Happy birthday, actor extraordinaire John Leguizamo!

 

John Leguizamo, born July 22, 1960 in Bogota, Columbia, began his career as an extra in Madonna's Borderline video in 1984.  His breakout performance was his role as Chi-Chi in To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, which garnered him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor.  Since then, he has shown his immense talent for a variety of genres.  He has voiced Sid the Sloth in the animated Ice Age franchise, appeared as Scrooge in comedy-horror Violent Night, and most recently, The Odyssey.

He has been nominated for four Primetime Emmys and won the Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Music Program in 1999 for his performance in John Leguizamo: Freak. He was nominated for two Tony Awards in 1998 for Freak.

He frequently appears as a host for The Daily Show.

John Leguizamo Speaks

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: Luis Castro, first Latin-American to play in Major League Baseball

Luis Castro, born November 25, 1876 in Colombia, is the first Latin American to play for Major League Baseball.  He played only one season with the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1902 season, as a second baseman and a right-handed batter.  The Athletics went on to win the American League championship.

Castro passed away in New York City at 64 in September 1941.

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: Diana Trujillo, flight director for NASA's Perseverance program

Diana Trujillo, born in 1983 in Colombia, leads the engineering team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's robotic arm of the Perseverance rover on Mars. 

She immigrated to the US when she was only 17 and worked as a housekeeper while taking English lessons at Miami Dad College.  While studying aerospace engineering at the University of Florida, she applied to the NASA Academy being the first Hispanic immigrant woman admitted to the program.  She moved the University of Maryland, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 2007. 

At NASA she has worked on the the Curiosity program before working as the flight director on the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover robotic arm.

In February 2021, she hosted NASA's first Spanish-language planetary landing show.

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: George Zamka, first Colombian-American astronaut

Colonel George Zamka, born in Jersey City, New Jersey (in 1962!), is the first astronaut with Colombian (and Polish) ancestry to go to space. 

He graduated with a BS in Mathematics from the US Naval Academy and then was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the USMC.  He was the pilot of Discovery (STS-120) in October-November 2007 to the International Space Station.

He was commander of Endeavour (STS-130) in February 2010.