Carlos Cortes

Biography

Dr. Carlos E. Cortes is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Riverside. Since 1990 he has served on the summer faculty of the Harvard Institutes for Higher Education, since 1995 has served on the faculty of the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication, and since 1999 has been an adjunct faculty member of the Federal Executive Institute.

Two of his most recent books, The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach about Diversity and The Making -- and Remaking -- of a Multiculturalist, were published by Teachers College Press, while he is co-author of the Houghton Mifflin Social Studies series and senior consultant for the McDougal Littell World History series. Cortes serves as Creative/Cultural Advisor for Nickelodeons Peabody-award-winning childrens television series, "Dora the Explorer," and its sequel, "Go, Diego, Go!," and he performs his one-person, autobiographical play, A Conversation with Alana: One Boys Multicultural Rite of Passage. His recent honors include the NAACP Image Award, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Outstanding Contribution to Higher Education Award, the California Association for Bilingual Educations Inspiration Award, and the University of California, Riversides Emeritus Professor of the Year Award.

The recipient of two book awards, Cortes publications include Three Perspectives on Ethnicity, Gaucho Politics in Brazil, and Beyond Language: Social and Cultural Factors in Schooling Language Minority Students, while he has edited three major book series, totaling 106 volumes, on Latinos in the United States. He also received his universitys Distinguished Teaching Award and Faculty Public Service Award, the Distinguished California Humanist Award, the American Society for Training and Developments National Multicultural Trainer of the Year Award, and the California Council for the Social Studies Hilda Taba Award, and was selected by the Smithsonian Institution to be a Public Lecturer.

A consultant to many government agencies, school systems, universities, mass media, private businesses, and other organizations, Cortes has lectured widely throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia on the implications of diversity for education, government, and private business. He has also written film and television documentaries, appeared as guest host on the PBS national television series, "Why in the World?," and is the featured presenter on the Video Journal of Educations training video, "Diversity in the Classroom."

Titles

A Conversation with Alana: One Boys Multicultural Rite of Passage
"A Conversation with Alana" is a one-hour, one-person autobiographical play written and performed by Carlos E. Cortes, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Riverside. In his play, Cortes presents his story of growing up as a young man of mixed ancestry in racially segregated, religiously divided early post-World War II Kansas City, Missouri. The son of a Mexican Catholic immigrant father and an American-born Jewish mother, whose parents came from Austria and Ukraine, Cortes had to learn to navigate Kansas Citys rigid racial, ethnic, and religious fault lines, while simultaneously dealing with the internal conflicts of his own divided family.

Multicultural Education: Building a More Inclusive American Future"

English Learners and the American Future