the poor to attend free of charge. The league is one of the first-known attemps by Mexican-American women to unite for a social and political cause, and it attracted the most educated women of the community.


Webography:
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fid03
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0886845.html
http://www.latinorebels.com/2016/03/04/latinahistorymonth-jovita-idar-journalism-pioneer/

Vilma Socorro Martínez

Vilma Socorro Martínez is an American lawyer, civil rights activist and diplomat who formerly served as the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina. She was the first woman to hold this position.

Vilma Socorro Martínez was born to Marina and Salvador Martínez, a Mexican American couple living in San Antonio, Texas. She was raised in a climate of certain racial hostility; as an honor student in high school, for example, she found herself steered away from academics by a counselor who tried to convince her that someone of her background would be better off attending a trade school than a major university. Martínez ignored that advice and instead enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin.

While working her way through college in the biochemistry lab, Martínez met a professor who recognized her potential. In marked contrast to her high-school counselor, the professor insisted she pursue further education; after receiving her bachelor's degree, Martínez went on to Columbia Law School, and graduated in 1967.

The same year, she then joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). At LDF, she defended a number of poor and minority clients. She also served as the attorney for the petitioner in the case of Griggs v. Duke Power Company, a landmark action that ultimately went before the U.S. Supreme Court and helped establish the doctrine of affirmative action.


In 1982, Martínez became a partner at the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson, where she specialized in federal and state court litigation, including defense of wrongful termination and employment litigation and other commercial litigation. In 1994, she helped in the fight against California’s Proposition 187—which sought to ban illegal immigrant children from attending the state’s public schools—while representing the Los Angeles Unified School District

During the 1990s, Martínez was also vice-chair of the Edward W. Hazen Foundation and a member of the board of People for the American Way and The Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society, and she has served on the boards of several non-profit organizations, including theLos Angeles Philharmonic Association.

In conclusion, Vilma Socorro was the U.S. ambassador to Argentina, has a long history of straddling the worlds of corporate boardrooms and legal defense of minorities. One of the leading voices in Hispanic civil rights since the 1970s, Martínez has run the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and been a part of legal fights on behalf of both documented and undocumented immigrants from Latin America. She also served on the board of directors of beer giant Anheuser-Busch for 25 years. Martínez was confirmed as ambassador by the Senate July 24, 2009.

Vilma Socorro was undoubtedly a exceptional and powerful woman!

Here we can see a short and interesting video about her determination.

We hope you like it!:

Webgraphy:

http://biography.yourdictionary.com/vilma-socorro-martinez

http://ms.shellus.com/news/press120996

http://www.bookrags.com/biography/vilma-socorro-martinez/#gsc.tab=0

http://www.allgov.com/news/appointments-and-resignations/ambassador-to-argentina-who-is-vilma-martinez?news=841262

Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta was born in 1930 in New Mexico. When she was three, her parents got divorced and her mother took her and her brothers to Stockton, California. There, her mother worked in a farming community very hard to provide her children a good education.During World War II, her mother ran a restaurant and the family's economic situation was improved little by little. Dolores did not lose her relationship with her father, who became an union activist. He and her mother were a clear inspiration for her.

Dolores was a good student, but she suffered from the racism against Mexicans and Mexican Americans: she was bullied at school for her ethnic origin.

After graduating, she changed of job many times until she decided to obtain a teaching degree. She worked as an elementary school teacher until she resigned due to the poor conditions of many of her students, who were farm workers’ children.

She decided to help:

• In 1955, she started the Stockton chapter of the Community Services Organisation (CSO),which fought against segregation, police brutality and discrimination and worked for the improvement of economic and working conditions of farm workers.
• In 1960, she started the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA) to lobby the politicians to allow migrant workers to receive public assistance and pensions and to provide them voting ballots and driver’s tests in Spanish. Meanwhile, she met a CSO official called Cesar Chavez, who with she collaborated to lobby the CSO to make it help also farm workers, but the Organisation was focused just on urban issues. That is why they left the CSO and started the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA).
• The NFWA and the AWA combined to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee in 1965 and, after five years, the UFW signed an historic agreement with 26 grape growers to improve working conditions for the farm workers (reduction of the use of harmful pesticides, unemployment and healthcare benefits, and so on).
• During the 1970s, Dolores Huerta helped to create the political climate to arrive in 1975 to the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which recognized the right of farm workers to bargain collectively.
• During the 1980s, she was the vice president of the UFW and co-fundated the UFW’s radio station.

