UNM Associate Professor Sarah Hernandez receives Luce Foundation Grant for groundbreaking anthology

Sarah Hernandez (Sicangu Lakota), associate professor of Native American Literature and director of the Institute for American Indian Research at The University of New Mexico, has been awarded a $150,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation's Indigenous Knowledge Initiative to publish The Oceti Sakowin Reader: An Anthology of Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota Literature.

Hernandez will lead this two-year project in partnership with the Oceti Sakowin Writers Society (OSWS), which will serve as the project's fiscal sponsor. Inspired by The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature (2019), this anthology will be the first to bring together Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota voices in a single volume. Funding from the Luce Foundation will support editorial development, community-based research, podcast production, and educational materials, ensuring the anthology preserves and shares Oceti Sakowin literature for generations.

Hernandez's scholarship and teaching emphasize Native/Indigenous literature, literary criticism, and community-engaged research. Her work often involves collaborations with tribal writers, educators, and elders to center the voices of the Oceti Sakowin and preserve the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota storytelling traditions.

A citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate, Hernandez is the author of the award-winning book We Are the Stars: Colonizing and Decolonizing the Oceti Sakowin Literary Tradition, published by the University of Arizona Press and University of Regina Press in 2023. The book traces Oceti Sakowin literary history across 200 years, from oral to print to digital forms, and explores how literature has been used to both colonize and decolonize Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota communities and nations.

Hernandez is a longtime board member of OSWS (formerly the Oak Lake Writers' Society), a Native-led nonprofit organization that supports Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota writers and strengthens intergenerational storytelling. In 2020, Hernandez collaborated with OSWS and the First Nations Development Institute to launch #NativeReads: Great Books from Indigenous Communities, Stories of the Oceti Sakowin, a national reading campaign aimed at increasing awareness of Oceti Sakowin literature.

The Oceti Sakowin Reader will expand on these efforts to make Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota literary traditions more accessible to students and educators. "This anthology will help increase access to our vibrant literary tradition so that tribal students can see themselves and their communities positively reflected in their classrooms and textbooks," said Hernandez.

Proceeds from the anthology will support OSWS's broader mission to nurture Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota writers and preserve the Oceti Sakowin Oyate's rich intellectual and literary traditions. Through mentorship, publishing, and education, OSWS continues to foster Da Oceti Sakowin storytelling across generations.

To learn more or support this work, visit https://www.ocetisakowinwriterssociety.org.