# @mdhistory on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CxQxIPlLPxp
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/19780039-mdhistory-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/90c791ba01.jpg
- **Posted:** 2023-09-16T18:00:57.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) (@mdhistory) — https://gondola.cc/mdhistory

## Caption

Yesterday marks the first day of National Hispanic Heritage Month, and we’re exploring Latinx icons of Maryland featured throughout our collections. 
 
Maria Sanchez was born in Washington, D.C., in 1943 to Maxamilliano Mariano Sanchez (1909-1990) and Marguerite Ellis Sanchez (1915-1997). Her mother’s family traces back at least five generations to St. Mary’s County; her father was a seventh-generation Mexican/New Mexican. 
 
Sanchez spent the first five years of her life in St. Mary’s County before her family moved back to her father’s home state of New Mexico. She graduated from the University of New Mexico before becoming an airline hostess for Trans World Airlines (TWA) for the New York/San Francisco route. It was in San Francisco that she met her husband Dante R. Simi, Assistant VP of the Shasta Beverage Company based out of Baltimore. The two married in 1966, ultimately resulting in Sanchez’s return to the area. 
 
In early 1973, Sanchez received a cold call from Maryland painter and MICA professor Leonard Marion Bahr, requesting she pose for a group of paintings to be exhibited in what was supposed to be one of his final exhibitions. While she never knew how Bahr identified her, Sanchez agreed, and she and her adopted daughter Anne Ralston Simi traveled three times per week to the artist’s studio in Glen Burnie during the fall of 1973 and early 1974. After the show, he gave the portrait to Sanchez, who donated it to the Maryland Center for History and Culture in 2022. 
 
This portrait is currently on display in the office of our President and CEO, Katie Caljean. Caljean said she selected the painting for this space because "... it spoke to me as a mother of a curious young daughter. In this painting, Sanchez wears a silver and turquoise squash blossom necklace, symbolizing fertility and abundance for the Navajo and indigenous peoples in the American Southwest.  Bahr’s beautiful and serene depiction of Sanchez celebrates a woman’s strength throughout her life’s journey.” 

#HispanicHistory #Latinx #maryland #history

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## Tags

hispanichistory, history, maryland, latinx

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