Today, she is still being honored for her entire life of work for the rights of the farm workers and against the racism. She received many prizes and she started the  Dolores Huerta Foundation, in which she is still working by lecturing and speaking out on social issues as immigration, incoming inequality and the rights of women and Latino-American people.

Here we can see many videos of her life and labor: http://www.makers.com/dolores-huerta

Webgraphy:

http://www.makers.com/dolores-huerta
http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=research&inc=history/sp/07.html
http://doloreshuerta.org/dolores-huerta/
http://www.biography.com/people/dolores-huerta-188850#early-life-and-career

The Bus Boycott

Once upon a night, Rosa Parks, who was a black American woman living in Alabama, was tired because she spent her day working on a tailor department store. She was so exhausted that she just wanted to take a seat on the bus and to arrive soon at home. But, something happened to her.

A white man asked her for her seat on the bus but she refused to move.  When a bus became full, it was usually to give white passengers the seats in which black people were sat.

Thus, the bus driver ordered Parks and three other African Americans seated nearby to move to the back of the bus. But, Rosa Parks didn’t move and she was arrested and fined $10 for violating a city ordinance, and this dared act began a movement that ended legal segregation in America.

Rosa Parks

 

We didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down.

Rosa Parks was born in Alabama. At the age of 11 she enrolled in the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, a private school founded by liberal-minded women from the northern United States. The school’s philosophy was “take advantage of the opportunities, no matter how few they were”.

Therefore, the bus incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by the young pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The main aim of this association was to call for a boycott of the city-owned bus company.

A Supreme Court Decision struck down the ordinance under Mrs. Parks had been fined and outlawed racial segregation on public transportation.

In 50s, Black people were discriminated because of racism. They were bad treated, they had bad conditions at work and there was segregation in schools, restaurants even in public transports such as the bus. Surprisingly, the bus accident would have positive consequences and all this situation would change. 

Webgraphy:

http://www.ushistory.org/us/54b.asp

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0bio-1

Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral was born in Vicuña, Chile. Her early life was traumatic. She was brought up by her mother, after her father left the family when she was 3 years old. When she was 17, she met and fell in love with Romeo Ureta. However, three years later he committed suicide. More tragedy was to strike later, when a nephew also committed suicide.


Despite these tragedies, Gabriela Mistral became a great poet and an international renowned figure in literature and education. She taught elementary and secondary school for many years until her poetry made her famous. She played an important role in the educational systems of Mexico and Chile, was active in cultural committees of the League of Nations, and was Chilean consul in Naples, Madrid, and Lisbon. She taught Spanish literature in the United States at Columbia University, Middlebury College, Vassar College, and at the University of Puerto Rico.


She was the first female Latin American poet to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945. Mistral's works deal with the basic passion of love as seen in the various relationships of mother and offspring, man and woman, individual and humankind, soul and God.

                           


Moreover, Gabriela Mistral was a brave and determined who defended the rights of children, women, and the poor; the freedoms of democracy; and the need for peace in times of social, political, and ideological conflicts, not only in Latin America but in the whole world. She was a good example to people, a talented and clever woman.

With regard to her work, Mistral's writings are highly emotional. In her poems speak the abandoned woman and the jealous lover, the mother in a trance of joy and fear because of her delicate child, the teacher, the woman who tries to bring to others the comfort of compassion, the enthusiastic singer of hymns to America's natural richness, the storyteller, the mad poet possessed by the spirit of beauty and transcendence.

The love poems in memory of the dead, Sonetos de la muerte (1914), made her known throughout Latin America, but her first great collection of poems, Desolación (Despair), was not published until 1922. Her complete poetry was published in 1958.

