Just around the time actual Latino astronaut José Hernández was born, actor and comic Bill Dana (not a Latino) got famous playing José Jiménez, a sweet but dimwitted astronaut with a thick Latino accent.
It was the beginning of the Space Race and astronauts were America’s new heroes, but the very idea of a Chicano in space was a joke.
Mas…Meet America’s first Latino astronaut: José Jiménez (audio video)