Carlos Cortés to donate his papers to UC Riverside (eventually) – Press Enterprise

Carlos Cortés has been advocating for ethnic studies and diversity since arriving at Riverside’s UC campus during the tumultuous year of 1968.

A Latin American studies professor, Cortés helped students organize the campus’ first Chicano organization in 1968. Served on a committee that established Mexican American and Black studies programs in 1969. Introduced the campus’ first Chicano History class in 1970.

During a recent talk at UC Riverside’s Tomas Rivera Library, Cortés recalls how in 1971 he was invited by the state Department of Education to be among those evaluating proposed California social studies textbooks.

Controversially for the era, the textbooks had to acknowledge the contributions of, as the guidelines put it, “Negroes and other ethnic groups.”

(Today Merriam-Webster calls that word “dated, often offensive.”)

“If this wording makes you flinch,” Cortés tells his audience wryly, “this was woke in 1971!”

Cortés can bring a half century of perspective to diversity questions, because the terms of the debate continue to shift, usually with him near the vanguard.

The occasion for his remarks April 11 is a modest celebration around his life and career. After 57 years on campus, Cortés is donating his papers to UCR — more on that shortly.

More than 60 of us are in attendance: family, friends and admirers, including yours truly. I fall into the admirer camp, and possibly the friend camp too.

As Cortés tells someone in my presence, “David and I are fellow Midwesterners, from adjoining states” — Missouri in his case, Illinois in mine.

We both have journalism experience out west too.

As Cortés recounted to me recently over coffee, he was driving through Phoenix in 1959 when he saw an unusual sight: an “Editor Wanted” sign in the window of the local newspaper.

Cortés pulled over, went into the weekly Phoenix Sun on a whim, was hired on the spot as editor and relocated.

Steven Mandeville-Gamble, UCR’s librarian, opens the festivities by telling us Cortés’ papers will be part of the Special Collections archives. He describes Cortés as a writer, scholar and historian.

“He’s been an incredible force for good,” Mandeville-Gamble says. “He’s a peaceful warrior. He fights for good, but through respect and calm. His papers tell that story.”

Those papers could prove fascinating for scholars, present and future, on a range of topics. Some continue to be headline-grabbers in 2025.

And then there’s Cortés’ work on “Dora the Explorer” and spinoff “Go, Diego, Go!,” the Nickelodeon animated series starring Latin American children, for which he helped the creators include Latin American culture and Spanish language in a child-friendly way.

UCR has transformed since Cortés’ arrival as one of the first two Latino professors. The campus then had 100 Latino students. Now there are nearly 10,000.

In his Chicano history classes, “he had students write their family story, which meant so much to them,” says Arlene Cano Matute, assistant director of Chicano student programs.

Parents at first waved off their children, protesting that “we have no stories; we’re immigrants,” she says. But soon relatives were relating their personal and ancestral stories with pride.

“He truly is a gift that keeps on giving,” Cano Matute says of Cortés. “Muchas gracias.”

Jose Medina was one of those students in the early 1970s. Later a member of the state Assembly, and a newly elected Riverside County supervisor, Medina tells me Cortés was helpful to him in getting ethnic studies passed as a high school requirement.

Medina adds: “More importantly, when I became a high school teacher, I wanted to be like Carlos Cortés.”

Cortés retired from UCR in 1994, as a youngster of 60, and launched a new career as a diversity consultant, scholar and lecturer.

“He immediately took up all this other work,” his wife, Laurel, tells me. “He’s a worker. He works every day. And he has so many interests!”

In his remarks, Cortés mentions that on April 6, he turned 91. That’s an applause line if ever there was one. So was his comment that this summer, he’ll publish his first novel.

That’s a level of focus that many younger writers — and almost any writer is younger — would envy.

Now, back to his papers.

As part of his retirement package, UCR let him keep his office. That’s where his archives are. But also material not worth keeping, like old quizzes.

Cortés goes into the office frequently these days to, he says, “wade through” his file cabinets and bookshelves, separate out what should be kept from what shouldn’t, and write essays to make sense of it all and connect the dots.

He tells us in passing that he’s been doing this the past six months and expects to deliver the material at the end of 2025.

Um, what?

Afterward I ask Mandeville-Gamble with a laugh if the library scheduled the event for April thinking the handover would have taken place by now. He admits that’s true but says it’s not a problem.

“It’s fine that he’s taking a little bit longer,” the librarian says. “There’s no need to rush him.”

(Mandeville-Gamble, who set this donation in motion last fall, will retire this summer. Time waits for no man, except maybe Cortés.)

Ultimately the collection should occupy 100 linear feet of shelving. Included will be his professional papers as an academic, dissertations by grad students, drafts and final versions of speeches he’s given and material from “Dora the Explorer” and “Go, Diego, Go!”