Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez
Credit: Intercosmos

People in the United States observe National Hispanic Heritage Month each year from September 15 to October 15. During this period, Latin American countries celebrate their independence. These countries include Cuba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.

Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez is a Cuban cosmonaut and politician. In Russia and the other former republics of the Soviet Union, astronauts are called cosmonauts. In 1980, Tamayo became the first Black person in space, when he spent a week docked at the Soviet Salyut 6 space station. That same year, he became a member of Cuba’s National Assembly.

Tamayo was born on Jan. 29, 1942, in Guantánamo. After being orphaned as a baby, he was raised by his maternal aunt and uncle. As a child, Tamayo worked many odd jobs, for example shining shoes, selling vegetables, and working as an apprentice carpenter.

After the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the country in 1959, Tamayo joined the country’s Revolutionary Army (see Cuba (The Castro revolution). In 1961, he completed studies at the Technical Institute to be an aviation technician. He was then selected to continue studying in the Soviet Union. Tamayo learned how to pilot fighter jets at the Yeisk Higher Military Aviation School in Russia, on the Sea of Azov. He returned to Cuba in 1962 to become a flight instructor for the Cuban Revolutionary Guard. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, he participated in reconnaissance missions. He also served in the Vietnam War (1957-1975). By 1976, Tamayo had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Cuban air force.

The Soviet Union selected Tamayo to participate in its Intercosmos program in 1978. The program was established to send non-Soviets into space on Soviet spacecraft. Tamayo spent two and a half years training at the Yuri Gargarin Soviet Space Center. On Sept. 18, 1980, Tamayo and the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko blasted off on the Soyuz 38 mission. Tamayo became the first person from the Caribbean, the first Cuban, the first Latin American, and the first Black person in space. On the space station Salyut 6, the crew of Soyuz 38 joined other cosmonauts and carried out various experiments designed by Cuban scientists. The mission lasted a little over a week.

Tamayo and Romanenko were both awarded honors after landing. Tamayo became the first person ever awarded the Hero of the Republic of Cuba medal. Additionally, he received medals for Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin. Tamayo continued his military service, eventually attaining the rank of brigadier general and serving as director of Cuba’s civil defense. His space suit is displayed in the Museum of The Revolution in Havana.

November 15, 2019

Tomorrow, November 16, is the 500th anniversary of the founding of Havana, the capital, chief port, and largest city of the Caribbean Island nation of Cuba. Havana lies on the island’s northwest coast, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Key West, Florida. Havana’s name in Spanish, the language of Cuba, is La Habana.

Havana, Cuba’s capital and largest city, turns 500 years old on Nov. 16, 2019. Credit: © Sean Pavone, Shutterstock

To prepare for Havana’s 500th birthday, city officials renovated El Capitolio (Cuba’s National Capital Building), the Castillo de los Tres Reyes Magos del Morro (Castle of the Three Wise Men of the Wall), and many other historic structures of the Old Havana city center. A series of anniversary concerts and performances are taking place at the city’s Gran Teatro (Grand National Theater). The city also gave a fresh coat of paint and installed new baseball-themed decorations in the barrio azul (blue neighborhood), the area surrounding Cerro Latinoamericano Stadium, home of the city’s beloved royal-blue clad team, los Industriales (the Industrialists).

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Havana, Cuba. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, the first Spanish governor of Cuba, founded San Cristóbal de la Habana on the island’s south coast in 1515. The city failed to flourish, however, probably because of pirate attacks, and Velázquez reestablished the city as Puerto de Carenas on the island’s northwest coast on Nov. 16, 1519. The city soon regained its earlier name, shortened to La Habana. The city’s location and its harbor attracted many trading ships. Havana soon developed into an important commercial center. Havana became the capital of Cuba in 1552. The city steadily grew over the years and also withstood attacks from pirates and invading armies.

