HispanicBusiness

Lopez Negrete Receives Minority Business Award

Hispanic marketing pioneer Alex Lopez Negrete is one of three executives honored for their long-term achievements in minority business development at the National Minority Supplier Development Council Leadership Awards in New York recently.

Lopez Negrete is co-owner, president and chief executive officer of Houston-based Lopez Negrete Communications, the second-largest independent Hispanic-owned and -operated marketing agency in the country.

Lopez Negrete received the council's Leadership Award. "Receiving this recognition ... is extraordinarily meaningful to us, primarily because our status as a privately held, Hispanic owned and operated company is something we take very seriously, and because it is core to the values and vision which have driven our enterprise for the past 24 years: to bridge the gap between corporate and Hispanic America with communications that empower each of them to achieve their goals," Lopez Negrete said.

The other honorees are: David B. Dillon, chairman and CEO of The Kroger Company, and Kenneth M. Ricketts, president and CEO of Quality Packaging Specialists International.

Harriet R. Michel, president of the council, said, "High achievement and decades of commitment to the power of solid alliances between minority businesses and their corporate partners are what distinguish this year's honorees. ... Collectively they represent strength, perseverance, vision, forthrightness and commitment to our mutual goal that all Americans deserve a chance to take full part in our nation's economic progress."

The event drew nearly 1,300 guests, including CEOs and executives of Fortune 500 companies and minority business owners. Business owner Earvin "Magic" Johnson, chairman and CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises, was master of ceremonies.

Estefans Receive Ellis Island Family Heritage Honor

Music stars Gloria and Emilio Estefan were among five individuals honored by The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation recently for their contributions to the American tapestry.

The 8th Annual Ellis Island Family Heritage awards are given to selected Port of New York and Ellis Island immigrants or their descendants. The B.C. Forbes Peopling of America Award is given to immigrants who arrived after the Ellis Island era or through another port.

The Estefans, recipients of the B.C. Forbes honor, fled Cuba separately with their families after the rise of Fidel Castro. Gloria Estefan is a world-famous recording artist, and her husband Emilio is a successful music and TV producer in the U.S. Emilio Estefan wrote and produced his wife's latest chart-topping album "90 Millas," a tribute to their native Cuba.

It was the first year for the B.C. Forbes Peopling of America Award, sponsored by the Forbes family in honor of family patriarch B.C. "Bertie" Forbes, who emigrated to America from Scotland in 1904.

The other 2009 honorees are: Joe Namath (Sports), Dr. Eric R. Kandel (Science/Medicine) and Jerry Seinfeld (Entertainment).

The Ellis Island honorees each received a framed copy of the original ship's passenger manifests documenting the arrival of their family to America.

Filmmaker Luis Valdez Honored For Career Achievements

Filmmaker Luis Valdez received the 2009 Career Achievement Award at the 6th Annual Reel Rasquache Festival of the U.S. Latino Experience in Film & Art recently.

The festival, held at California State University, Los Angeles, recognized Valdez's notable contributions in U.S. film and television. The award honors individuals "whose body of work stands as a national treasure, a career that embodies the tremendous scope and rich diversity of Latino experience and historical contributions in the U.S.," according to a news release.

Valdez's multifaceted career includes work as a playwright, screenwriter, director and actor.

Among the San Jose State University alumnus' body of work are: "The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa" in 1963, his first full-length play; the founding in 1965 of the world-renowned El Teatro Campesino; the 1969 Chicano film, "I Am Joaquin"; the stage play "Zoot Suit" in 1979 and the film of the same name in 1981; and the movies "La Bamba" and "The Cisco Kid."

The festival described these works as "the embodiment of a quality of genius, vision, community commitment and social awareness that continue to give voice to the Chicano, Latino, and indeed human struggle for social access, recognition and justice."