Juan Felipe Herrera awarded MacArthur Fellowship ‘genius grant’

U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera, a professor emeritus of Chicano and Latin American studies at Fresno State, is a 2024 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, one of the most prestigious awards in the United States, recognizing exceptionally talented and creative individuals across a wide range of fields. 

“I was incredibly surprised and thankful and felt my mother’s blessings. It stands out as one of the highest awards – offered to me, an only child, brought up by farm-working migrant parents who lived on roadsides and tiny ranches, mountains and barrios,” Herrera said. “I believe in kindness and compassion as the way to dissolve all the violence, poverty and extremism, and mostly all the ideological hypnosis cast upon all the peoples of our nation at this time. Poetry and our voice are great vehicles to do so.”

Herrera is the author of more than 30 books, including the new and expanded edition of his groundbreaking 1989 bilingual book “Akrílica,” published in 2022 by Noemi Press, and the poetry collection “California Brown: Illuminations and Hollers” published in 2024 by Mouthfeel Press.

“This award both recognizes the boundless creativity found in the combined works of Juan Felipe Herrera — from poetry, to theater, to musical performances, to the fusion of multiple artistic genres,” said Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval. “As a native of our Valley, Juan Felipe creates works that manifest universal human truths and transcend boundaries. They reveal a celebration of our unique cultural backgrounds that elevate the tapestry of our multicultural society; a playfulness that puts in motion his dynamic artistry, philosophical thought, and sense of music and color; and an earnest human spirit that seeks to build bridges of understanding through his storytelling of our present that forges hope for our future.”

Herrera founded the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio inside Fresno State’s library, and he recently was the subject of the scholarly anthology “Juan Felipe Herrera: Migrant, Activist, Poet Laureate,” published in 2023 by the University of Arizona Press. In 2023, Herrera received two prestigious awards, the Frost Medal and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

“Juan Felipe Herrera is a poet, educator and writer, uplifting Chicanx culture and amplifying shared experiences of solidarity and empowerment through poetry and prose for adults and children,” the MacArthur Foundation said on its website. “Herrera’s literary output, in both English and Spanish, crosses genres and spans five decades; his work is united by deep empathy and joy for all groups in the act of artistic creation.”

A Valley native born in Fowler and the son of a migrant farm worker, his family moved often throughout California. He graduated from San Diego High School in 1967. He received the Educational Opportunity Program scholarship to attend the University of California, Los Angeles, earning his bachelor’s in social anthropology, a master’s in social anthropology from Stanford University and a master of fine arts from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. 

Herrera taught creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and Chicano and Latin American Studies at Fresno State. Herrera served as the California Poet Laureate from 2012-15 and the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015-17.  He is currently the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio coordinator at the Fresno State Library. Fresno State honored him with an honorary doctorate in 2016.

The MacArthur Fellowship, informally called the “genius grant,” is a $800,000 grant paid over five years with no strings attached. The criteria focus on exceptional creativity, a track record of achievement and a promise of important future advances. By providing grant funds without any requirements, the foundation supports people rather than projects, giving them the financial freedom to pursue their creative visions.  

(Story by Benjamin Kirk. Jefferson Beavers contributed to this story.)