A street scene in Havana, Cuba’s capital, features colorful buildings and old-fashioned cars. Credit: © Shutterstock

In the first half of the 1900’s, Havana was developed into a resort center, but many of its people lived in poverty. Since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the city has been somewhat neglected, but Havana—particularly Old Havana—remains the heart of Cuban culture, government, and tourism.

Havana is one of three major Latin American cities that celebrated their 500th birthdays in 2019. Veracruz, Mexico, hit the 500 mark in April; and Panama City, the capital of Panama, turned 500 in August. The quincentenaries marked the founding of permanent European settlements in the New World shortly after the Spanish arrived in 1492.

November 1, 2019

Today, November 1, as people digest the sweets collected on Halloween, many people begin another celebration: the Day of the Dead, or día de los muertos. As the name implies, the traditionally Mexican holiday honors the dead. The holiday is also celebrated in other Latin American countries and in Mexican American communities. During día de los muertos (or simply día de muertos), families gather in churches, at cemeteries, and in homes to pray for and remember deceased loved ones.

A family in Patzcuaro, Mexico, decorates the graves of deceased family members on Día de los muertos. Credit: © Henry Romero, Reuters

Día de los muertos is usually celebrated on November 1 and 2. Those days are the Roman Catholic feasts of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. The celebration combines ancient native beliefs and Catholic traditions. Many families prepare an elaborate altar, known as an ofrenda (offering), for the holiday. They set up the ofrendas in their homes and in cemeteries. The ofrendas are decorated with flowers, fruits, popular foods, sweets, and drinks. They are created to welcome back for a day the souls of departed family members and friends. Special creations such as calaveras (sugar skulls) and sweet pan de muerto (bread of the dead) are popular treats. Day of the dead food, decorations, and costumes traditionally incorporate skulls, skeletons, and other symbols of death.

The day of the dead reinforces the ancient belief that death is a part of life. It is an important tradition through which families pass on their oral histories. Recalling stories of past family members helps keep these ancestors alive for future generations.

February 26, 2018

Spanish (español) is by some estimates the second most spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese. More than 400 million people speak Spanish as their native tongue. Adding people who speak Spanish as a second language and those with partial fluency, the number nears 500 million. Spanish is the official language of Spain and most countries of Latin America. Spanish is also an official language in western Africa’s Equatorial Guinea and in the United States commonwealth of Puerto Rico. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 40 million U.S. residents spoke Spanish in 2016. Spanish is also an official language of the United Nations. Spanish has a rich literary heritage of celebrated drama, poetry, and prose. The Nobel Prize in literature has been given to 11 writers from Spanish-speaking countries since the prize first was awarded in 1901.

The Spanish language originated in Spain (the Spanish flag is seen here) and is the official language of numerous countries around the world. Credit: © Loveshop/Shutterstock

The Spanish spoken in Spain often is called Castilian Spanish (Castellano), after the historical kingdom of Castile. The Spanish of Latin America is known as American Spanish (español americano). Castilian and American Spanish are basically the same but differ in some vocabulary and pronunciation. Variations in the language also exist between different countries and regions of Latin America. For example, the writing instrument pen is bolígrafo or pluma in Spain, but it can be lápiz pasta in Chile, birome in Paraguay, and lapicera in Argentina. Yet no one will be confused if you ask to borrow a bolígrafo in Colombia or Peru.

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Languages of the New World, including Spanish, are a result of colonial settlement by European nations. This map shows colonial territories of Latin America around 1790. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

As a language, Spanish is extremely phonetic, meaning that its pronunciation closely follows its spelling. It has only five basic vowel sounds, represented by the letters a, e, i or y, o, and u. Overall, the alphabet has 27 letters. Before 2010, there were 29, but the Royal Spanish Academy in Madrid declared two letters, ch and ll, non-letters that year. The decision caused some controversy throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

Spanish is part of the Indo-European language family—that is, a group of languages descended from a common proto- or parent language. The Indo-European family is the most prominent language family. It includes many of the languages of Europe, as well as languages of India. Within the Indo-European family, Spanish is a Romance language, along with French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and several others. Such languages developed from the Latin language of the ancient Romans. Spanish and other Romance languages developed from the vulgar or vernacular form of Latin spoken by the common people.