Here we can see some of her poems: http://www.poemhunter.com/gabriela-mistral/poems/

A short documentary of Gabriela Mistral’s life: https://vimeo.com/7603796

Webgraphy:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1945/mistral-bio.html
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gabriela-mistral
http://www.biographyonline.net/poets/gabriela_mistral.html

Native American Women

Women played a very important role in the life of the Native American. They were more than just mothers of the tribes' children. They were builders, warriors, farmers and craftswomen. 

The men knew that women were the source of life and provided a feeling of stregth and consistency to their lives.

The Clan Mother chosen the chiefs

The women had several roles, but probably the most important role of them was having children to ensure the future of their tribes. Each of the long houses they lived in were generally occupied one clan, with the eldest or most respected woman of the clan ruling it as Clan Mother.

It was also women who decided which men should be speakers, although the Tribal Coundil was dominated by male speakers.

Women occasionally even fought in battles beside the men -"War women" - and all the people respected them for their bravery.

By the 1800s the majority of the Native American tribes had lost their independence and had become dominated by white Americans. At this time white Americans did not believe that it was proper for women to fight wars, vote, speak in public, work outside the home, or even control their own children. The Native Americans began to imitate whites, and native American women lost much of their power and prestige.

Webgraphy:

http://www.indians.org/articles/native-american-women.html

http://tribaldirectory.com/information/native-american-women.html

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-sampler/1882

http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A890552

http://cantonasylumforinsaneindians.com/history_blog/tag/native-american-gender-roles/

Eva Perón: her social labour moved her whole life.

 Eva Perón was an Hispanic and very notable woman in the 20th century. She was the second wife of Juan Domingo Perón, the President of Argentina. She moved to Buenos Aires when she was 15, and some years later she succeeded in becoming an important actress and politician.

But, why is she such an important woman even nowadays? Because she achieved the political equality between men and women. In addition, she fought for the social and labour rights and worked very hard to improve the lives of the poorest. Her determination, strength, wisdom and courage made her become a legend in Argentina by gaining the favour of many people.

Eva Perón, nowadays, is still a notable example for many women all over the world but also for all those who fought and are still fighting for the equality, the justice and a better future. The advances that she obtained for her determination show that impossible is nothing. Therefore, she makes us wonder if we could, somehow, contribute to a real equality among men and women.
Althouhg this equality is said to be real, it is not in many cases. Eva Perón fought for it, what about us?

Undoubtedly, analysing this woman's life and deeds will help us to realize that it is actually possible to change the world, little by little.

Here, we can see a summary of Eva Perón's life: Eva Perón

Webgraphy:
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Pe-Pu/Per-n-Eva.html

http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/evita

http://www.biographyonline.net/politicians/american/eva-peron.html

Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo was considered one of Mexico's greatest artists.

At the age of 15 years enrolled at the National Preparatory School. She was one of the few women students to attend the school.

Self-portrait in a Velvet Dress

While at school, Kahlo spent her time with  a group of political and intellectualy students. She became romantically involved with one of them. When they were traveling together on a bus, they unfortunately had an accident. As a consequence of that, Kahlo suffered several serious injuries.

After the accident, she began painting during her recovery and finished her first self-portrait the following year.

Henry Ford Hospital

In 1932, Kahlo incorporated more graphic and surrealistic elements in her work. In her painting, Henry Ford Hospital, a naked Kahlo appears on a hospital bed with several items: a fetus, a snail, a flower, a pelvis and others. As with her earlier self-portraits, the work was deeply personal, telling the story of her second miscarriage.

While she never considered herself a Surrealist, Kahlo befriended one of the primary figures in that artistic and literary movement, Andre Breton, in 1938. That same year, she had a major exhibition at a New York City gallery, selling half of the 25 paintings shown there.

In 1939, she went to live in Paris for a time where she exhibited some of her paintings and developed friendships such artists as Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso. During this time, she painted one of her most famous works, The Two Fridas. The paintings shows two versions of the artist sitting side by side, with both of their hearts exposed. These figures are believed to represent "unloved" and "loved" versions of Kahlo.

