Claudia Thrane

With Halloween around the corner, I can’t help but think about the other celebration I grew up with: Day of the Dead. For some Latin American cultures, including my own, the celebration has a very different meaning. “El Día de Los Muertos” or Day of the Dead is an ancient tradition that dates to the…

Padre Fabian Moncada impacts the lives of many from the pulpit of Our Lady Of The Americas, the iconic Catholic church on the east side of Des Moines. For decades, the parish has been considered a spiritual home for Latinos, and Padre Fabian, 49, has led the congregations since 2015. My first memory of meeting…

The US military planes left Afghanistan on Aug. 30 after 20 years, marking the end of the longest war in American history. It was heart-wrenching to watch the images on TV of thousands of desperate Afghans trying to escape their country. Fortunately, nearly 37,000 Afghan evacuees will resettle in the US as part of the…

Alex Vasquez of Sioux Center remembers how excited he was to turn 16 and get his driver’s license. Many of his friends had started to drive and he wanted his chance to get behind the wheel too. When Alex talked to his parents about it, they had to break some news to him: he was…

Sioux City School Board President Perla Alarcon-Flory has earned the title of being a trailblazer. In her professional life, the 46-year-old is well-known in the judicial and medical fields as a top-notch interpreter through her business, Perla J Alarcon-Flory LLC. Outside of work, Perla has navigated the Woodbury County political arena since 2009. First as…

Artes Latinas director Karin Stein lives the Spanish saying of “trae la música en la sangre,” meaning she has music in her blood. She’s used that spirit to lead Artes Latinas, an Iowa consortium of Latin ensembles and music theatre productions that cover a large variety of musical genres. Karin, a rural Colombia native, and…

When one of the biggest immigration raids in American history took place in Postville, Iowa, attorney Sonia Parras Konrad led a rapid response to try and keep as many families together as she should. She mobilized people to help hundreds of workers and dedicated close to five years of pro bono legal assistance to the…

Hispanic Heritage Month started Sept. 15 and it is a time to celebrate the history, culture, and contributions of Latinos/Hispanics/Latinx to the United States. It was California Congressman George E. Brown who introduced the first commemorative week in 1968. President George H.W. Bush became the first president to declare the period of Sept. 15-Oct. 15…