During the 200’s and 100’s B.C., Romans conquered the Iberian Peninsula, home to modern-day Spain and Portugal. The Iberian people gradually adopted the Latin language. In A.D. 711, Arabic-speaking Muslims from northwestern Africa conquered most of Iberia. They ruled the region until the mid-1200’s. About 700 Arabic words were added to vulgar Latin, but the overall language changed little. Spanish began to emerge as an independent language during the period from 950 to 1000. It developed several dialects (related varieties). Castile gained significance in the 1200’s, and the Castilian dialect became the accepted form of Spanish in most of the region. Another dialect, Galician-Portuguese, became the basis of the Portuguese language. The Catalan dialect grew into the modern Catalan language of northeastern Spain.

December 13, 2016

Many people are familiar with the superstitions surrounding Friday the 13^th, a day feared by many who believe in the supernatural, the unexplained, or the just plain weird. But did you know that Tuesday the 13^th—today!—is also a potentially troubling day? In many Latin American countries (and in Spain and Greece), today—Tuesday the 13th, or martes 13 (or trece) in Spanish—is un día de la mala suerte, or a bad luck day.

Some superstitious people think that cuddly black cats should be avoided on martes 13—Tuesday the 13th. Credit: © Shutterstock Credit: © Shutterstock

On martes 13, people might want to avoid black cats, walking beneath ladders, breaking mirrors, or other supposed omens of bad luck. In fact, some superstitious Spanish-speaking people may not leave home at all on martes 13. A common saying goes: martes 13, ni te cases, ni te embarques—Tuesday the 13^th, neither marry, nor embark (leave on a trip). In Chile, a third warning is often added to this expression: ni tu puerco mates—don’t kill your pig (save it for a better day). The number 13 has long been an “unlucky” number, but you may wonder why some cultures pair 13 with Tuesday instead of Friday.

Well, one possibility is that martes is named for the fearsome ancient Roman god of war, Mars (Marte in Spanish)—not a character to be taken lightly. And, of course, war is associated with such bad things as death and destruction. Also, one of the most significant events in world history, the Fall of Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), occurred on a Tuesday in 1453. If you were a citizen of the East Roman (or Byzantine) Empire at the time, this was truly a bad luck day. Furthermore, Biblical tradition has it that the confusion of different languages at the Tower of Babel began on a Tuesday—or was it martes, martedi, mardi, Dienstag, or Вторник???

In some East Asian cultures, the number 4 is considered bad luck, largely because of the similarity of the words four and death in Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and several Chinese dialects. It is common for buildings to be without a fourth floor, or for the number 4 to be excluded from the names of airplanes, cars, or ships. It is extremely uncommon to receive a gift of four of anything, and the number 4 is often missing in hospitals, hotels, and license plates.

Mosquitoes transmit many viruses to humans, including the Zika virus. Credit: © Dmitry Knorre, Dreamstime

January 19, 2016

An outbreak of a virus has led health officials at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to issue a travel alert for people, especially pregnant women or women of child-bearing years who might get pregnant, to avoid travel to Puerto Rico and 13 countries in Latin America. The CDC recommended that pregnant women not travel to Puerto Rico and Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, and Venezuela out of fear of birth defects associated with infection by mosquito-borne Zika virus. An outbreak of the Zika virus is linked to a rash of devastating birth defects in Brazil.

Since November 2015, Brazilian health authorities have observed a dramatic increase in babies born with microcephaly, a congenital condition (a problem caused by faulty development, infection, or injury before birth). With this condition, a child is born with a smaller-than-normal sized head, often with severely impaired brain development. In Brazil, more than 3,500 births of babies with microcephaly were reported in 2015, with many deaths. This is a significant increase compared to the 147 cases of microcephaly recorded in Brazil in all of 2014. Brazilian officials believe that the frightening increase in this serious rare condition is related to a recent outbreak of Zika virus in the country. On January 15, the CDC reported that an infant born with microcephaly and her mother had both tested positive for a prior Zika infection. The mother had been in Brazil during her pregnancy. It was the first U.S. case of a birth defect linked to the virus.

