R.I.P. -- Raul Salinas (1935-2008)

After devoting all of his life to writing and fighting for human rights, activist and "Pinto Poet" Raul Salinas entered the spiritual world at age 73. In addition to writing "East of the Freeway: Reflections de Mi Pueblo" and "Un Trip Through the Mind Jail y Otras Excusions," he fought with all his corazon and mind in the American Indian Movement and the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. Moreover, he founded La Resistencia Bookstore.

Please read literary historian Louis Mendoza's article about Salinas titled "The Re-education of a Xicanindio: Raul Salinas and the Poetics of Pinto Transformation," which appeared in MELUS in 2003.

You can read more about Salinas' significant works in the following articles:

"Teacher, poet activist Raul Salinas Dies" by Michael Lithgow in Art Threat

"Poetry as Activism" by Phil West in The Austin Chronicle

"Out of the Ashes, the Pínto Poet Arises" by Raymond R. Beltran