In Lak’Ech and the Good Samaritan: Texas State Rep. James Talarico and the Redemptive Politics of Radical Neighborliness, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

In Lak’Ech and the Good Samaritan: Texas State Rep. James Talarico and the Redemptive Politics of Radical Neighborliness 

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

September 17, 2025

With tens of millions of views on TikTok and a steady stream of national coverage, State Rep. James Talarico (D–Round Rock) is being talked about as “the next big thing” in Texas politics. In a July 1, 2025 special edition of Austin InSight/Austin PBS, host Laura Laughead sits down with Talarico for a wide-ranging conversation about what’s happening at the Capitol, how his openly professed Christian faith shapes his politics, and where he’s headed next.

What makes this interview worth watching isn’t just Talarico’s rising profile; it’s the way he frames public service through a moral vocabulary—love of neighbor, dignity, and the common good—while pushing for policies that address material needs here and now. That juxtaposition, rare in our polarized climate, comes through clearly in the full, unabridged conversation now available through PBS.

Talarico also speaks openly about his calling beyond politics. He’s an aspiring preacher studying at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and he treats faith not as a weapon but as a compass. For Texans who are weary of performative culture wars, that posture offers something different—an appeal to shared values, even when his policy positions may not be your own.

I find myself in strong agreement with his view that the separation of church and state protects both. It not only prevents the state from privileging one faith tradition over another, but also safeguards the integrity of the church by ruling out the possibility of political co-optation. It’s no wonder that the Austin Seminary has publicly expressed support for his journey.

As we know and have ourselves heard, Texas politics is often narrated as a clash of ideologies. Talarico reframes it as a contest of imaginations: What kind of neighbor will we be to one another? What do love, safety, and opportunity look like when translated into law and budget—not just rhetoric? Agree or not, he is modeling a style of leadership that could broaden rather than narrow the public conversation, especially among younger voters who may first encounter him on TikTok before meeting him at the ballot box.

Watching this episode also stirred something personal. I realized that Talarico and I share a spiritual inheritance—our grandfathers were both Baptist preachers. My granddad was my pastor throughout my entire youth. My own father—my late grandfather's son-in-law—continues in ministry today as a missionary in Peru. Incidentally, my grandfather was also a minister, for a time, in the Mexican Presbyterian church in my hometown of San Angelo, Texas, which he viewed as theologically similar to that of the Baptist Church.

I am deeply grateful for having grown up in my grandfather’s Mexican Baptist church where we believed deeply in the Golden Rule: to treat others as we ourselves wish to be treated. I've previously mentioned on this blog how this ethic is practically universal in faith traditions across cultures, including the Mayan philosophy of In Lak’Ech, rooted in empathy, reciprocity, and the recognition of our interdependence and the responsibilities we hold toward one another in a community and in society.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is fully about the Golden Rule and In Lak’Ech, speaking to a deeper principle of radical neighborliness. It teaches that compassion requires crossing boundaries of identity, tribe, and nation to see the humanity in the other—and to act on that recognition. These traditions remind us that true faith and true justice are not abstract ideals, but lived commitments to care for those around us, especially the vulnerable and marginalized.

Abundant thanks to Rep. Talarico for modeling a politics rooted in faith, imagination, and radical neighborliness—neighborliness that is not so radical after all, considering it echoes the Golden Rule, In Lak’Ech, and the shared moral teachings at the heart of nearly every faith tradition. His example reminds us that compassion and justice, far from being fringe ideals, are the foundations of the democratic society we aspire to build.

A conversation with Rep. James Talarico: The aspiring preacher making a name in Texas politics

Austin InSight/PBS, July 1, 2025

Why ban Indigenous philosophies in the classroom? by Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez

There is still much, in fact, an enormous amount to know from our Indigenous ancestors to this continent that is of universal value, as Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez so eloquently states. As Dr. Rodriguez admonishes, rather than shutting down Indigenous philosophy in an utterly dismissive and disrespectful way, leaders would do well to learn about it first lest we reinscribe yet again the ways and means of not only the ultimately unsuccessful banning of this knowledge in the Tucson Unified School District, but also the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, we should go in the opposite direction of "Rethinking the Canon" as outlined, for example, by Asher Price.

