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Latinx/é History

Latinx/é history is American history. Some of the oldest settlements of the United States date to the late 1500s and early 1600s, with the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and include places such as St. Augustine, Florida (1565), and Santa Fe, New Mexico (1607). These communities were established by people of Spanish, Indigenous, and African origin, including mestizos (those of Spanish-Indian ancestry) and mulattos (those of Spanish-African ancestry). Since then, Latinx/é people and communities have continued to shape and influence the settlement, development, and evolution of the United States through its colonial, republican, and contemporary eras. 

While we have much research left to excavate, interpret, and bring to life the many Latinx/é people who have been overlooked and excluded in history books, the ANB includes hundreds of our most famous and well-known leaders as well as ordinary people who struggled and sometimes failed in their efforts to achieve their dreams and desires in their homes, with their families, and in their communities. They include politicians; labor leaders; doctors, scientists, and engineers; lawyers, activists, organizers, and educators; visual, performance, and musical artists; and, intellectuals, authors, and poets. Some of these individuals were instrumental, for instance, in the Latinx/é civil rights movements based in cities across the United States, including New York, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. Other Latinx/é figures, situated in the United States, were key to nineteenth- and twentieth-century national revolutionary and independence movements in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Cuba. 

The names below represent a sampling of the some of these Latinx/é people who shaped the U.S. landscape in both visible and invisible ways. While most achieved national and international acclaim, many labored in relative obscurity until their efforts and accomplishments were recognized years later. We invite you to spend time with these figures of historical significance.


Recommend the American National Biography Online to your librarian to gain access.

Explorers

Colonial Administrators and Governors

Politics

Business Leaders

Labor

Activists, Organizers, and Educators

Science and Medicine

Writers

Music and Musicians

Entertainment, Film, and Television

Artists and Architects

Sports Figures

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