Finalist: Lalo Alcaraz, freelancer

Lalo Alcaraz is an award winning visual/media artist and television/film writer based in Los Angeles who has been chronicling the ascendancy of Latinos in the US for a quarter century. This Chicano artist is the creator of the syndicated daily comic strip, "La Cucaracha" as seen in the L.A. Times and other papers nationwide. A prolific political cartoonist, Lalo is winner of six Southern California Press Awards for Best Editorial Cartoon, and was an editorial cartoonist for The LA Weekly from 1992-2010 and now creates editorial cartoons in English and Spanish for Andrews McMeel Syndication, Daily Kos and various newspapers, including Philadelphia’s Al Dia News. He was Cultural Consultant on the Oscar winning Day of the Dead-themed animated global hit Pixar movie “COCO.” Alcaraz is also Cultural Consultant, Consulting Producer and Writer on the animated series “Los Casagrandes” for Nickelodeon Animation. Lalo is a former illustration faculty member of Otis College of Fine Art & Design in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of San Diego State University (BA in Art) and UC Berkeley (Master's in Architecture).

Lalo was born in San Diego, California to Mexican immigrant parents from Sinaloa and Zacatecas. He is married to a public school teacher and they have three somewhat obedient children.