Professor Mintzi Martínez-Rivera was recently awarded the 2026 Chicago Folklore Prize for her recent book, Creating Culture, Performing Community: An Angahuan Wedding Story (Indiana University Press). The prize, which celebrates the best book-length work of folklore scholarship published each year, has been awarded annually since 1904 and is the oldest international award for excellence in the study of folklore. 

Professor Martínez-Rivera’s book addresses the performance of cultural practices among the people of Santo Santiago de Angahuan, a P'urhépecha community in the state of Michoacán, México. In particular, it describes the creation, performance and transformation of P'urhépecha wedding rituals as sites for the rearticulation of Indigenous identity in the contemporary world. 

In addition to this award, the book has garnered universal acclaim from reviewers. As described by the P'urhépecha Studies Collective, “Martínez-Rivera teaches us that the permanence and growth of P'urhépecha life and culture, as it is lived in Angahuan, defies authenticity parameters. There is power in that assertion. This is a P'urhépecha story. It is an Indigenous story, one that should be told during a time when external forces attempt to define us as stagnant and antiquated… We are so glad this book was written.”

Dr. Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera is an Assistant Professor of English (Folklore) and Latinx Studies. She is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Ethnic Studies, the Center for Folklore Studies and the Department of English at Ohio State.