Armando M. Martínez, archivist, has brought to completion The Tomás Rivera archive catalog. It was for me a pleasure to witness the stimulating effect on this young scholar of Tomás Rivera documents during the seven-year process of archival work. The Catalog compiled by Armando M. Martínez and edited by Clifford R. Wurfel makes available to international scholars and writers and biographers the systematic order and conceptual coherence of Tomás Rivera's prolific work in countless areas of intellectual and creative endeavor.

The Tomás Rivera archive catalog exhibits praiseworthy professional skills, organizational abilities, insight, and a rare enthusiasm--all commensurate with Armando's task as principal archivist. I must emphasize the rare enthusiasm, because it is genuinely sincere. His work is that of a person whose intellectual curiosity has been inspirited and made more insightful by his subject. It is careful, meticulous, and conscientious. The succinct descriptions of the archive contents are clearly written. They compress and at the same time give an ample sense of each of more than 85,000 items in the Tomás Rivera Archive. These descriptions, the systematic classification of Tomás Rivera's work, and the Index of the Catalog will be invaluable to scholars. In sum, the Catalog is a scholarly reference work of high caliber.

In going over the completed manuscript of The Tomás Rivera archive catalog,I was struck by the staggering amount of correspondence that evinces Tomás' bountiful professional and creative support of others, his unselfishness, and his extraordinary energy. I remember Concha telling me that he used to arrive at the fourth floor of the UC Riverside Administration building at six in the morning. Beginning the workday that early and leaving the office long after five o'clock was a regular pattern in his life. Many persons who wrote letters to Tomás included manuscripts of short stories, novels in progress, poetry collections or anthologies, and scholarly articles and books in various academic disciplines. Requesting that he read, analyze, review, and critique them. And he did. Ponderous in number also, are the requests that he write letters of recommendation for academic positions, merit increases, promotions to full professor, applications to graduate schools.

Tomás Rivera responded to these and countless other demands on his time: to serve on various educational and professional committees at national and regional levels, to present papers, to guide people working on dissertations, and to serve as reader and judge on writing competition committees. Professor Luis Leal emphasizes the breadth of Tomás Rivera's influence and predicts that this influence will grow.

With the publication of The Tomás Rivera archive catalog,Tomás' influence influence during his lifetime can be assessed, and will grow, in proportion to the discovery of the full range of his historical, philosophical, educational, and artistic thought. This Catalog makes possible many discoveries for interested writers and scholars. It is an excellent guide to the Tomás Rivera Archive documents, which permit one to follow the trajectory of the life and the personal vision of a multifaceted creative writer and thinker.

Documents of the archive show the quality of a mind and literary art that were shaped at a specific moment in American history, as I have pointed out elsewhere. Childhood experiences; Mexican culture and ancestry; U.S. social, cultural, and intellectual life; plus a broad knowledge of international literature, French, Spanish. Latin American, Mexican and Chicano--all converge on and shape Rivera's personal vision. These elements of his cultural and intellectual formation provide the background and a large context for Rivera's preponderant interest in Chicano literature and varieties of the Mexican experience in the United States. One can see, for example, in Tomás' essays and speeches, and in his correspondence with major Chicano writers--too numerous to mention without risking omissions--when Chicano literature, and the conceptual process of formulating its nature and function, began to have the preponderant place it was to occupy in Tomás Rivera's philosophical outlook on life and art.

Hereafter, all future scholars who conduct research on Tomás Rivera will be indebted to the archivist of the Catalog.In my own mind, personally, few people have a better understanding than Armando M. Martínez of Rivera's productive life; of Rivera the man, husband and father, the novelist, poet, administrator, cosmopolitan thinker, mentor, national and international figure--the person who never forgot his roots.

In the Catalog,scholars will find drafts of letters, and essays in outline form, pithy outlines and brief statements, evidently planned for later development and fuller exposition. Such documents, in Rivera's own handwriting, tell us that writing was for Rivera a direct and immediate response to something that engaged his intellect and heart forcefully. One such sketchily drafted statement that Tomás left in handwritten form seized young Armando's attention. Most understandably, because for anyone who knew Tomás this particular statement points to central tenets of his doctrine concerning our collective identity.

The document, which Armando called to my attention, is to be found in Section IV, Box 24, Folder 4. In Tomás' handwriting, it begins with a peremptory declaration at the top of an unruled page. It is followed by the enumeration of four points. [Editor's note: see page one.]

