Mellon Foundation

"When we enter the voting booth, we undertake an act of stewardship, one sacred in its significance, of the right to vote itself." Revisit the writing of Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander on how "the act of voting is democracy made manifest."

This #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth, learn about Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes, a sacred site for the Lipan Apache Tribe. Located in what is now known as Presidio, Texas, the burial mound had been a resting place for its tribe since the late 1700s. However, as the city of Presidio transformed in the 1970s, residential encroachment and urbanization impacted the site. In 2021, a coalition of descendants of the people resting in the cemetery, tribal elders, and the Big Bend Conservation Alliance (BBCA) negotiated the formal transfer of land ownership back to the Lipan Apache Tribe. This reclamation, or #landback, was the first in the state of Texas. Now protected, Cementerio Del Barrio de los Lipanes offers public programming to raise awareness about the site's history as well as broader Indigenous presence in the region. Read how the community advocated for Native stewardship and the preservation of this sacred site at on.mellon.org/3NODicA 📷 courtesy of BBCA

The Puerto Rican Arts Initiative, partnered with The University of Texas at Austin, received $1.2 million from the Mellon Foundation to move into its third phase to invest in contemporary art practices. In this next phase, the project will support micro-residencies, curatorial projects, and exhibitions focused on performance and ephemeral arts in #PuertoRico. 📖 Read more at The Daily Texan today.

Meet Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva 🎭 The group—consisting of artists, scholars, educators, and activists—works to engage with #Shakespeare in ways that reflect the lived realities of the US/Mexico borderlands. Key to this mission is the publishing of open-access volumes by contemporary Latine playwrights recontextualizing Shakespeare. The Colectiva works alongside education programs to teach Shakespeare in ways that allow students to bring their own cultural perspectives and languages into the classroom. Learn more about the initiative and its co-founders Adrianna Michelle Santos, Kathryn Vomero Santos, Ph.D., and Katherine Gillen at on.mellon.org/4fjLayj 📷 Jim Carmody; Jay Ruelas, courtesy of Texas A&M University-San Antonio

“The exceptional writers who make up this third group of fellows demonstrate the broad geographic and aesthetic range of Puerto Rican literary expression today," said Elizabeth Alexander, President of the Mellon Foundation. "We at Mellon are pleased to welcome them to the Letras Boricuas community, reflecting our ongoing effort to acknowledge and uplift the brilliant cultural life of Puerto Rico and its diaspora." 📖 Learn more about the 2024 Letras Boricuas Fellows today.

Announcing the 2024 Letras Boricuas Fellows 🎉 In partnership with Flamboyan Foundation’s Arts Fund, the Mellon Foundation announces the third cohort of Letras Boricuas Fellows, comprising twenty Puerto Rican #authors whose work spans literary genres, including the newly added category of playwriting. Since 2021, the Letras Boricuas Fellowship has provided more than $1.5M to 60 Puerto Rican writers on the archipelago and across the U.S. diaspora. Fellows are awarded unrestricted grants of $25,000 each to support their literary practice, providing crucial support to preserve #PuertoRico's rich yet historically underfunded literary tradition. Read more about this third class of Fellows at on.mellon.org/4f1sxQ9 ________________ Se anuncian los becarios de Letras Boricuas 2024 🎉 En colaboración con el Fondo de las Artes de la Fundación Flamboyán, la Fundación Mellon anuncia la tercera cohorte de becarios de Letras Boricuas, compuesta por veinte autores puertorriqueños cuyas obras abarcan diversos géneros literarios, incluida la recién añadida categoría de dramaturgia. Desde 2021, la Beca Letras Boricuas ha proporcionado más de $1.5 millones a 60 escritores puertorriqueños del archipiélago y de la diáspora en Estados Unidos. Los becarios reciben becas sin restricciones de $25,000 cada uno para apoyar su quehacer literario, proporcionando un apoyo crucial para preservar la rica pero históricamente mal financiada tradición literaria de Puerto Rico. Lea más sobre esta tercera cohorte de becarios en on.mellon.org/4f1sxQ9 • José Rabelo – Gurabo, PR • Jaquira Díaz – New York, NY • Carina del Valle Schorske – New York, NY • Roxana Domenech Cruz – San Juan, PR • Christian Ibarra – San Juan, PR • Richie Narvaez – New York, NY • Charles Rice-Gonzalez – New York, NY • Huascar Robles – Los Angeles, CA • Ana Teresa Toro – San Juan, PR • Mayda del Valle – Illinois, IL • Tatiana Figueroa Ramirez – Maryland, MD • Cindy Jiménez-Vera – Bayamón, PR • Samuel Medina – San Juan, PR • Willie Perdomo – New Hampshire, NH • Alejandra Rosa – Trujillo Alto, PR • Gaddiel Francisco Ruiz Rivera – Vega Baja, PR • Roque Raquel Salas Rivera– San Juan, PR • Vincent Toro – New Jersey, NJ • Rayze Ostolaza – Carolina, PR • Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya – Lajas, PR

🏅 Last week, the Mellon Foundation was honored to receive the National Humanities Medal. The National Humanities Medal is the highest award bestowed by the U.S. government to individuals and groups whose works has deepened the nation’s understanding of and engagement with the humanities. The nation’s largest funder of the arts, culture, and humanities, the Mellon Foundation champions ideas and imagination as central forces for freedom and justice. This is the first time in its history that the Mellon Foundation has been recognized with this honor. Since 1969, the Foundation has distributed over $8.5 billion in grants, advocating for the arts and humanities as essential to expressing our complex humanity. Learn more about 19 recipients of the 2022 and 2023 National Humanities Medal at on.mellon.org/3UpbIq9. 📷 Emil Kang and Getty Images #ArtsHumanitiesMedal National Endowment for the Humanities

What does culture, creativity, and history look like in the #Borderlands? More than a line that marks two countries and separates Indigenous homelands, the US-Mexico borderlands are vibrant and complicated places. The vast cultural knowledge and creativity of the region is shaped by people and overlapping histories—of contestation and interdependence, migration and adaptation, stewardship and regeneration. Through a fuller exploration of the borderlands, we can expand our understanding of collaboration and artistry, care for land and culture, and challenge ideas of separation and othering. Learn more about Borderlands Cultures, a new #Idea that's being explored across the Mellon Foundation's work, at on.mellon.org/3A9BNT9 📷 Camila Falquez for Mellon Foundation

The Mellon Foundation awards $1.25 million to New Music USA's Next Jazz Legacy program. A collaboration with Berklee College of Music's Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, the program seeks to expand opportunities for women and non-binary artists who have been historically underrepresented in jazz.

The Mellon Foundation is honored to be a recipient of the National Humanities Medal.   The award recognizes individuals and groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, and broadened engagement with humanities disciplines for all who live in the United States. The work that is being honored with the National Humanities Medal is our shared work; we also acknowledge our grantee partners. Today, October 21 at 5:30pm ET, tune in as the Mellon Foundation and 18 other changemaking recipients receive the National Humanities Medal from President Joseph R. Biden at The White House at on.mellon.org/40eGaaa #ArtsHumanitiesMedal #NationalEndowmentfortheHumanities