On this date, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the National Hispanic Heritage Week bill (P.L. 90–498) into law. In the 90th Congress (1967–1969), Representative George Edward Brown of California submitted H.J. Res. 1299, easily passing the House; the bill authorized the President to designate the week of September 15 as “National Hispanic Heritage Week.” Read More.
Hispanic Americans (also known as Latinos/Latinas) are individuals whose ancestors came from Latin American countries, such as Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and other South and Central American countries, such as Colombia, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Hispanic Americans are one of the fastest growing ethnic minority groups in the United States. Read More.
Census recorded Latinos, with a population of 35 million, as the largest ethnic group. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the three largest ethnic groups were Latinos (12.5 percent), African Americans (12.3 percent), and Asian Americans (3.7 percent). By 2050, the U.S. population will be more culturally diverse, with less than 53 percent of the population categorized as Anglo/European American; 15 percent African American; more than 24 percent Latino; nearly 9 percent Asian American, and about 1 percent Native American. Read More.
Benacerraf, Baru(1920– ), physician and Nobel Prize laureate in medicine. Benacerraf was born in Caracas, Venzuela. He moved to the United States in 1939 and graduated in science from Columbia University, New York, in 1942 and in medicine from the Medical School of Virginia in 1945. Read More.
Born in San José, Costa Rica, on April 5, 1950, Franklin R. Chang-Díaz immigrated to the United States at the age of eighteen years with the goal of someday becoming an astronaut. After learning English as a senior high school student in Hartford, Connecticut, he earned a bachelor's of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1973, and a doctoral degree in applied plasma physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. Read More.
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