I want to re-establish to the point of being dogmatic, the following points:

Shortly after an informal luncheon on the first week of December 1984, with Joan Chambers, the former University Librarian of UC Riverside and doña Concepción Rivera, the wife of the late Tomás Rivera, the idea of housing the original papers and literary archive of Tomás Rivera was seriously reviewed. After further negotiation with the late Acting Chancellor Daniel G. Aldrich, Jr., and later with Chancellor Theodore L. Hullar, Concepción "Concha" Rivera graciously consented to deposit and later donate, the Tomás Rivera Papers to the UC Riverside Library, under the care of the Special Collections & Archives. The UC Riverside Library was renamed the Tomás Rivera Library in April 1985 to honor Dr. Rivera, the campus' fourth chancellor, who had died the year previously. With the establishment of a Tomás Rivera Papers Advisory Committee, consisting of faculty and staff, the arrangement for access, preservation and cataloging of the archive commenced.

Funds were provided by the campus to process and catalog these papers, and Armando M. Martínez, was hired to be the curator and archivist for the Tomás Rivera collection. For seven years Armando M. Martínez diligently sorted and arranged the collection. He had to read and distill the contents of each folder into a few lines for this Catalog,as well as spend long hours inputting the listings. This labor has given him a greater appreciation of Dr. Rivera's philosophy and has pointed out his future career in Chicano/Latino affairs.

Seven years later, with a collection that grew to approximately 85,000 items and continues to grow annually due to its annual Tomás Rivera Conferences, a Tomás Rivera Documentary Project and the publication of articles, essays, poems and books on Dr. Rivera's life and work, The Tomás Rivera archive catalog is now brought to completion. Since the establishment of the collection further materials, written, visual, audio, and photographic have been acquired. Thirty-five interviews with his colleagues and friends have been recorded and added to the collection. The goal was to organize and describe the entire collection, annotating the most significant and interesting items. The material can be found indexed by name, subject and title.

The archive was organized, classified and cataloged into a systematic and chronological order. The literary section is probably the most important, for it contains all the original manuscripts, presentations, publications, poetry, and correspondence with various men and women of letters. Dr. Rivera achieved an international reputation in the field of Chicano literature. In his books, Dr. Rivera gave expression to the life of the migrant workers and to the facets of the Chicano experience. He was intimately acquainted with the life of migrant workers as his parents and he worked in the fields. His parents did not neglect his education as a child, and his inquiring mind impelled him to go on to high school and ultimately to the university.

Dr. Rivera was a man of many parts--chancellor, poet, novelist, educator, a professional and civic leader. He was besides, a member of many private and public organizations, and made presentations at symposia, conferences and workshops. He was most active in the field of higher education and Hispanic affairs.

The process of editing this Catalog made us realize Tomás Rivera's profound involvement in education and how much he sought to bring out the best in peoples' intellectual and social endeavors. He urged young people to apply their talents for the betterment of society and themselves; to the same end he gave of himself unstintedly both by word and example. His example will serve to encourage others to follow the path he opened.

The archival methodology used in cataloguing the material was that of T.R. Schellenberg's Management of Archives. In following T.R. Schellenberg, we respected the existing patterns of Tomás Rivera's archival management, which he had previously set forth, and elaborated or created new ones where none existed. Descriptive annotations are terse and for the most part free of superfluous words. Also, three books that were invaluable in our research to which we would like to give credit are: Ernestina N. Eger's A Bibliography of Criticism of Contemporary Chicano Literature, Matt S. Meier and Feliciano Rivera's Dictionary of Mexican American History, and finally, Barbara J. Robinson and J. Cordell Robinson's The Mexican American: A Critical Guide to Research Aids.

The Collection Development Department wishes to express appreciation to the several scholars and writers who helped in the proof-reading of this manuscript: Saül Sánchez of Laredo Jr. College, TX, for Section One; Eliud Martínez of UC Riverside for Section Two; María I. Duke dos Santos of East Texas State University for Section Three; Pat Mora, poet and writer of Cincinnati, Ohio, for Section Four; and Flora I. Ortíz of UC Riverside for Section Five. Also, a large indebtedness for this Catalog goes to in-house editor and former director of Special Collections & Archives at UC Riverside, Clifford R. Wurfel, who assisted the archivist in understanding the obscure and clarifying the obvious. Equally involved in all stages of creation and completion of this project was Claire D. Harrington, Senior Programmer and Computer Analyst of the Tomás Rivera Library, whose pragmatic expertise in computer programming, great sense of humor, and true wit in finding solutions to our many encounters of a strange kind, we thank profoundly. And to our UC Riverside Tomás Rivera Library staff, who assisted in locating books, information and rare material, we are greatly indebted to them. The archivist takes full responsibility for any inaccuracy and obscure definition which did not find the light of day. For any of these "literary phantoms," he is accountable to exile them to the region of "Mictlán," the Land of the Dead (Náhuatl Uto-Aztecan).

