HuffPost: 15 Latino Activists You Should Know and Read About

9 October 2020 ∙ Originally published in HuffPost

Besides César Chávez, in schools in the U.S., we don’t learn much about Latino heroes who championed civil rights in the Americas. Who else advocated for meaningful change for their people, beyond Chavez? Who was the Malcolm X of Puerto Rico? Who was the Muhammad Ali of the Chicano movement? 

These figures exist. Their stories are just largely erased from the American history narrative. You have to dig a little deeper to find them.

For Hispanic Heritage Month, we asked Latino writers and thinkers to share the one Latino activist they think more people should know about. We told them their choice could be someone who was born here or someone who lived primarily in a Latin American country but influences Latino communities in the United States today. 

Here are 15 icons well worth reading up on.

-Brittany Wong

(Below is an excerpt written by me from a larger piece by several Latinx writers)

Bianca Jagger

“The image of Bianca Jagger astride a white horse –– razor-sharp cheekbones and off-the-shoulder neckline daring you to question her authority –– inside a packed Studio 54 is seared into the cultural consciousness. Whether she rode the horse into the club or whether she simply mounted it for a photo-op is irrelevant, as are many of the glamorous things for which she is best known. Warhol parties and Rolling Stones affiliations aside, theNicaraguan Blanca Pérez-Mora Macías has made an even bigger (if less flashy) impact on the world stage as a longtime human rights advocate.

Raised by a struggling single mother under the country’s Somoza dictatorship, Jagger parlayed her Paris Institute of Political Studies scholarship and glamorous social capital into a multifaceted career of intersectional activism. She has chased after Honduran death squads, opposed U.S. intervention in Central America, championed women’s rights and education, campaigned for more sustainable environmental practices and proposed abolishing death penalties around the world. It hasn’t been just issue-of-the-week dilettantism, either, and if it sounds like a lot, well, it is. But 50 years of goodwill later, she has the humanitarian awards (and inimitable style) to prove it.” ― Juan A. Ramirez, writer and critic