List of Spanish Americans


This is a list of notable Americans who self-identify as Americans of Spanish descent, including both original immigrants who obtained American citizenship and their American descendants.
There are also many people in the United States of various Latin American "national" origin who self-identify their heritage or origins in census data as being Spaniard.

List

Artists and designers

Business

Entertainment

Film and television screenwriters, directors and producers

Actors and actresses

Models

Musicians

Dancers

Sports

  • Pete Alonso- Mets first baseman and 2019 Rookie of the Year. His grandfather was born in Spain and fought for the republicans during the Spanish Civil War. He came to America after Franco overthrew the republic.
  • Barry Alvarez – American football coach. His grandparents immigrated to the United States from Northern Spain.
  • Lyle Alzado – professional American football defensive end of the National Football League. His father is of Italian-Spanish descent.
  • Art Aragon – American boxer
  • J. J. Arcega-Whiteside – American football player born in Zaragoza, Spain. His father is Spanish and mother is American.
  • Paula Badosa – professional tennis player who represents Spain, was born in Manhattan. Her parents are from Barcelona.
  • Jonathan Borrajo – American soccer player of Spanish parents.
  • Gene Brito – American football Defensive end in the National Football League. He was of Spanish and Mexicans parents.
  • Pete Carril – American former basketball coach.
  • Matt Diaz – American professional baseball outfielder for the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball. His brother is Jonny Diaz. His grandfather who had emigrated from Barcelona.
  • Luca de la Torre – professional soccer player. Father is from Spain.
  • Mary Joe Fernández – professional tennis player and two-time Olympic gold medal winner. Father from Spain.
  • Santiago Formoso – Spanish-born American soccer defender who spent five seasons in the North American Soccer League.
  • Lefty Gomez – born Vernon Louis Gomez, New York Yankees Hall of Fame pitcher. His grandfather was Spaniard.
  • Keith Hernandez – MVP-winning baseball player, grandfather from Málaga, Spain.
  • Manuel Hernandez – Spanish-born American soccer player.
  • Chris Gimenez – American professional baseball catcher for the Oakland Athletics
  • Kane - American professional wrestler.
  • Al López – Hall-of-Fame baseball player and manager. Spanish parents.
  • Mike Lowell – Puerto Rican former professional baseball third baseman in Major League Baseball. His parents were born in Cuba, and are of Irish and Spanish ancestry.
  • David López-Zubero – former college and international swimmer who competed in three Summer Olympics and won an Olympic bronze medal.
  • Martin López-Zubero – American born, Spanish Olympian swimmer with dual-citizenship. His father is Spanish
  • Saoul Mamby – former professional boxer of Spanish and Jamaican descent.
  • Alec Martinez – American professional ice hockey player. His paternal grandfather is Spanish.
  • Rachel McLish – American female bodybuilding champion, actress and author. Her father was of Spanish ancestry.
  • Kimmie Meissner – former competitive figure skater. Her maternal great-grandparents were Spanish immigrants.
  • Midajah – American personal trainer, fitness model and former professional wrestling manager. He is the eldest of four children and is of Norwegian, Irish, Spanish, and French descent.
  • Lou Molinet – first Hispanic-American professional football player to play in the National Football League.
  • Lou Piniella – baseball player and manager, Asturian grandparents
  • Hernando Planells – assistant coach of the Maine Red Claws of the NBA Development League and former head coach of the Basketball Japan League team Ryukyu Golden Kings.
  • Augusto Perez – former wheelchair curler.
  • Tony La Russa – baseball player and manager, born to Spanish and Italian parents in Ybor City in Tampa Florida.
  • Ralph Onis – professional baseball.
  • Jack Del Rio – American head coach of the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League, to a father of Spanish and Italian descent.
  • Rich Rodriguez – Arizona head football coach.
  • Fabri Salcedo – Spanish-born American soccer player.
  • Wendy Lucero-Schayes – American former Olympic diver.
  • Craig Torres (bodybuilder)
  • Benny Urquidez – kickboxer, martial arts choreographer and actor. His father is descended from Basque Spaniards and Blackfoot Amerindians
  • Alejandro Villanueva – offensive tackle, Pittsburgh Steeleers. Parents were born in Spain.
  • Minh Vu – American soccer player of Spanish and Vietnamese descent.
  • Ted Williams – American professional baseball player, manager, and World War II and Korean War veteran. His mother was Mexican of Spanish, Russian, and American Indian descent.

Military (excluding those who were also governors or politicians)

Governors and politicians

Sheriffs, police, Texas Rangers and lawyers

Journalists and reporters

  • Krystal Fernandez – American sports journalist.
  • Bill Gallo – cartoonist and newspaper columnist for the New York Daily News.
  • Steve Lopez – American journalist who has been a columnist for The Los Angeles Times since 2001. He is the son of Spanish and Italian immigrants.
  • Suzanne Malveaux – TV news reporter. She comes from a Creole family in Louisiana of French, Spanish and African origin.
  • Craig Rivera – American television journalist, producer, and correspondent for Fox News Channel. His father was a Puerto Rican of Sephardic Jew descent.
  • Sebastian Junger – American journalist, most famous for the best-selling book The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea
  • Geraldo Rivera – American lawyer, journalist, writer, reporter and talk show host. His father was of Puerto Rican Sephardic Jew ancestry. He is brother of Craig Rivera.
  • Maria Rozman – Spanish-born Telemundo Washington, D.C.'s News Director.
  • Rosana Ubanell – Spanish-born American naturalized news journalist and the first Spanish language novelist to ever be published by Penguin Books.

Novelists, poets and comic book cartoonists

Ranchers and landowners

Religious figures

Scholars, professors and academics

Scientists, inventors and engineers

  • Luis F. Álvarez – Spanish-born American doctor. He developed diagnosis for macular leprosy
  • Luis W. Alvarez – American scientist of Spanish descent. He was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and key participant in the Manhattan Project
  • Walter Alvarez – American geologist of Spanish descent who first proposed the asteroid-impact theory to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs
  • Walter C. Alvarez – American doctor of Spanish descent. He authored several dozen books on medicine, and wrote introductions and forewords for many others. Referred to as "America's Family Doctor" for his syndicated medical column in hundreds of newspapers.
  • Francisco J. Ayala – Spanish-born American biologist and philosopher, recipient of the 2010 Templeton Prize
  • Isador Coriat – American psychiatrist and neurologist. He was one of the first American psychoanalysts. He was of Moroccan-Spanish descent on father's side and German on mother's side.
  • Pedro Cuatrecasas – Spanish-born American biochemist and an adjunct professor of Pharmacology & Medicine at the University of California, San Diego
  • Valentín Fuster – Catalan-born American cardiologist
  • Rafael Guastavino – Spanish-born building engineer and builder who lived in the United States since 1881 until his death; his career was based in New York City. The vaults of hundreds buildings in the eastern US were built based on his design.
  • Rodolfo Llinás – Professor of Neuroscience and Chairman of the department of Physiology & Neuroscience at the NYU School of Medicine. Born in Bogotá, with Spanish grandfather.
  • Michael Lopez-Alegria – Spanish-born American astronaut. Holds American record for most EVA hours. Born in Madrid.
  • Miguel A. Sanchez – Spanish-born American board-certified pathologist who specializes in anatomic pathology, clinical pathology and cytopathology.
  • Severo Ochoa – Spanish-born Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who worked on the synthesis of RNA
  • Ramón Verea – Spanish-born journalist, engineer and writer. Inventor of a calculator with an internal multiplication table

Philanthropists, activists, revolutionaries, and community leaders

Others