Enrique R. Lamadrid wins ANLE’s 2019 “Enrique Anderson Imbert” national prize
Renowned professor, researcher, and cultural activist Enrique R. Lamadrid, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Spanish of the University of New Mexico, is the winner of the 2019 Premio Nacional “Enrique Anderson Imbert” of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE).
This award – the most prestigious that ANLE has granted since 2012 – recognizes the professional trajectory of those who have contributed with their research, projects, and publications to the knowledge and diffusion of the Spanish language, literatures and Hispanic cultures of the United States. The award is granted annually to individuals or legal entities resident in the United States and consists of a diploma, an artistic plaque and a commemorative medal.
The jury awarded the prize to an outstanding candidate for his research projects that clearly distinguish him as an authority in the field of folklore studies and ethnopoetics, consisting of the documentary and ethnographic recovery of primary sources, their analysis and interpretation, and also the development of theories profiling cultural hybridity and the cultures of the southwest borderlands of the United States. The jury based its decision on the recognition of “his extraordinary contributions to the knowledge and promotion of cultural production in the Spanish language of the United States, whose recovery, preservation, translation, and diffusion he has dedicated his brilliant academic and creative career for almost half a century of prolific work as a researcher, teacher, and critic whose vocation has been to strengthen intercultural dialogue within the nation as well as in the broad context of the Pan-Hispanic world.”
The jury was composed of nine members of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE), the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language (ASALE), and Pan-Hispanic educational and cultural institutions in the United States as well as abroad. The Honorary Director of ANLE, Gerardo Piña-Rosales, declared: “We are proud of the work of a jury that has analyzed and evaluated with equanimity the background of the candidates, arriving at a decision that recognizes the figure of Enrique R. Lamadrid as an eminent representative of the values that the National Prize “Enrique Anderson Imbert” tries to foment: dedication to teaching, research, academic production, and a wide variety of professional cultural and artistic services in many fields and areas of knowledge, with the goal of promoting knowledge of Hispanic culture in the United States.”
Carlos E. Paldao, Secretary of the competition, commented: “His teaching profile is that of an educator of researchers who has trained his students in field work, joining theory with praxis to illuminate analysis and documentation. In the course of his inquiries, it is evident that Professor Lamadrid has made seminal contributions to the knowledge of the Hispanic cultural roots and heritage in the southwest United States, with more than a hundred publications, which include books, articles in refereed academic journals, chapters in anthologies, encyclopedia articles, essays, and numerous works of cultural transmission and scientific dissemination.”
Enrique Lamadrid stated: “As a literary folklorist and cultural activist, I am proud to humbly accept this high honor as a participant in a long tradition of Hispanic, Mexican, and Chicano studies in New Mexico and the southwest United States. This rich tradition begins with Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa in the late nineteenth century, and continues with Juan Bautista Rael, Américo Paredes, Jovita González, Arturo León Campa, Rubén Cobos, Luis Leal, María Herrera-Sobek, John H. McDowell, José Limón, Manuel Peña, Guillermo Hernández, and many other researchers who understand how the millennial Spanish and emergent Mexican traditions take root and adapt to the cultural landscapes of North America from 1598 to our own times. This great mestizo patrimony, in constant linguistic and cultural evolution, links us to the whole Hispanic world and with the most profound values of the nation that we have worked so hard to build.”
Previous prize winners include:
- Elias Rivers, Professor Emeritus of the State University of New York (2012);
- Saúl Sosnowski, from the University of Maryland (2013);
- Nicolás Kanellos, of the University of Houston (2014);
- Manuel Durán Gili, Professor Emeritus of Yale University (2015);
- Raquel Chang-Rodríguez of the City University of New York jointly with David T. Gies of the University of Virginia (2016);
- Matías Montes Huidobro, famed writer and Emeritus Professor of the University of Hawaii (2017);
- Enrique Pupo-Walker, Emeritus Centennial Professor of Spanish and Portuguese of Vanderbilt University, with Rolena Adorno, Distinguished Sterling Chair of Yale University (2018).
As with previous honorees, the award granted to Enrique R. Lamadrid in 2019 highlights the sustained vigor of Pan-Hispanic studies in the United States.