Lalo Alcaraz (born April 19, 1964) is an American cartoonist most known for being the author of the comic ''
La Cucaracha
La Cucaracha ("The Cockroach") is a popular Mexican folk song about a cockroach who cannot walk. The song's origins are unclear, but it dates back at least to the 1910s during the Mexican Revolution. The song belongs to the Mexican genre. The s ...
'', the first nationally syndicated, politically themed Latino daily comic strip. Launched in 2002, ''La Cucaracha'' has become one of the most controversial in the history of American comic strips.
Alcaraz was born in 1964 in
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...
, California, and grew up on the U.S.–Mexico border, giving him a dual outlook on life (not "Mexican" enough for his relatives, not "American" enough for some in the U.S.). He attended
San Diego State University
San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...
, where he received his bachelor's degree "With Distinction" in Art and Environmental Design in 1987. In 1991, Alcaraz earned his master's degree in architecture from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
.
A leading figure in 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 ...
, Alcaraz formerly contributed political cartoons for ''
LA Weekly'' from 1992 to 2010. He co-hosts a radio show on
KPFK called the "Pocho Hour of Power". Alcaraz is also the "Jefe-in-Chief" of POCHO.COM, a website specializing in "Ñews y Satire."
Career
In addition to the daily strip, Alcaraz has published four books. Alcaraz is also an active speaker on the college circuit. He is represented by The Agency Group in Los Angeles.
Alcaraz taught as a faculty member at
Otis College of Art & Design. He serves on the editorial advisory board of the Latin American and
Latinx literature, philosophy, and arts journal
Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures.
Alcaraz was consulting producer and writer on the animated show ''
Bordertown'' (created by ''Family Guy'' show runner
Mark Hentemann
Mark Henry Hentemann is an American screenwriter, creator and producer for television and film. He is a writer, executive producer and former showrunner of the animated series '' Family Guy'', where he started as a writer in its first season. ...
and executive produced by
Seth MacFarlane), which ran one 13-episode season on Fox. It featured the first animated Mexican-American or even Latino family on primetime American television. He also served along with Gustavo Arellano as producer on comedian
's TV special for Fusion, ''Half Like Me''. In 2015,
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californ ...
hired Alcaraz to consult on ''
Coco''.
(See "" below.) He is also a TV animation producer and consultant on ''
The Casagrandes
''The Casagrandes'' is an American animated comedy television series developed by Michael Rubiner and Miguel Puga that aired on Nickelodeon from October 14, 2019 to September 30, 2022. It is a spin-off of ''The Loud House'' and the second tele ...
'' on
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Group. It ...
. Alcaraz is also a performer, voicing an angry mariachi in ''Coco'', and has portrayed a Mexican bounty hunter named "Royce Vargas" in the 2017
Bill Plympton
Bill Plympton (born April 30, 1946) is an American animator, graphic designer, cartoonist, and filmmaker best known for his 1987 Academy Awards-nominated animated short '' Your Face'' and his series of shorts featuring a dog character starting wit ...
/
Jim Lujan animated feature film ''
Revengeance''.
Activism
In response to the Walt Disney corporation's attempt to trademark
Dia de Los Muertos
The Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos or ''Día de los Muertos'') is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. It is widely obser ...
for the Pixar film set in Mexico, ''
Coco'', Alcaraz helped lead a social activist campaign which eventually led to Disney's abandoning the idea. In particular, Alcaraz's "Muerto Mouse" (itself an offshoot of his early "Migra Mouse") criticized the Disney campaign with the byline "It's coming to trademark your cultura."
He is the creator of "Daniel D. Portado", a satirical Hispanic character who in 1994 formed the faux group "Hispanics For Wilson" which called on Mexican immigrants to return south—"reverse immigration"—as a response to the controversial
Proposition 187
California Proposition 187 (also known as the ''Save Our State'' (SOS) initiative) was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal immigrants from using non-emergency health care, public ed ...
. In 2012, Daniel D. Portado returned to the headlines as a result of
Mitt Romneys call, during his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, on undocumented immigrants to exercise "
self-deportation."
He contributed a work of art to the
2008 Obama campaign called "Viva Obama".
He worked with
The Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project is an American political action committee (PAC) formed in late 2019 by former and current moderate Republicans. During the 2020 presidential election, it aimed to prevent the re-election of Donald Trump and defeat all Rep ...
during the campaign for the
2020 United States presidential election.
Awards
Alcaraz has received five Southern California Journalism Awards for Best Cartoon in Weekly Papers, and numerous other awards and honors, including "The Latino Spirit Award" from the California Legislature and the Office of the Lt. Governor, honors from the Los Angeles City Council, The California Chicano News Media Association, the UC Berkeley Chicano Latino Alumni Association, the United Farm Workers of America, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, and The Rockefeller Foundation.
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
In 2019 and 2020, Alcaraz was a finalist for a
Pulitzer Prize.
Herblock Prize
On April 26, 2022, he was awarded the annual
Herblock Prize presented by the Herb Block Foundation to honor excellence in editorial cartooning.
Works
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References
Further reading
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Alcaraz, Lalo
American cartoonists
American artists of Mexican descent
American writers of Mexican descent
Living people
American talk radio hosts
Artists from San Diego
San Diego State University alumni
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design alumni
Otis College of Art and Design faculty
Educators from California
Radio personalities from California
1964 births