Why not celebrate life not death?

Someone please correct me or chastise me, whatever deserves a turn. What ails me is when I read about the Mendota unemployed farm laborers in a shanty town brought on by the drought and in the Nov. 2 Bee, a front- age celebration, and ironically, of Dia de los Muertos. I wish I had Portnoy’s complaint as opposed to complaining about my Mexican-American community, but my premise is nothing is above scrutiny.

Two events where nether the twain will meet is saddening. That is, one would think the energy and cultural pride of celebrating a relatively unimportant date would have translated to mobilize a local cause for the living.

A leap of faith of my idealism concerning the conscientiousness of a local disaster, about our people, has missed the awareness of many Chicanos, where a creative connected possibility was never to materialize. I was never a highly motivated, cultural nationalist, and the fervor it displays, but a Chicano of nondescript political-social awareness about all people.

I contend displays of cultural pride do not feed the masses, nor the individual for that matter. Do something productive while you wear that sombrero, carpe diem.

This story was originally published November 8, 2015 at 6:14 AM with the headline "Why not celebrate life not death?."