Abelardo Barrientos Delgado, aka Lalo (November 27, 1931 – July 23, 2004), was a

Chicano Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

writer,

community organizer Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. Unlike those who promote more-consensual community bui ...

, and poet. His work was important in establishing the

Chicano poetry Chicano poetry is a branch of American literature, and specifically Mexican-American literature, written by and primarily about Mexican Americans and the many Mexican-American ways of life in U.S. society. The term "Chicano" is a political and cultu ...

movement. He was a major contributor to the

Chicano Movement The Chicano Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement in the United States inspired by prior acts of resistance among people of Mexican descent, especially of Pachucos in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Black ...

of the 1960s and 1970s. A professor in

Metropolitan State University Metropolitan State University (Metro State) is a public university in the Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota metropolitan area. It is a member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.

of Denver's Chicano/a Studies Department for 17 years, he was honored by the city of Denver posthumously in 2005 with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, he was posthumously named Denver's first Poet Laureate. Metropolitan State University hosts the annual Lalo Delgado Poetry Festival; which celebrates Delgado as a social justice poet and "the grandfather of Chicano and Chicana poetry in this country." Delgado was awarded the Tonatiuh-Quinto Sol Award for literature in 1977.

Personal life

Born in Boquilla de Conchos, Chihuahua,

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, Delgado moved to

El Paso El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...

, Texas in 1943. He grew up in a

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, i ...

occupied by 23 families sharing three bathrooms, learning English from a boys club after school. Delgado organized his first protest while in school, refusing to sing the National Anthem and eventually convincing his classmates to sing in Spanish instead. Lalo was married to Lola Estrada and had eight children.

References

1931 births 2004 deaths People from Chihuahua (state) American activists 20th-century American poets {{US-writer-stub