Recognition in Mainstream America, Yeah for Latinos!

Latino Heritage Month News:
Glendale, CA – The Cesar E. Chavez Foundation is proud to announce that Cesar's image, along with that of Celia Cruz, is featured on select Kellogg’s Corn Flakes boxes in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month 2005 (Sept. 15 - Oct. 15).


César Chávez:
A true American hero, Cesar was a civil rights, Latino, farm worker, and labor leader; a religious and spiritual figure; a community servant and social entrepreneur; a crusader for nonviolent social change; and an environmentalist and consumer advocate.
A second-generation American, Cesar was born on March 31, 1927, near his family's farm in Yuma, Arizona. At age 10, his family became migrant farm workers after losing their farm in the Great Depression. Throughout his youth and into his adulthood, Cesar migrated across the southwest laboring in the fields and vineyards, where he was exposed to the hardships and injustices of farm worker life.After achieving only an eighth-grade education, Cesar left school to work in the fields full-time to support his family. He attended more than 30 elementary and middle schools. Although his formal education ended then, he possessed an insatiable intellectual curiosity, and was self-taught in many fields and well read throughout his life.Cesar's dream, however, was to create an organization to protect and serve farm workers, whose poverty and disenfranchisement he had shared. In 1962, Cesar resigned from the CSO, leaving the security of a regular paycheck to found the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America.For more than three decades Cesar led the first successful farm workers union in American history, achieving dignity, respect, fair wages, medical coverage, pension benefits, and humane living conditions, as well as countless other rights and protections for hundreds of thousands of farm workers. Against previously insurmountable odds, he led successful strikes and boycotts that resulted in the first industry-wide labor contracts in the history of American agriculture. His union's efforts brought about the passage of the groundbreaking 1975 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act to protect farm workers. Today, it remains the only law in the nation that protects the farm workers' right to unionize.

Celia Cruz:
Celia Cruz began singing in amateur contests at the age of 14, in her home city of Havana, Cuba. She studied music theory, piano and voice at the National Music Conservatory.
In 1950 she began singing with the conjunto Sonora Matancera, and with that group she was a central figure in some of the most glorious chapters of Afrocuban music, recording a number of legendary songs, including "Yembe Laroco," "Yerbero Moderno," "Burundanga," and "Caramelo." By the end of the '50s the Sonora Matancera was the most popular group in Cuba. Celia's alliance with them took her beyond the coast of Cuba and exported her talent to the world. While in the group she met Pedro Knight, at the time one of the band's two trumpeters. This relationship culminated in matrimony and has lasted 42 years.On July 15, 1960, she left Cuba. Upon arriving in the United States, she made history once again. In the following decade she recorded various albums with maestro Tito Puente, and together they awoke the interest of the Anglo and European public in Latin music, a phenomenon that in the '70s became known as the salsa boom. Other distinguished Latin musicians with whom she collaborated included Johnny Pacheco (with whom she recorded such classics as "Quimbara," "Cúcala," and "Bemba Colorá"), Willie Colón, Pete "Conde" Rodríguez, Ray Barretto, Sonora Ponceña, and the Fania All Stars.
It is not exactly clear when they started calling her "The Queen of Salsa", but she has carried the title with class and distinction. Celia has had the opportunity to work with important figures of American popular music. Dionne Warwick, Patti Labelle, David Byrne, Gloria Estefan and Wyclef Jean among others. As her talent has always embraced people of all generations and tastes, she has also sung with rock groups such as the Fabulous Cadillacs and Jarabe de Palo.
For years Celia Cruz has dedicated herself to helping others, and in the summer of 2002 her lifetime companion Pedro Knight and her manager Omer Pardillo realized one of her fondest dreams by creating the Celia Cruz Foundation. The Foundation's mission is to provide financial aid to low-income students who want to study music, and to assist cancer victims. In March 2003, the network Telemundo presented Celia Cruz:¡Azúcar! a television tribute to her featuring stars of Latin and North American music, and in June, funds generated by that special were donated to the Celia Cruz Foundation.



http://www.celiacruzonline.com/
http://www.chavezfoundation.org/