I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

To Arnie & Porfi that is! Have you been following this cartoon strip? They flew in from the 1970s and landed in Arizona today, `with all its backwards laws, and now they’ve raided the Tucson Book Depository to free books that have been banned so young Mexican American kids can’t read them! Wow, and will that famous and revered East Los Angeles rock and roll radio legend help out? Okay, just setting you up for this week’s Latinopia!

Two great videos this week, mijos and mijas. In History we have another Latinopia Event, this time we’re in 1969 when one of the first Chicano Studies Department in the nation was created. My Tio Braulio tells me that back in the day things weren’t quite as civilized as we have it today. Yes, I know, some will argue about THAT! It took the sacrifice of young African American and Mexican American students at what was then San Fernando Valley State College being arrested and going to jail, before the school administration realized that they had to institute ethnic studies programs. Listen to what Dr. Rudy Acuna, the first head of Chicana and Chicano Studies at Cal State Northridge, has to say about those early days of struggle.

In Art, we visit with the premiere Latino cultural arts center in Phoenix, Arizona, the Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center. We hear from Erlinda Tórres and Ruben Hernández, two of the group’s original co-founders, as they tell us about this important Latino presence in Arizona.

Also check out Zombie Mex Diaries which this week asks the question, “Do Zombies have souls?” And Sara Inés Calderon gives us a new insight into something we’ve been eating all of our lives–frijoles. Check it all out on Latinopia this week!

Warm abrazos to all,

Yur Teeah Tenohpeeah!