Dr. Sarah Hernandez, Associate Professor of Native American Literature and Director of the Institute for American Indian Research, has been awarded the 2025 Sarah Belle Brown Community Service Award. This honor recognizes her outstanding public service and dedication to advancing Native literary traditions and community engagement throughout South Dakota, New Mexico, and beyond.
Dr. Hernandez is the author of We Are the Stars: Colonizing and Decolonizing the Oceti Sakowin Literary Tradition, a book of literary criticism that compares tribal and settler narratives about women and the land. The book was published in February 2023 by the University of Arizona Press in the U.S. and the University of Regina Press in Canada. It has garnered national and international acclaim, including being named the Best First Book of 2023 by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. It also received Honorable Mentions for the MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages and the Armitage-Jameson Book Prize from the Western History Association. Additionally, it was shortlisted for the Saskatchewan Book Awards’ Indigenous Peoples’ Publishing Award and selected as South Dakota’s featured title in the Library of Congress National Book Festival’s “Great Reads from Great Places” program.
In addition to her scholarship, Dr. Hernandez launched the #NativeReads initiative, a print and social media campaign designed to increase knowledge of and access to Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota literatures. She led all research and evaluation efforts, producing a 12-page educational booklet and a podcast series for students and teachers. During her upcoming sabbatical, Dr. Hernandez will expand this work by editing The Oceti Sakowin Reader: An Anthology of Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota Literature.
Dr. Jennifer Denetdale, who nominated Hernandez for this award, noted that “her impact is significant because for many at UNM, she represents what Native/Indigenous scholarship looks like. She works with local community members to disseminate historical, cultural, and literary knowledge about Indigenous nations and their community members through a variety of media forms.”
The Sarah Belle Brown Community Service Award was established by former UNM Regent and Anderson School of Management Dean Doug Brown in honor of his wife, Sarah Belle Brown, a lifelong advocate for children and education. The award recognizes UNM faculty and staff whose public service meaningfully impacts New Mexico’s communities.
