Jimmy Smits, Roberto Clemente, Maria Elena
Salinas, José M. Garzón, Ph.D. Honorees at CHCI’s 29th Annual
Hispanic Heritage Month Gala
His Royal Highness the Prince of Asturias, Felipe de Borbón and Her
Royal Highness Princess Letizia Join CHCI to Celebrate Hispanic
Heritage Month
Host Anheuser-Busch to Welcome Honorees and
Highlight “Our Youth, Our Future, Our Legacy”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI), the nation’s premier
Hispanic youth leadership development and educational organization,
announced this year’s Hispanic Heritage Month Medallion of
Excellence honorees:
Emmy Award
and Golden Globe winning actor Jimmy Smits
for Leadership;
and
Major League Baseball
Player legend, the late
Roberto
Clemente
for
Community Service.
Emmy Award
winning Univision news anchor Maria Elena Salinas
will be presented with the Chairwoman’s Award for
journalistic and humanitarian service to Hispanics.
José M. Garzón,
Ph.D.
will be
presented with the Distinguished Alumni Award.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Asturias, Felipe de Borbón
and Her Royal Highness Princess Letizia,
together with CHCI,
will celebrate this year’s honoree achievements at the
29th Annual CHCI Hispanic Heritage Month Gala, Wednesday,
Oct. 4 at the Washington Convention Center.
Gala host
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. joins honorees and
evening’s celebration
supporting CHCI’s leadership development and education services to
Hispanic youth, “Our Youth, Our Future, Our Legacy.”
Premier and Millennium sponsors
Comcast
Corporation and Fannie Mae join CHCI’s gala, now in its 29th
year.
Four-time Platinum
Record award winner and Grammy nominee musical artist, Frankie
Negron will perform songs from his most recent productions,
Amanecer Contigo, Inesperado and Por Tú Placer.
Jimmy Smits
will be presented with the
Medallion of Excellence – Leadership,
for
his exemplary work in promoting the Arts and success in film and
television.
Roberto
Clemente
will be honored posthumously with the
Medallion of Excellence - Community Service,
for
his significant
athletic and humanitarian contributions to all
Hispanics. Clemente’s family will accept the award.
Maria Elena Salinas
will be presented with the
Chairwoman’s Award,
for
her influential work in the field of journalism on
both a national and international level; her humanitarian efforts to
help Hispanics and her work as an accomplished author, “I am my
father’s daughter.”
CHCI Alumni José M. Garzón, Ph.D. will
receive the Distinguished Alumni Award, for his achievements and
continued service to the Latino community and CHCI.
About the Honorees
Emmy Award and Golden Globe-winning actor Jimmy Smits, has
established himself as one of the most gifted and versatile actors
working in film, television, and on the stage. After an influential
and successful role in ABC’s NYPD Blue, Smits returned to television
last fall in a powerful role on NBC’s The West Wing playing Matt
Santos, a Houston Congressman later elected to the White House.
Most recently, Smits acted in several films, including New Line
Cinema’s Price of Glory, and Chuck Russell’s thriller Bless The
Child, opposite Kim Basinger. In theater, Smits was most recently
seen in Much Ado About Nothing during the 2004 summer season of
Shakespeare in the Park. He also starred in Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer
Prize-winning play Anna in the Tropics. A strong education
advocate, Smits co-founded the National Hispanic Foundation for the
Arts to promote Hispanic talent in the performing arts.
Roberto Clemente Walker was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico,
August 18, 1934. The youngest of four children, he excelled in
track and field. A seasoned baseball player, Clemente signed with
the New York Brooklyn Dodgers, and later joined the Pittsburgh
Pirates in 1955, where he played his entire 18 year Major League
Baseball career. A four-time National League Batting Champion,
Clemente was awarded 12 Gold Gloves, and was selected National
League MVP in 1966 and at the 1971 World Series. On New Year's Eve,
December 31, 1972, Clemente’s airplane crashed off the cost of
Puerto Rico. The plane was transporting medical, food and clothing
supplies to earthquake stricken Nicaragua. Today, Clemente is
remembered as one of the greatest Hispanic athletes and
humanitarians of all time.
Maria Elena Salinas
has been called by The New York Times, “The Voice of Hispanic
America.” The Emmy Award - winning Univision news anchor is the most
recognized Hispanic female journalist in the United States.
For the past 25 years Salinas has informed millions of Hispanics in
the United States and 18 countries in
Latin America. As co-anchor for the highly rated “Noticiero Univision,” she
has handled some of the most challenging assignments in modern day
journalism. Throughout the years, Salinas
has interviewed more world leaders, dictators and political figures
than any other female journalist. She has interviewed nearly every
U.S. President since Jimmy Carter and followed Pope John Paul II on
a dozen foreign trips, including his historic visit to Cuba in 1998
and ultimately his funeral at the Vatican. Her list of
groundbreaking reports includes exclusive interviews with Mexican
Presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente
Fox; Carlos Ménem of Argentina, Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, Panamanian
strongman Manuel Noriega, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Violeta
Chamorro and Enrique Bolaños; Colombia’s Cesar Gaviria, Andres
Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe; Peru’s Alberto Fujimori and Alejandro
Toledo, as well as other prominent political figures of the past two
decades, such as the enigmatic Mexican rebel leader Sub-Comandante
Marcos.
Her commitment to education led her to establish the "Maria
Elena Salinas Scholarship for Excellence in Spanish-language News"
which is administered by the National Association of Hispanic
Journalists and which awards three $5,000 scholarships to promising
journalism students.
Born in Los Angeles to Mexican immigrant parents, Salinas resides in Coral Gables,
Florida, with her two daughters, Julia Alexandra and Gabriela Maria.
José M. Garzón, Ph.D.
is a native of Pico Rivera, California. He is a graduate
from Whittier College with a BA in Political Science and a Ph.D.
from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Garzón has worked
with multiple international relief and development agencies
throughout his career. Over the past 17 years he has been with the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) working
in diverse settings, from El Salvador to the Philippines, Bangladesh
to Bolivia. As current Chief of the Democracy and Governance Office
in Guatemala, Dr. Garzón is working on a new reality show that he
helped support and approve through USAID. The show challenges
hardened former members of international gangs to make new lives for
themselves by succeeding at a legitimate business endeavor with the
help of private sector mentors. “When you hear about some of the
horrible things that go on – murder, drug abuse, rape – you can very
easily dehumanize the gang member; this show is putting a human face
to their struggles,” says Dr. Garzón. “Witnessing the impact of
development on the lives of ordinary people has been the most
personally rewarding aspect of the work I do.”
About Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Institute
Congressional
Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI), a nonprofit and nonpartisan
501(c)(3) organization, provides leadership development programs and
educational services to students and young emerging leaders. The
CHCI Board of Directors is comprised of Hispanic Members of
Congress, nonprofit leaders and corporate executives. For more
information call CHCI at (202) 543-1771 or visit
www.chci.org.
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