Cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz
The indefatigable cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz just bagged himself yet another honor on May 22, a pretty big one. He’s already a two-time finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartoons, took home a Herblock prize in 2022; and has six Southern California Press Awards for editorial cartoons.
In May he was announced as the 2025 winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights cartoon award as part of the Book and Journalism Awards. (Important note—the foundation is disassociated with anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. (who, despite being Secretary of Health and Human Services, doesn’t look to be so well himself but that’s a whole other topic.)
You know his work, the inimitable comic strip La Cucaracha, published nationally by Andrews McNeel Syndication and in Calo News , a raza-inclined publication certainly worth a peek. La Cucaracha is carried in at least 60 newspapers across the United States.
La Cucaracha is carried in at least 60 newspapers across the United States.
He recently accompanied the legendary Dolores Huerta on a trip to the Herblock Awards in Washington DC. The esteemed journalism event by the Herblock Foundation was honoring political cartoonist Marty Two Bulls, Sr. at the Library of Congress. Alcaraz and Huerta did a D.C tour that included a visit to the Supreme Court.
Busy schedule but Alcaraz didn’t stop drawing and writing. On Facebook, he said:
“Shhhhh, don’t tell anybody about my secret workspace inside the cone of silence at the National Press Club in Washington DC, working on La Cucaracha, Sunday, comic and dailies, until my next flight comes…”
The guy seems tireless—he hosts the weekly Pocho Hour of Power on KPFK 90.7 FM, leads art workshops with young people and every year he creates the La Cucaracha calendar, which not only includes his cartoon artwork but “a whole year of real and fictional important dates.”
One of his landmark efforts at the beginning of a career in Los Angeles was taking to the stage with Chicano Secret Service, a troupe led by Tomas Carrasco who hailed from Oxnard and Berkely grad Elias Serna. Alcaraz was a recent San Diego transplant. The Chicano Secret Service (CSS) mission was to do good theatre—art and entertainment– inspired by the Chicano movement that got their political points through while they made people laugh.
In May he was announced as the 2025 winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights cartoon award as part of the Book and Journalism Awards.
While scrambling in the LA theatre and arts scene in the 1980s and 90’s, CSS also showed up in the community, like the time they performed at a get-out-the-vote event at south LA’s Holman United Methodist Church.
And—time to mention he was a cultural consultant on the huge movie hit Coco in 2017. His interview with the OC Weekly-a Q&A discusses community pushback from people concerned about Mexican culture being yet again coopted by a corporate entertainment giant. Alcaraz was part of the team that helped steer it culturally so it wasn’t a whitewash. With it’s aspiring musician teenage protagonist who wanted to sing like his musician heroes Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete—and it’s Dia de los Muertos, all beautifully animated, it was a huge hit with the Latino community—and everyone else.
If you’re lucky, you may get to meet Lalo Alcaraz, especially if you’re in Southern California–you may find him at a high school on LA’s east side mentoring art students, or supporting the arts at a gallery in Whitter; at Christmas time at the Plaza de la Raza boathouse in Lincoln Heights at the annual holiday celebration, where he’s sure he’s sure to have a stack of Lalo Alcaraz La Cucaracha cartoon calendars.
He’ll chat and sign one to you!
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Article copyrighted by Bobbi Murray. All images used under Fair Use proviso of the copyright law.