Carlos Cortez

Carlos Cortez was a Mexican German graphic artist, poet, and organizer. Born in Milwaukee in 1923 and based in Chicago since the 1960s, Cortez was deeply involved with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies, which was one of the first labor unions of Mexican workers in the southwestern United States. He was also a member of Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH), the Mexican Graphics Workshop, the Chicago Indian Artists Guild, and other organizations. His dedication to labor rights is reflected across his poems and art that address union organizing, identity, and culture. His writing, including articles, short stories, poems, and book reviews, and his art, including photographs, comic strips, and linoleum-cut illustrations, were published in the IWW’s newspaper and other outlets over the years.

Cortez’s poetry collections include Crystal-Gazing the Amber Fluid and Other Wobbly Poems (Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1990), De Kansas a Califas & back to Chicago. Poems and Art (MARCH/Abrazo Press, 1992), and Where Are the Voices? & Other Wobbly Poems (Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1997) and were often accompanied by his own illustrations. His work is collected in Coyote’s Song: Collected Poems & Selected Art (March/Abrazo Press, 2023). Cortez’s art was exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico. The Center for the Study of Political Graphics awarded Carlos Cortez the “Art as a Hammer” Award in 1998. He wrote, “Poetry is the oldest of the arts, outside the art of preparing food, without which there could be no other arts. For me, it is a way of communicating my indignation of the injustices that exist within our human society, particularly that of too many decisions being made by too few people.”