Zika virus is spread to people through the bite of a mosquito, Aedes aegypti, common throughout tropical regions of the world. This mosquito is responsible for transmitting other serious diseases, including yellow fever, dengue, and chikungunya. Symptoms of Zika virus disease include fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (eye inflammation). For adults and children already born, the illness is usually mild, with symptoms lasting from several days to a week. Severe Zika virus infections, requiring hospitalization or causing death, are uncommon.

In the past, outbreaks of Zika virus infection have occurred in areas of Africa, where the virus is endemic (naturally occurring), Southeast Asia, and some Pacific Islands. However, none of these outbreaks has ever been associated with birth defects. In early 2015, the Zika virus was first found in an outbreak of illness in Brazil. The virus was later found in patients in several other countries in South America. By November, Brazilian health officials were alarmed by the dramatic increase in births of babies with microcephaly with no apparent cause. Several of the mother and babies tested positive for exposure to the Zika virus, indicating a possible link. Doctors do not yet understand how the Zika virus may cause microcephaly and why this serious condition has not been associated with the virus in previous outbreaks in other countries.

There is currently no vaccine to prevent or medicine to treat Zika. The CDC says that pregnant women should consider postponing travel to these countries. Any pregnant women who must travel to one of these areas should talk to their healthcare provider first and strictly follow steps to avoid mosquito bites. People can limit the risk of Zika infection through basic mosquito-control measures. For example, people in affected areas should limit skin exposure by wearing long sleeves and pants, and wear mosquito repellant as necessary during the day, when the mosquitoes that transmit Zika virus are known to bite.

Other links

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—Zika virus
• World Health Organization

March 26, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Catholic Church, continued his visit of Latin America, leaving Mexico for Cuba. The 84-year-old pontiff, who was elected pope in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II, is visiting Spanish-speaking Latin America for the first time. (Pope Benedict visited Portuguese-speaking Brazil in 2007.) Mexico, in which more than 75 percent of the people are Roman Catholics, has the second-largest Catholic congregation in the world, after Brazil.

In March 2012, Pope Benedict XVI visited Mexico and Cuba, where he celebrated Mass before hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics. (Courtesy of Franco Origlia, Getty Images)

Pope Benedict used his visit to Mexico both to address the faithful and to speak out on political issues several months before the July 1, 2012, presidential election. Upon his arrival on March 23 in Silao, in central Guanajuato state, the pope condemned the drug-related violence that has left some 50,000 people dead in northern Mexico over the past five years. He urged the people to renounce the “idolatry of money” that fuels the drug trade. On March 24, the pope had a private meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose crackdown on the drug cartels has been central to his administration. The two leaders discussed such issues as climate change and organized crime.

On March 25, the pontiff led an open-air Mass beside the Christ the King monument at Bicentennial Park, near Silao. A crowd of some 500,000 people had gathered from across the nation, thousands of them camping out in the field at night, to see the pope.

In Cuba, the pope was scheduled to preside at two public Masses during his three-day visit. Pope Benedict’s plane landed in the southeastern city of Santiago de Cuba on the afternoon of March 26. He was scheduled to arrive in the capital, Havana, on March 27, where he was to celebrate Mass in Revolution Plaza. Although Communist Cuba was officially an atheist state until the 1990′s, an estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of the island nation’s people are Catholics. However, few Cuban Catholics practice openly.

Benedict’s visit was expected to boost tourism to Cuba, where President Raul Castro, who was elected in 2008, has enacted free market reforms allowing people to establish private businesses. The pope has urged Cuban leaders to abandon the country’s decades-old Marxist system, which he says “no longer corresponds to reality.”