The two Fridas

After being diagnosed with gangrene in her right food, Kahlo spent nine months in the hospital . She continued to paint and support political causes despite having limited mobility. In 1953, Kahlo received her first solo exhibition in Mexico. She arrived by ambulance and remained in the event from the comfort of a four-poster bed set up in the gallery just for her.

After her 47th birthday, Kahlo died on July 13 at her beloved Blue House (the house were she was born).

Since her death, Kahlo's fame as an artist has only grown. Her beloved Blue House was opened as a museum. The feminist movement of the 1970s led to renewed interest in her life and work, as Kahlo was viewed by many as an icon of female creativity.

Here a video about a short biography of the artist.  Video

Webgraphy: http://www.biography.com/people/frida-kahlo-9359496

Women's rights

Women had many moral obligations and duties at home, in church and in community; whereas they had few political and legal rights in the government. However, by the 1830s and 40s, the climate began to change thanks to many supporters who defended social reforms of prostitution, capital punishment, prisons, war alcohol and, the most important; slavery.

There were many activists who began to mobilize people for the abolitionist movement as a way of calling attention to all human rights. Two important Southern sisters, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, called for women to participate in freedom and free education of slaves.

Around 1840 the abolitionist movement was split over the acceptance of female speakers and officers. But in 1848 Elizabeth Stanton organized the first convention for women's rights in New York. The convention demanded improved laws regarding child custody, divorce and property rights.

They argued that women deserved equal salaries and career opportunities in law, medicine, education and the ministry. And the most important amond demands was suffrage; the right to vote.

As with the Civil War, the women's rights were established in the Declaration of Independence, claiming that "all men are created equal". Sarah Grimke wrote in 1837 that "men and women were created equal...whatever is right for men to do is right for women".

Webgraphy: http://www.ushistory.org/us/26c.asp

María de las Mercedes Barbudo and Sarah Goddard

To begin with, we found an important Hispanic woman during the 18^th Century whose purpose was to change little by little her small world. Her name was María de las Mercedes Barbudo, who was a political activist from Puerto Rico and joined forces with the Venezuelan government to lead an insurrection against Spanish Empire. Before this, she became an important businesswoman thanks to her store dedicated to the sale of buttons, threads and cloth. Because of this she had commercial dealings with important businessmen in connection with a company (Compañía de Asiento de Negros) which regulated the slave trade in the island.

She had such a liberal mind she often met intellectuals in her own house to talk about political issues, social and economic situations, and to propose solutions to the problems involving Puerto Rico and the Spanish Empire in general.

As a result, she was imprisoned in a house for women accused of crimes. She escaped thanks to the revolutionary factions which were operating in Cuba. After that, she moved to Venezuela, where she died in 1849.

But in the English colonies, there were also many notable women. One of them is Sarah Goddard, a printer who was born at Rhode Island in 1701. Her education included not only the subjects usual to the day but also French and Latin. She was married to a member of the Church of England, and they had four children, but only two of them lived to adulthood, who were educated by herself. 

Their son, William, started Providence's first printing shop and newspaper with his daughter, thanks to his mother's money. As he had to move temporarily to New York to find more subscribers, Sarah became the second printer in the shop by supervising it while her son was out. After a few years, they sold the shop and Sarah joined her son in Philadelphia, where they started the Pennsylvania Chronicle, and where she finally died at the age of 69.

Between these two women, we find some differences. On the one hand, the one did not get married as the other. On the other hand, the one was a political activist whereas the other was a printer. But they had something in common, too: they wanted, each one in their own way, to change their world. The one did it by joining forces with Venezuela against the Spanish Empire, and the other by helping her son to become a newspaper's printer, which would be very important for the people to be informed at that time.

Webgraphy:

- Eileen K. Cheng, Ph.D; and Joanne L. Good Win , Ph.D (2015). Encyclopedia of Women in American History, vol. I-III (page 111). London and New York: Routledge. Weblink: Encyclopedia of Women in American History
- María de las Mercedes Barbudo 
- Raquel Rosario: Barbudo
- Tony "the Marine" Santiago: María de las Mercedes Barbudo.