Francisco Trinidad Jr. came from a family of journalists. His father,
Francisco “Koko” Trinidad, was a broadcaster, and his mother,
Lina Trinidad, was a columnist. Trinidad became a political cartoonist for the
Philippines Herald after he graduated from university in 1961. He later became one of many journalists who fled the Philippines during the dictatorship of
Ferdinand Marcos. Trinidad was the first
Asian editorial cartoonist to be
syndicated in the United States and the only
Asian American editorial cartoonist at a major U.S. metropolitan newspaper. Via syndication, Trinidad's work has appeared in non-U.S. periodicals such as the
International Herald Tribune,
Denmark's
Politiken daily, the
Buenos Aires Herald, the
Manila Chronicle, and the now-defunct British magazine
Punch. Trinidad's comic
Nguyen Charlie was carried by the
United States Army's
Stars and Stripes newspaper, and each day's strip was eagerly awaited by the
GIs in South Vietnam. He later drew two more comic strips,
Aloha Eden and
Zeus. He also found time to teach cartooning at the
University of Hawaii. Trinidad's editorial cartoons were critical of Hawaii politicians as well as the Marcos
dictatorship. A collection of his cartoons chronicling Marcos from his declaring martial law through his exile in Hawaii was published as
Marcos: The Rise and Fall of a Regime (Arthouse Books, 1986; ). In 1982 Trinidad received the Allan Saunders Award from the
American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, and in 1999 won the
Fletcher Knebel Award from the Hawaii Community Media Council. He also received several honors in the editorial cartoon category of the Hawaii Publishers Association's annual Pai Awards for excellence in journalism. In 2005 the
Society of Professional Journalists honored Trinidad by naming him to the
Hawaii Journalism Hall of Fame." Corky Trinidad died in Hawaii in 2009 at the age of 69 from
pancreatic cancer. He was survived by his wife, Hana, and five children. His obituary in the
Honolulu Star Bulletin noted Trinidad's advice for young cartoonists: take a stand. ==References==