PREVIOUSLY ON ENLIGHTENMENT:
lalo alcraz
Obituary: Farewell to ‘La Chuy’
My mom, María de Jesús Alcaraz de López (or “Chuy,” as most of the Alcaraz family called her) was born in 1929 in Villa Union, Mexico, in the fertile Sinaloa land outside of Mazatlán.
She grew up as the youngest sister of five: Maria Luisa, Cany, Juanita and Esther. Their father, Inocencio, a ranchero, died young and left his widow Cirila and the five girls to farm their land.
My mom once described her father as having blue eyes and an extremely bald head. She told me about how he once had severely whipped a man who had injured her with his horse. Oh, the idyllic ranchero lifestyle….
La Cucaracha: Voting — it’s not just for white people anymore (toon)
Fifty years ago yesterday, four little girls were killed when white racists dynamited the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. The African-American congregation had been active in the push for civil and voting rights in the segregated South.
But now that a misguided Supreme Court has overturned key provisions of the Voting Rights Act — a law prompted by the nation’s disgust at the Birmingham bombing and the arrests, demonstrations, riots, and murders that followed — the struggle for the right to vote continues.
Sarah Silverman explained the issue last year, when Republicans began their campaign to pass bogus “voter ID” laws:
Mas…La Cucaracha: Voting — it’s not just for white people anymore (toon)
