Top Latino Comics Come Together for the “I AM 38″ California Tour

By Ces’Ari Garcia Delmuro, Being Latino

No matter your political party affiliation, top Latino comedians coming together to put on a statewide comedy tour in support of proposition 38, is beneficial for all of us Latinos. November’s election season is not far away and all efforts to engage our communities in political discussion and voter mobilization is critical to our representation at all levels of government.

Emcee for “I AM 38”, Carlos Najera, will be joined by comedians Rudy Moreno, Johnny Sanchez (MadTV, Happy Feet), Jill Michelle-Melean and Carlos Alazraqui (Reno 911) in effort to raise educational awareness via the “I AM 38”comedy tour. “We are doing this comedy tour to draw attention to Prop 38, and highlight how important it is for our schools,” said Najera. Taking cues from Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, Najera believes that by injecting humor into the political dialogue, younger voters’ attention can be drawn. I would even take it a step further than Najera and say that injecting humor into politics in general can attract all voters’ attention.

“I AM 38” comedy tour all began when Najera’s cousins asked for his assistance in raising awareness. He quickly felt drawn to this proposition after learning that the population being most heavily affected by California’s budget cuts are low-income students. If passed, this proposition will restore cuts made to the California k-12 education system. Taxes raised by this proposition will also place this money into the hands of local schools and communities, rather than politicians.

Like all educational propositions, this is not a cure all solution for our education system, but Najera sees it as a step in the right direction. Issues such as the need for higher educator/administration salaries, teacher accountability, improved parental involvement, and more rigorous standards are issues that will not be addressed by this proposition, but like Najera said in our interview, “This is more of a movement for restoring money…this is more for the children.” A quality education, according to those who are in support of “I AM 38”, is a right, not a luxury and to deny students access to a quality education as a result of budget cuts, should be viewed as a loss to all Americans.

After listening to Najera speak during our interview, the only question that remained for me is how the supporters of “I AM 38” will convince struggling parents who are sending their kids to private school or those without children to pay higher taxes for other people’s children’s education?” Carlos Alazraqui (Reno 911) was quick to answer my question. He said, “The big argument is that this is everyone’s issue. It is about having the conscience to give back. Even scrooge gives back (at the end of A Christmas Carol). The percentage of income is really not that much. Warren Buffet is even willing to pay more. As long as the money is not going into politicians hands (we are fine). Americans do not have a problem paying for wars – its education, not a bomb or tank. It benefits everyone.”

Alazraqui’s response forces us as not only Latinos, but as Americans, to question our priorities. Do we continue prioritizing the allocation of funds to national security, prisons, and high speed railways or do we put education first? For more information about proposition 38, click here.

Tour Dates:

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12^th – SAN DIEGO

• Venue: San Diego Repertory Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego, CA 92101-6144; Phone: 619-544-1000; http://www.sdrep.org/
• Comics: Johnny Sanchez, Jill-Michele Melean, Rudy Moreno, George Perez, Rick Najera
• Org receiving proceeds: SOLID Rhythm

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14^th – LOS ANGELES

• Venue: Los Angeles Theatre Center; 514 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013; Phone 866-811-4111; http://thelatc.org/
• Comics: Carlos Alazraqui, Johnny Sanchez, Jill-Michele Melean, Rudy Moreno, Rick Najera
• Org receiving proceeds: Latino Theater Company

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26^th – ORANGE COUNTY

• Venue: Yost Theater, 307 N. Spurgeon Street, Santa Ana CA 92701; Phone: 888-862-9573;http://www.yosttheater.com/
• Comics: Johnny Sanchez, Jill-Michele Melean, Rudy Moreno, George Perez, Rick Najera
• Org receiving proceeds: Pending

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27^th – REDWOOD CITY

• Venue: Club Fox, 2223 Broadway Street, Redwood City, CA 2209 Broadway Street, Redwood City, CA 94063; Phone: 877-435-9849; http://www.clubfoxrwc.com/
• Comics: Johnny Sanchez, George Perez, Rick Najera and more
• Org receiving proceeds: Redwood City Education Foundation & Redwood City Library Foundation

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12^th – SAN BERNARDINO

• Venue: California Theater, 562 West 4th Street,?San Bernardino, CA 92401; Phone: 909-885-5152;http://www.californiatheatre.net/
• Comics: Rudy Moreno, Mauricio Herrera and more
• Org receiving proceeds: pending

For more information, visit http://www.iam38.org http://www.yosoy38.org/

 www.facebook.com/iam38org www.twitter.com/iam38or

This article was first published in Being Latino.

Ces’Ari Garcia Delmuro was born and raised in southern California to Mexican-American parents. Ces’Ari, pronounced Chez-ah-ree, graduated from the University of California, Irvine with campus wide and political science honors attached to her B.A. in Political Science. She joined Teach For America (TFA) and relocated to Arizona during the height of SB 1070 tensions. While in TFA, Ces’Ari earned her M. Ed. in Secondary Education with an emphasis in Science from Arizona State University and completed research on HB 2281, the ethnic studies ban in Arizona.  She is currently studying for the LSAT and plans on attending law school in fall 2013. You can find more of Ces’Ari’s writing on her personal blog.

[Photo courtesy Being Latino]