HAS MANY FACES
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“Carlos Cooks is just one of many Dominicans who will be featured, along with the showcasing of a Dominican village,” said Espaillat, noting that profiles of Dominican-Americans such as baseball greats Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martinez and David Ortiz, as well as actress Zoe Saldana, should provoke lively historical exchanges.
GHCC President and CEO Lloyd Williams is also quite familiar with Cooks and his contributions to social and political thought — not only in Harlem, but throughout the black and Latino worlds.
“Certainly his association with Marcus Garvey is something we have honored over the years, but don’t forget the link Cooks has to the political outlook and development of Malcolm X,” Williams said. “Taken together, you have a triumvirate of leaders who will be discussed during Harlem Week.”
Many Dominican New Yorkers — such as Christina Mendez, Felix Sanchez and the late U.S. Marine Cpl. Ramona Valdez — have made impressive contributions and remained proud of their ancestral island home and the U.S.
A full-figured phenom, New York-born and -raised Mendez is a “mother, model, entrepreneur, philanthropist” and “a proud Dominican” who is the granddaughter of “Merengue King” Joseito Mateo. This daughter of Dominican immigrants is a pioneer, the 2016 Model of the Year at Full Figured Fashion Week. Seen in magazines, fashion campaigns and runways, Mendez is one of a few plus-size models to make history walking in New York Fashion Week in 2013, 2014 and 2016.
Just short of her 21st birthday, Marine Cpl. Valdez was killed in 2005 by a suicide bomber in the Iraq War. Valdez — a married, Dominican-born New Yorker — was one of three women and three men killed in the attack, which left seven other women severely burned.
Valdez was posthumously honored in 2007 when the Marine Corps renamed II MEF Communications Training Center at the Camp LeJeune, N.C., dedicating it as the Valdez Training Facility. Valdez was a communication specialist with Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.
Sanchez, born in Manhattan’s Washington Heights to Dominican parents, grew up in San Diego.
Representing the Dominican Republic, Sanchez had a stellar track career — specializing in the 400-meter hurdles and winning Olympic gold in 2004, giving the island nation its first Olympic gold medal.
At the London Olympics in 2012, he became the oldest man — at age 34 — to win the 400-meter hurdles title. Sanchez also won the World Championship in the event in 2001 and 2003. He was named Track and Field Athlete of the Year in 2003.