The Tejano Association for Historical Preservation has selected Nicolás Kanellos, founding director of Arte Público Press and the University of Houston Brown Foundation Professor of Hispanic Studies, as the recipient of its award for excellence in literary preservation.

Kanellos received the honor for his work with the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, a national effort to locate, rescue, evaluate, disseminate and publish collections of literary works written by Hispanics in what is now the U.S. that date from the colonial period to 1960. Started in 1990 with initial funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, it’s the largest project undertaken to study Hispanic culture and literature in the country and highlights Hispanics’ significant contributions to American literature. Earlier this year, the project received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct a survey of organizations in the Southwest that are likely to contribute literary pieces that can become part of the project.

Read more: Publishers Weekly