It’s hard for me to get my head around the fact that it’s been more than a quarter century since the year 2000 publication of my book, The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach about Diversity. In that book I proposed a framework for looking at the mass media as a sprawling, multifaceted informal … Continue reading Renewing Diversity Part 16: Revisiting ‘The Children Are Watching’ – by Carlos Cortés
In August, 2023, two of my friends — Sandra Fowler and Daniel Yalowitz — set out to make a difference. They envisioned a book on the field of interculturalism structured around individual professional autobiographies written by twelve people, mostly in their eighties, whom they deemed to be intercultural pioneers . I was one of the … Continue reading Renewing Diversity: Part 15: Perspectives from Intercultural Pioneers – by Carlos Cortés
In 1816, 19-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin captivated her close friends with a story about a monster. Two years later, now married and known as Mary Shelley, she stunned the reading world with her novel, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). Frankenstein’s monster was a man. It remained so in most film renditions. Notable exceptions … Continue reading Renewing Diversity No. 14: Interrogating Gender Bias in Artificial Intelligence – by Carlos Cortés, Angela Antenore
In his mesmerizing novel, The Go-Between, L. P. Hartley wrote one of the finest opening lines of any novel I have ever read: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” That certainly holds true for the historical trajectory of diversity. At age 91, I’ve lived through myriad changes in the American … Continue reading Renewing Diversity #13: Diversity History as a Foreign Country – by Carlos Cortés
During 2025 few trends, if any, received more attention than developments in artificial intelligence. You can hardly pick up a magazine or listen to a newscast without hearing something about AI. However, I have encountered relatively little addressing the intersection of AI and diversity. What might AI mean for diversity? What can diversity advocates do … Continue reading Renewing Diversity Part 12: Diversity and the AI Frenzy – by Carlos Cortés
I’ve always been a bit perplexed when it comes to the intersection of economics and diversity. Maybe this is inevitable because of the sprawling, multifaceted, and contentious nature of the field of economics itself. As the old saying goes, “You can stack all of the world’s economists end to end and never reach a conclusion.” … Continue reading Renewing Diversity Part 11: The Mysterious World of Diversity and Economics – by Carlos Cortés
I recently received an invitation to attend the national conference of the Society for Intercultural Education, Teaching, and Research. The conference theme was “Inclusive Interculturalism.” The implicit message was simple: in order to be inclusive, interculturalists need to make a conscious effort . Inclusivity doesn’t come naturally. In my last month’s ADR column I … Continue reading Renewing Diversity Part 10: Unpacking the Inclusivity Dilemma in Health Care – by Carlos Cortés
For nearly a year I’ve been going through an out-of-body experience. It was launched by a simple request that has turned into a not-so-simple journey. Here’s what happened. In the fall of 2024, Steven Mandeville-Gamble, Director of the University of California, Riverside, Library, asked me to donate my professional papers to the library’s Special Collections. … Continue reading Renewing Diversity Part 9: Rediscovering My Professional Journey – by Carlos Cortés
To a great extent, popular culture is a series of remakes. Remakes of classical theatre. Remakes of children’s stories. Remakes of old movies. There’s nothing basically wrong with that. Hamlet has been restaged thousands of times, sometimes preserving its original historical context, other times being modernized. Film director Akira Kurosawa transported “Macbeth” and “King Lear” … Continue reading Renewing Diversity No. 8: Updating the Classics – by Carlos Cortés
“Do you have any religious or ethical reservations about what kind of bone we put in your mouth?” That question both startled and pleased me. As I answered with a simple “no,” I broke into a broad smile. Some context. My young periodondist was in the midst of trying to save my 90-year-old mouthful of … Continue reading Renewing Diversity No. 7: A Sliver of Bone – by Carlos Cortés
