By Margaret Medina I was in my Chicano Studies class with Dr. George Garcia when I got the call. We were in groups, and my phone would not stop vibrating in my book bag. I politely looked at Dr. García and mimed that I had to take the call. I figured it was important. I stepped outside the classroom in Sierra Hall north in front of the beautiful Chicano mural. There were two voice messages and one text from my sister-in law Jamie announcing that my mother had passed. As I walked back in, Dr. García’s face asked me silently if everything was okay. I shook my head no. I was still in shock despite the fact that Mamá had been in hospice, and it was no secret she was dying. I knelt down and could feel the tears well up in my eyes. I gathered my books and put them in the knapsack. I looked up at Dr. García hoping to find some calm with which to soothe the emotional blow. Dr. Garcia gave me a very compassionate look, and said, “Mi’ja, your universe has changed forever. You’re half orphan,...

A Sacred Journey , Fernando Barragán 2008, exterior wall, Sacred Heart Elementary       By Abel M. Salas Ernesto Quintero entered the world a year-and-a-half behind his brother Juan. Of the six children born to Micaela and Roberto Quintero, they were the nearest in age. “Growing up, we did everything together,” says Quintero, an independent filmmaker from Lincoln Heights, the cornerstone East Side community his family has called home since 1966. “We played on the same [Little League] baseball team… Pop Warner football… basketball…  we  were inseparable.” There, nestled below Flat Top, Montecito Heights and Elephant Hill—hilltop vantage points the pair of brothers explored as a duo—the Quintero family grew and prospered in the wake of the Chicano Movement and the fervent tide of cultural arts expression it spawned. As a result, the brothers would come of age in an era and an environment that validated their heritage and their identity even as their ...