Conditions Governing Access
Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use
Preferred Citation
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Processing Information
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Biography
Scope and Contents
System of Arrangement
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Related Material
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Enrique Hank Lopez papers
Creator:
Lopez, Enrique Hank
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.1519
Physical Description:
13 Linear Feet
(29 boxes, 1 carton)
Date (inclusive): 1947-1985
Abstract: Enrique Hank Lopez (1920-1985) was a
Chicano writer, teacher, attorney, and actor born in Chihuahua, Mexico. The collection is
primarily comprised of manuscripts for novels, short stories, essays, plays, screenplays,
and articles written by Lopez, both published and unpublished. It includes several clippings
of articles by Lopez published in magazines and newspapers, as well as some photographs and
correspondence. The collection also contains books from Lopez's personal library, such as
various editions of his published works, and books inscribed to Lopez by various authors.
The 2018 addition to the collection includes 1/4 inch audiotapes of interviews by Enrique
Hank Lopez of Katherine Anne Porter for the book
Conversations with Katherine Anne
Porter, Refugee from Indian Creek
(1981).
Language of Material: Materials are primarily in English,
some materials in Spanish.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access
special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on
this page.
Conditions Governing Access
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in
advance using the request button located on this page.
Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All
other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the
responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the
copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not
hold the copyright.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Enrique Hank Lopez papers (Collection 1519). UCLA Library Special
Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Greg Lopez; Gifts; 1987, 2018.
Processing Information
Processed by Manuscripts Division staff in 1987. Online finding aid edited by Josh Fiala in
2002. Finding aid revised in 2019 by Carolina Meneses in the Center for Primary Research and
Training (CFPRT), with assistance from Courtney Dean.
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Biography
Enrique Hank Lopez was a Chicano writer, teacher, attorney, and actor. He was born on May
28, 1920 in Chihuahua, Mexico but grew up in Denver, Colorado after his father, a soldier of
the Mexican Revolution, moved his family to the US when Lopez was a toddler. Throughout his
life, Lopez lived in Los Angeles, Boston, New York City, and Mexico City.
Lopez received his BA from the University of Denver and did some graduate study at the
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México before going to Harvard Law School for his JD. He
also earned an MA from Harvard University's Graduate School of Economics.
Lopez entered a private practice as a trial lawyer in Los Angeles, where he moved after
graduation in 1948. He later practiced international law in Mexico City from 1960 to 1966.
Lopez served as a consultant to the Ford Foundation on Latin American projects, while also
directing Latin American investments for a New York City firm (1967).
Lopez was co-editor of the Mexican literary journal,
Revista Diálogos
(1962-1967), which was devoted to the original works of leading Latin American writers.
Lopez contributed several of his essays to this journal, including a Spanish translation of
his widely published autobiographical essay, "Back to Bachimba" in 1966.
In the 1970s, Lopez left the practice of law to write and teach. He wrote and published
several books, including
'La Balsa' to Australia: The Longest Raft Voyage in
History
(1973);
The Seven Wives of Westlake: Eavesdropping on the
Ladies
(1973);
The Highest Hell: The First Full Account of the Andes Air
Crash
(1973);
Eros and Ethos: A Comparative Study of Catholic, Jewish, and
Protestant Sex Behavior
(1977); and
The Harvard Mystique: The Power
Syndrome that Affects Our Lives from Sesame Street to the White House
(1979).
Lopez also collaborated with other authors in
My Brother Lyndon (1969),
Expedition Balsa (1975), and
Conversations with Katherine Anne
Porter, Refugee from Indian Creek
(1981). Porter was a journalist and fiction
writer best known for her short stories.
Lopez wrote articles for the
Los Angeles Times,
The Washington
Post
,
The New York Times,
The Denver Post,
Life Magazine,
Life en Español, the
San Francisco
Chronicle
,
The Atlantic,
The Nation,
American
Heritage
, and more. His articles covered a range of topics, such as Mexican
politics, US-Mexico relations, petroleum politics, police brutality, immigration, and
poverty and starvation in Latin America.
In 1959 and again throughout the 1970s, Lopez lectured at many colleges and universities:
Universidad Nacional de Mexico; the Institute of Politics at Harvard University; SUNY
Purchase; Northeastern University Law School; as regents' professor of the Mexican-American
Studies Division at the University of California, Riverside; and as Poynter Fellow at Yale
University. He taught courses on writing, bilingual education, law, and Chicano and Puerto
Rican politics and culture. He also conducted writers' workshops in Mexico City.
Lopez also had a career in television as an actor and screenwriter for the CBS show,
The Verdict is Yours, a courtroom drama on air from 1963 to 1965. He was
associate producer of
Viva Azurra (1969), a television film directed by Bud
Boeticher and filmed in Mexico. He was producer and narrator of
Chicanos in
Action
(1984), a documentary for KCET.
Lopez was working on his autobiography until his death in West Hollywood on October 20,
1985. He was survived by his two sons, a daughter, and two grandchildren.
Scope and Contents
The collection is primarily comprised of manuscripts for novels, short stories, essays,
plays, screenplays, and articles written by Enrique Hank Lopez, both published and
unpublished. This includes an early manuscript of
The Harvard Axis, which
would later become
The Harvard Mystique (1979). Several of the screenplay
drafts are adaptations of Lopez's books, such as
The Hidden Magic of Uxmal
(1980) and
Conversations with Katherine Anne Porter, Refugee from Indian
Creek
(1981). Some of the unpublished works include
Chicano in Limbo, a
Memoir
,
Primal Scenes: a Comedy in Three Acts, and
Doña
Consuelo's Diary
, among others. The majority of these works are undated. The
collection also includes several clippings of articles by Lopez published between 1967 and
1983 in magazines and newspapers, such the
Los Angeles Times,
The
Atlantic
, and
Harper's Magazine. The collection also includes
photographs of Lopez taken during his campaign for California Secretary of State in 1958.
There is also correspondence, which includes a telegram from John F. Kennedy and other
papers such as resumes, certificates, transcripts, and programs for various meetings and
presentations attended by Lopez. The collection also contains books from Lopez's personal
library, such as various editions and translations of his published works and books
inscribed to him by various authors.
The 2018 addition to the collection contains 1/4 inch audiotapes of interviews conducted in
1966 by Enrique Hank Lopez with writer Katherine Anne Porter for the book
Conversations with Katherine Anne Porter, Refugee from Indian
Creek
(1981).
System of Arrangement
This collection has been arranged in the following series:
- Series 1: Personal materials, 1947-1985
- Series 2: Writings, 1964-1982
- Series 3: Books, 1948-1985
- Series 4: Interviews by Enrique Hank Lopez with Katherine Anne Porter, 1966
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
COLLECTION CONTAINS AUDIO MATERIALS: Audio materials in this collection will require
assessment and possible digitization for safe access. All requests to access special
collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this
page.
Related Material
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Mexican American authors -- Archives
Lopez, Enrique Hank--Archives
Porter, Katherine Anne