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May 5, 2022

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Inlandia Institute and Riverside Public Library

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Inlandia Institute and Riverside Public Library


May 5, 2022

Thursday, May 5, 2022 (6:00-8:00 PM)

First Thursdays Arts Walk at Riverside Public Library (Arcade & Community Room)

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Inlandia Institute and Riverside Public Library

“…tour groups going to the pyramids at nearby Teotihuacán”- Rose Hill by Carlos E. Cortés

On Thursday, May 5, start your Arts Walk on the right foot with Carlos E. Cortés at Riverside Public Library! With plenty of free parking in back (enter from University Avenue), RPL is the perfect place to kick off your evening – and celebrate Cinco de Mayo at the same time. The event will kick off with a performance by Ballet Folklorico Cultural dancers from the Inland Empire, followed by a performance by Carlos Cortés of his acclaimed monologue— now available in book form— “A Conversation with Alana”. Also on hand will be independent booksellers in the open arcade area at street level, poetry writing on analog typewriters with Typewriter Muse Bob Marshall, and other book-related vendors, plus an open mic.

“A Conversation with Alana” is a one-hour, one-person autobiographical play written by Cortés: “[At the request of my daughter Alana, I began writing family sketches -- mini- bios, recollections, anecdotes, memorable incidents –- in the form of letters to her”. In his play, Cortés presents his story of growing up as a young man of mixed ancestry in racially segregated, religiously divided, class conscious 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, Cortés had to learn to navigate Kansas City's rigid racial, ethnic, and religious fault lines, while simultaneously dealing with the internal conflicts of his own divided family. Dr. Carlos E. Cortés is the Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professor of History and currently co-director of the School of Medicine Health Equity, Social Justice, and Anti-Racism initiative at the University of California, Riverside. He has served as Scholar-in- Residence with Univision Communications and was the Creative/Cultural Advisor for Nickelodeon's “Dora the Explorer” and “Go, Diego, Go!” Cortés is the author of the memoir, Rose Hill: An Intermarriage Before Its Time and the award-winning poetry collection, Fourth Quarter: Reflections of a Cranky Old Man.