What up Latinopians! Your Tia Tenopia here with lots of great stuff this week: food, literature and history! In food we visit again with Diane Velarde Hernández, known to us for her Cocina Hernández. This week’s recipe is really tasty– “Tortas de Camarón con Nopales,” (Shrimp Fritters with Cactus). The recipe is a little complicated but well worth the effort. We’ve divided the recipe up into two videos. Shrimp Tortas 1 covers how to cook the prickly pear cactus and make the chile sauce. Shrimp Tortas 2 shows how to make the shrimp fritters and put the whole thing together. My grandma used to make something like this for Lent but you can enjoy this recipe year round.

In literature we have some sad news. This week we lost a great literary voice of Latino letters, the Nuyorican author Piri Thomas. When I was taking a Latino Literature course in college I read his memoir “Down These Mean Streets” about his experience growing up in New York Spanish Harlem. Although it was written in 1967–way before your Tia’s time, it still holds up so try to check it out.

And speaking of  literature we have another Luis Torres book review. This one is on the memoir “Tattoos of the Heart by Father Gregory Boyle. For the past twenty years Father Boyle has been working with gang kids in East Los Angeles. He founded “Homeboy Industries” to provide jobs for unemployed youth, THE Homeboy Industries motto is “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” His memoir is based on the twenty years of his outreach work. Check out the review and check out the book!

In history we add to our growing cache of Latinopia biographies by adding the Biography of Dr. Rudy F. Acuna. Best known for authoring the landmark history of Mexican Americans in the United States, “Occupied America,” Dr. Acuna is considered the “Father of Chicano Studies.” He has been teaching at my ‘ol alma mater Cal State Northridge for the past 40 years and, yes, your Tia took one or two courses from him.

So check out this week’s offerings! OOXX  Tia Tenopia