Alba Roballo was a prominent Afro-Uruguayan lawyer, poet and politician, who was Uruguay’s first woman Cabinet member, first woman Culture Minister, and first woman elected to the (then collective) Municipal Council of Montevideo, Uruguay.
Alejandra Melfo is a Venezuelan physicist, known for her efforts studying and conserving glaciers, especially the Humboldt Corona, the last glacier in Venezuela.
Dandara was an Afro-Brazilian warrior during Brazil’s colonial period.
Although she was involved with art throughout her life, painter Luchita Hurtado only received recognition near the end of her life. Named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019, she landed her first solo show in a public gallery at age 98. Hurtado worked in different styles that drew elements from 20th-century avantgarde and modernist art movements including Surrealism, abstraction, and Magical Realism. Among her best-known works is the 1960s ‘I Am’ series: self-portraits that Hurtado painted by looking down at her own body, often in closets as it was this only place she could work in between raising her sons and managing the home. Later works demonstrate her environmental concerns, with recurring motifs that include humans merging with trees and texts such as ‘Water Air Earth’ and ‘We Are Just a Species’.
Teresa Villarreal González was a feminist, labor organizer, and political activist who supported the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) and the Mexican Revolution (1910–17). She and her sister Andrea published the feminist newspaper La Mujer Moderna (The Modern Woman) in 1910. That year, Teresa also established El Obrero: Periódico Independiente (The Worker: Liberal Newspaper) in San Antonio, Texas, and published articles that addressed issues of the working class and called for mass involvement in Mexican Revolution’s struggle for a democratic government. Along with economic, educational, and cultural improvements for the masses, she advocated for the emancipation of women.
Maria Gertrudis “Tules” Barceló was a saloon owner and master gambler in Santa Fe in the Territory of New Mexico in the 1830s-1850s. She reolcated sometime after Mexican authorities fined her for operating a gambling salon for miners in the Ortiz Mountains. Barceló amassed a small fortune by capitalizing on the flow of American and Mexican traders involved with the commercial highway of the Santa Fe Trail. She became infamous in the U.S. as the Mexican “Queen of Sin” through a series of American travel writings and newspaper serials before, during, and after the Mexican-American War. These depictions, often intended to explain or justify the U.S. invasion of Mexico, presented La Tules as a madame and prostitute who symbolized the supposedly immoral nature of the local Mexican population. In addition to false assertions that she was a prostitute, many also claimed that she was having an illicit affair with New Mexico Governor Manuel Armijo. The sensational accounts were typicallyembellished, if not completely fabricated. Most of the American descriptions of Tules Barceló contradicted each other wildly in terms of her appearance and background. The only common agreement among them was that Barceló excelled at the card game monte, often winning vast piles of gold from the male customers in her saloon. Barceló died on January 17, 1852 in Santa Fe with a remarkable fortune of $10,000 and several houses.
Ofelia Domínguez Navarro was a Cuban writer, teacher, lawyer, feminist and activist who fought for the rights of women and illegitimate children.
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria is a Chilean politician who served as the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018. She previously served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and 2014 to 2018; a member of the Socialist Party of Chile, she was the first woman to hold the Chilean presidency. After leaving the presidency in 2010 and while not immediately reelectable (Chile does not allow consecutive presidential terms), she was appointed the first executive director of the newly created United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. In December 2013, Bachelet was reelected as president with more than 62% of the vote, improving on the 54% she won in 2006. She became the first President of Chile to be reelected since 1932.
Bachelet, a physician who has studied military strategy at university level, had also been Health Minister and Defense Minister under her predecessor, Ricardo Lagos. In addition to her native Spanish, she speaks, with varying levels of fluency, English, German, and Portuguese.
Andrea Villarreal was a teacher, poet, feminist, labor organizer, and revolutionary. Along with her sister Teresa, Andrea published the feminist newspaper La Mujer Moderna (The Modern Woman, 1910) supporting the liberal-radical activities of the Partido Liberal Mexicano (opposing the Mexican dictatorship of President Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911)) in San Antonio and the Mexican Revolution (1910–17). She publicly opposed the imprisonment of Mexican men during the Revolution and was referred to by members of the press as the Mexican Joan of Arc.
Irene Morales Infante was a Chilean soldier who served in the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) between Chile, Peru and Bolivia.