America is known for its many cultures that came from hard work and triumphal battles that cost many lives but in the end created the greatest and most powerful country in the world today. America did not start with the vast majority of cultures that we see in our communities, and in fact was a scarcely populated land. Over the years our beautiful country of many different faces provided opportunity for people to immigrate in hopes of finding a better life for their families. One of the largest populations to immigrate into America and bless our now great country with its culture, religious beliefs, hard-working ethics, and their fine foods are the Spanish and Hispanics who are now known as Hispanic Americans. Their fight to become Hispanic Americans did not come easy and many are still fighting the battle to come to the U.S. America has been known as a melting pot for reasons of trying to make many cultures one. As educated individual will contest to this day that never happened and many immigrants are still suffering in America while they strive to make this great country their own. Many different bias and sociological theories make newly immigrated people suffer to overcome the life of poverty, bad health care, poor education, and little economic power. Our group would like to inform you how Hispanic Americans came to the U.S. and how they are fighting to gain strength and comfort in this powerful country. Hispanic Americans The Transition from Hispanic to Hispanic Americans Contributions from the Hispanic American people to our American culture have been numerous. We enjoy food and music, along with many individuals contributing their talents and education. Hispanic Americans is an ‘umbrella’ category encompassing several distinct groups (Marger, 2009). Hernando De Soto led an exploration from Florida to Texas. Francisco Vasquez De Coronado explored New Mexico to Kansas. The East and West coasts saw explorers to Maine, as well as to San Francisco, Oregon and into Denver (Esparza 2102). General Bernardo de Galvez led an army of soldiers made up of Indians, former slaves, Cubans and Spanish at Pensacola. He was the Spanish governor of the Louisiana Territory; and later the city of Galveston was named after him. David Farragut was the first admiral of the US Navy, with about sixty years of service to the U.S. The Hispanic-Americans have earned the Congressional Medal of Honor 43 times, up to the end of the Vietnam War (Esparza 2012). Other contributors include: 1. Fr. Junipero Serra, who founded the California missions and fought for Native Americans’ rights, 2. Dr. Carlos Juan Finlay, a Cuban physician researched a theory on yellow fever transmission by mosquitoes. 3. Luis Alvarez won the Nobel Prize for work on subatomic particles. Mario Molina won a Nobel Prize in chemistry, on research of the ozone layer. 4. Dr. Franklin Chang-Daz was a crew member on seven space flights, including 3 spacewalks. 5. Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman astronaut, participated in 4 flights. 6. Dr. Antonia Novello was the first woman, and first Hispanic to become Surgeon General of the U.S. 7. Jaime Escalante, born in Bolivia, a high school math teacher in East Los Angeles, was portrayed in the 1988 movie “Stand and Deliver” (Esparza 2102). Hispanic music culture is widely heard, through the music of Gloria Estefan, Placido Domingo, Carlos Santana, Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias and many other notable singers and musicians. Mexico City is a major music recording center and TV soap opera production center. Mariachi music, along with the rumba, tango and merengue dancing influences our music scene. Anthony Quinn, Antonio Banderas, Ricardo Montalban, Salma Hayek, Eric Estrada, Eva Longoria and George Lopez have entertained us as Hispanic actors. Since 1995, NCLR, or the National Council of La Raza, has honored the Latino talent represented in TV, films and music. In September of 2011 the Alma Award show was broadcast by NBC (Alma Awards, 2012). Sports figures like Monica Seles in tennis, Lee Trevino and Nancy Lopez in golf, Jim Plunkett and Anthony Munoz in football, Oscar De La Hoya in boxing, Jose Canseco, Roberto Clemente and Roberto Alomar in baseball are names recognizable to many people. Mexico hosted the Olympics in 1968. Mexico hosted the World Cup soccer in 1970 and 1986 (Esparza 2012). There are over 2,000 cities and towns in the U.S. with Spanish names; additionally many rivers and mountains have Spanish names. Montana, California, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico are Spanish (Esparza). Canyon, mesa, sierra and arroyo are some Spanish geographical names we often use. Many plants have Spanish names like mesquite, chaparral and Alamo. Words familiar to us such as patio, adobe, hacienda, Ramada, and cabana describe structures. Names such as coyote, mosquito, avocado, tobacco and vanilla are of Spanish origin (Esparza 2012). The staples of Mexican dishes are corn, hot chili peppers