Special gratitude goes to doña Concepción Rivera who donated Tomás Rivera's papers and made this project possible; to James C. Thompson, University Librarian, whose funding and support has brought this catalog to a close; to John W. Tanno, Associate Librarian, whose constant vision to sharpen the focus assisted tremendously in providing a quality research tool for scholars; equally helpful was Peter Briscoe, Head of Collection Development, who kept vigilance and saw the light at the end of the tunnel and thought up ingenious ways of continuing the research funds to complete our project; to Dr. Eliud Martínez, UC Riverside professor of comparative literature, creative writing and Latin American studies whose intellectual support and humanistic guidance inspired and challenged the archivist's philosphical curiosity; and to the dean of Chicano literature, Professor Emeritus Luis Leal of UC Santa Barbara, for his contribution in providing an enlightening Introduction. Finally, Armando would like to thank his wife, Donna L. Ramírez, whose "tetlazóhtlaliztli" (amor) and encouragement gave him confidence in finishing this project.

Armando M. Martínez and Clifford R. Wurfel

Tomás Rivera's life and published literary works have been examined from diverse perspectives by a number of critics. Few of these critics, however, had the opportunity to consult numerous unpublished documents not yet available to the public. These documents include original literary works, memoirs, other papers about his early years, as well as letters and memoranda related to his professional life, all of them extremely valuable for reconstructing his biography and formulating a better understanding of his philosophy of life and his literary activities.

The publication of The Tomás Rivera archive catalog will greatly facilitate the task of re-examining Rivera's total contributions, an undertaking that becomes necessary due to the importance of the materials which have been donated to the University of California at Riverside by his widow, Concepción Garza Vda. de Rivera, and augmented and classified by Armando M. Martínez, curator of the archive, and Cliff R. Wurfel, former director of Special Collections & Archives and editor of the Catalog.

The Catalog is organized by subject matter into five sections: biography, literary career, professional career, organizations to which Rivera belonged, and illustrative materials. In the first section we find memorial speeches and important autobiographical information regarding his childhood, his education, and his family life. In the second section there are a number of unpublished manuscripts (poems, essays, fiction), as well as speeches, interviews, reviews and other criticism of his writings. Section three includes papers related to his professional career as a teacher and administrator. The fourth includes materials regarding his participation in such groups as boards, committees, and foundations. The fifth is composed of photographs, awards, audio/video recordings, and other illustrative materials.

The question may be asked: why is it necessary to re-examine Tomás Rivera's life and works? Principally, we believe, for two important reasons. First, his life was exemplary, and an effort should be made to reconstruct it as completely as possible so it may serve as an inspiration for others. Second, his fiction and poetry stand at the center of the Chicano literary renaissance, and his unpublished documents cast greater light on the extent of his contributions.

Tomás Rivera's philosophy of life was doubtless the product of his early experiences, his close contact with the campesinos, the hardworking migrants, and the urban border people he came to know so well. His literary works testify to this formation; he constantly refers to the plight of the common people, whom he never forgot, even from the high position of Chancellor of the University of California, Riverside. In his poetry and fiction we often come across some of these people. Representative of them are Kiko, killed and buried in Italy in 1943; Chona, the "mythic Chicana," who died in the sugar beet fields with her eight-month child buried deep within her. And, among many others, doña Cuquita, the woman Rivera met at the dump while, as a boy, he went there to look for discarded books and magazines.

Note: The entries and annotations have been indexed, but not the Foreword or the Introduction. The index key is Section, Box, and Folder number.

Note: The archive entries and annotations have been indexed, but not the Forward or the Introduction. The index key is Section, Box, and Folder number.

Note: The archive entries and annotations have been indexed, but not the Forward or the Introduction. The index key is Section, Box, and Folder number. The titles beginning with numerals are at the end of the alphabetized index.