With pointed pen and no shortage of ICE news, cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz draws to the moment ...Middle East

Pen in hand, editorial cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, 61, has offered hand-drawn critique and commentary about politics and social issues for years. Twice a finalist for a Pulitzer, the California-born, nationally-syndicated artist knew the second Trump administration would inspire fodder for his art.

Since June, communities large and small across the nation have seen armed agents apprehending Latino immigrants outside Home Depots, construction sites, bus stops and car washes, among other places.

For a Trump administration intent on mass deporting the “worst of the worst,” it’s an immigration crackdown that is fulfilling a key campaign pledge, Trump and cabinet officials say. But for many in the L.A. area’s robust immigrant neighborhoods, it’s created fear, mixed with resilience and pushback on the policy.

For Alcaraz, it’s ignited his award-winning satirical wellspring.

“I didn’t know how bad it was gonna be and how directly it was gonna affect our lives, but here we are,” he said as he met admirers and signed prints of his cartoons at the Muertos Fest in Whittier on Sunday. “It’s really in our faces and my friends across the country are feeling it, in Chicago and in Portland, we’re all feeling it.”

“It,” that is, the latest news out of the Trump administration, has met its match in Alcaraz’s cartoons, fans said. Many picked up prints of his latest, from his “Summer of ICE” series, showing an ice cream cart with anti-ICE slogans.

Alcaraz immortalized the abandoned ice cream cart of “paletero” Ambrocio ‘Enrique” Lozano, picked up by ICE agents on Culver Boulevard near Veterans Memorial Park on June 23. Alcaraz painted the scene on canvas, which a collector bought. Alcaraz donated $2,000 to Lozano’s family.

Lozano, beloved in the Culver City community for more than 20 years, is still in detention in Texas, Alcaraz said.

The creator of “La Cucaracha,” the first nationally syndicated Latin comic strip, said all the news, good, bad, ugly and heartbreaking, is catching him at what he feels is his peak.

“It’s not the material. It’s like I’m ready,” he said of his creative output. “I’ve been making good choices in subject matter. I’ve been having pretty decent ideas visually.”

One of his latest: a scene he drew using a Home Depot moving box, centering the store logo around an immigration agent struggling to chase a man, whose raised finger expressively conveys his message.

Alcaraz’s online followers celebrate each new cartoon, many of them created for CaloNews.com, an online publication where Alcaraz serves as staff cartoonist.

His commentary — biting, irreverent and the more inappropriate the better, he said, comes with lots of hate mail and online criticism.Alcaraz revels in drawing fire for his work, from his days at  the alternative LA Weekly to now,  when people call him derogatory names and call for his deportation. (He was born in San Diego.)

“The other person is at war with me, but I’ve already defeated them,” he told “The New Yorker” magazine in  2022, “I made drawings that will be in their heads forever.”

A voracious consumer of media, he admits it can be hard to watch videos of immigrants beaten or taken down, and see the suffering on their faces. Then he remembers his art has a purpose: “take down those who deserve to be taken down and not to stomp on the helpless or those having a hard time.”

He’s skewered corporations and politicians for racist views or greedy policies, using pop culture references to get a message across.

“It’s my weapon and my therapy,” Alcaraz said. “I have to express all the stuff and get it out of me.”

And if it helps others be brave, or if it smashes some noses, he’s there for it.

“I think everything is funny, especially the inappropriate things,” Alcaraz said, teasing that his wife happens to be of those señoras who question the politeness of, say, a Star-Wars inspired version of Our Lady of Guadalupe, “Princess Lupe.”

Erin Brown of Arcadia is a longtime admirer of the excitement in Alcaraz’s art. She picked up a “She Se Puede!” Kamala Harris print last year, and this year bought an anti-ICE poster.

Brown said she loves everything about Alcaraz’s work, drawing inspiration from it even as she acknowledges this year, his irreverent takes hits harder.

“I love how it speaks to me, you know, the stories that it tells,” she said. “I love the clear art of it. It conveys such powerful messages.”

Rene, who asked his last name not be used because of the political climate, said he has followed Alcaraz for years. He was happy to get a print and a photo with the artist at the festival.

“I love it when he gets the haters in the comments and he answers them and checks the room,” he said. “This is our first time here and we’re very proud and surprised because we didn’t expect so many people. With everything going on right now, it fills us with pride that our culture is celebrated in such a positive light.”

Rene, who brought his two daughters to the festival, said his parents worked so hard they never had the chance to celebrate Dia delos Muertos.

“So for the new generation, for them to appreciate our culture, we’re very proud and happy about that,” he said, thanking Alcaraz for his activism.

Alcaraz himself said he is hopeful the country will come closer to solving its social justice issues. He wrote a children’s book this year, “Poquita’s Garden” with its environmental message and visits local schools to talk about climate change, his career, and education.

“I am very hopeful,” but at the same time, “I can’t slow down,” he said.

Alcaraz will be involved in “Coco 2,” which as recently greenlit by Disney. He served as cultural consultant in the original film that was produced by Pixar, and which won the 2018 Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Disney hired Alcaraz even after he created iconic images criticizing the company for trying to trademark the Mexican Dia delos Muertos in 2013, introducing a skeletal Mickey as “Muerto Mouse.”

To people who criticized his involvement with Disney, Alcaraz tweeted in 2015: “If a Mexican shares good news, and your immediate reaction is anger…Congratulations! You are probably Mexican.”

Even before the ICE raids, Alcaraz targeted Disney in a 1994 cartoon featuring “Migra Mouse” showing Mickey in a Border Patrol uniform.

Aside from his work with CaloNews.com, he is also still producing the syndicated cartoon “La Cucaracha.” He is also collaborating on a musical compilation album tentatively titled “Contra ICE” with a friend in Portland.

He does have much to write about and draw from.

“But also, yeah, I wish the ‘much’ would stop,” Alcaraz said. ““I wish it would stop.”

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