-Angela Valenzuela

Why ban Indigenous philosophies in the classroom?

By Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, Special to CalMatters | Feb. 11, 2022

Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, who grew up in Southern California, is an emeritus associate professor in Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona. He is the author of several books, including “Our Sacred Maiz is Our Mother.”

IN SUMMARY: If California’s leaders want to ban Indigenous knowledge from the classroom, they should at least first learn it.

In 2017, a Maya elder, Carlos Armando Dzul, took me to a church in Mani, Yucatán, to see where the infamous three-day “auto de fe” took place – a mass book burning in 1562 – led by Bishop Diego de Landa.

It was one of the most well-known book burnings in Mexico’s history, though it was actually part of a 300-year policy which outlawed the possession and the teaching of pre-Colombian knowledge, purportedly because it constituted “lies of the devil.” The penalty for such crimes ranged from torture to death.

That brings to mind the recent settlement in which the state of California and several of its educational governing bodies agreed in a lawsuit by Californians for Equal Rights Foundation and others, to ban In Lak’Ech, a Maya maiz-based philosophical concept from its Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, this while referring to it as part of the Aztec religion. 

That agreement, which determines what is teachable knowledge – also bans the Nahui Ollin, an Aztec-Mexica concept –  based on the erroneous supposition that the Aztec religion was demonic. It also bans Ashe, an affirming African Indigenous chant. Of note is that Mexican American students are the largest demographic in California schools.

While the Aztec and Maya share similar cultures, confusing them is mind-boggling, akin to confusing Greeks with Romans because they’re both Europeans. Here, I concentrate on In Lak’Ech, because the philosophy from where it emanates is something that I have been teaching for years, which is maiz-based knowledge that has influenced the Americas for thousands of years, and because this is the continent in which we live. 

In Lak’Ech – Tu eres mi otro Yo, or You are my other Self – is but the Maya iteration of The Golden Rule, which is also part of a larger maiz-based philosophical universe. 

Famed playwright Luis Valdez of Teatro Campesino introduced U.S. audiences to this concept via the 1973 poem, Pensamiento Serpentino. He received this knowledge from Maya linguist Domingo Martinez Paredez, who collaborated with the Teatro, resulting in several Maya-based plays. In effect, In Lak’Ech is to see ourselves in each other. How that can be construed as demonic is to continue the notion that Indigenous and African peoples were less than human.

Beginning in the 1990s, Raza Studies at Tucson Unified School District taught In Lak’Ech and Panche Be – to seek the root of the truth, which necessarily leads to the quest for justice. It is perhaps the actual reason why Tucson’s Raza Studies program was shut down in 2012, even though the courts affirmed its legality in 2017.

In 2017, I wrote an article for the Latino Journal of Education, “Ixxim; a Maiz-based philosophy,” summarizing some 60 Maya concepts. Generally, they have their universal equivalents in other cultures, including the West, though some are uniquely Maya or Maiz-based ideas. 

For example, Hel Men or Zero did not have the same meaning to the Maya as it did in the West, where zero means the absence of value. For the Maya, zero marked the beginning of everything. “The Maya thinker established that the zero is the germinating seed, the beginning of everything, which is why it was illustrated as a seed or a conch shell,” according to El Popul Vuh Tiene Razon. This 1968 book by Martinez Paredez, is part of an explanation by the Maya scholar, of the validity and relevance of the Popul Vuh, considered to be the most sacred book of the Maya.

There is not enough space here to fully explain Maya philosophy; the minimum that can be done is to note that there is a whole universe that California students have never been exposed to, including:

Ix’im or Xiimte: Ixi’im is the word for maiz and Xiimte is sacred maiz. For peoples of this continent, maiz is “who we are, what we are made of and where we come from.” Scientists consider it one of humanity’s greatest feats because it was scientifically created.

I would argue that if politicos want to ban Indigenous knowledge, they should at least first learn it, including our Indigenous worldviews. 

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Roberto Cintli Rodriguez has also written that California should aim for an authentic ethnic studies discipline.