In honor of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayaor, HDV is delighted to present a week of Powerful Latinas of Yesteryear.I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
-S. Sotomayor, UC Berkeley Lecture, 2001
Today's Latina is Lynda Carter, star of the seventies hit television series Wonder Woman. Carter was born Linda Jean Córdova Carter in Phoenix, Arizona. Her father, Colby Carter, is an American, and her mother, Juana Córdova, is of Mexican and Spanish ancestry. Carter achieved her first national fame by winning Miss World USA, in 1972, representing Arizona.
Pictured above is Lynda Carter as Diana Prince, the bespectacled alter-ego of Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman was created by DC Comics author Dr. William Marston to be a "distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to 'a world torn by the hatred of men."
Wonder Woman's powers include super strength, super speed and stamina, animal-like cunning and flight. She is highly proficient in hand-to-hand combat and in the art of tactical warfare. She also makes use of her Lasso of Truth (which forces those bound by it to tell the truth), a pair of indestructible bracelets, and an invisible plane.
Lynda Carter will be performing songs from her new jazz album At Last at the Kiowa Casino in Oklahoma on September 25th. For tickets and showtimes, click here.
