UH Professor and Publisher Receives National Humanities Medal

HOUSTON, TX—Dr. Nicolás Kanellos, the Brown Foundation Professor of Hispanic Literature at the University of Houston and the founder/director of Arte Público Press and the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage, has been recognized with the National Humanities Medal for his work to make available the writings of contemporary and historical Latinos. The medal was presented by President Joseph R. Biden on Monday, October 21, 2024.

 “The medal has my name on it—and I am so proud of that—but in reality it honors all the hardworking and mission-driven people who for some forty years have searched for and preserved Latino cultural history and made it accessible to schools, universities, libraries and the public at large,” Dr. Kanellos said. “Here at UH, the entire Arte Público Press and Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage team of professionals and students is assiduously working to create new humanistic knowledge through cutting-edge technology, traditional scholarship and outreach to the community.”

The National Humanities Medal, inaugurated in 1997, honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities and broadened citizens’ engagement with history, literature, languages, philosophy and other humanities subjects. Up to 12 medals can be awarded each year. In previous years, luminaries such as Joan Didion, Elie Wiesel and the Norman Rockwell Museum have received the award.

Dr. Kanellos established the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage program in 1992 to recover and make accessible all the written culture of Latinos in what has become the United States, from the 1500s to 1980. The largest humanities research program dedicated to Latino history and culture, the program digitizes, publishes and incorporates into all levels of curricula hundreds of thousands of historical documents, both online and in scores of books.

He is the author of numerous award-winning publications, including a just-released second edition of En otra voz: Antología de la literatura hispana de los Estados Unidos (Arte Público Press, 2024), which documents 500 years of Latino writing and thought; Latinos and Nationhood: Two Centuries of Intellectual Thought (University of Arizona Press, 2023); Herencia: The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United States (Oxford University Press, 2003); Hispanic Immigrant Literature: El Sueño del Retorno(University of Texas Press, 2001) and Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States (4 vols., Arte Público Press, 1994).

The founder and publisher of Arte Público Press, the oldest and largest Latino publishing house in the United States, Dr. Nicolás Kanellos has published the works of the most well-known Hispanic authors, including Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street and Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit. He received the Anderson Imbert Lifetime Achievement Award from the North American Academy of the Spanish Language in 2014 and was elected to the Spanish Royal Academy for Arts and Science in 2008. In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Kanellos to the National Council on the Humanities.

Arte Público Press is the nation’s largest and most established publisher of contemporary and recovered literature by US Latino authors. Its imprint for children and young adults, Piñata Books, is dedicated to the authentic portrayal of the themes, languages, characters and customs of Hispanic culture in the United States. Books published under the imprint serve as a bridge connecting home and school to support family literacy and elementary education. Based at the University of Houston, Arte Público Press, Piñata Books and the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage program provide the most widely recognized and extensive showcase for Latino literary arts and creativity. For more information, please visit www.artepublicopress.com.

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