Dr. Tracy K. Lewis, distinguished teaching professor in SUNY Oswego’s modern languages and literatures department, has been made a member and honorary professor in the Ateneo de Lengua y Cultura Guarani in Paraguay, in recognition of his career-long dedication to Guarani, the South American nation’s co-official language, with Spanish.

Certificates from the Paraguayan organization credit Lewis for his “long and meritorious trajectory promoting and spreading the Guarani language.”

Throughout his career, Lewis has perpetuated Guarani—the only indigenous language of the Americas whose speakers include a large proportion of non-indigenous people—through his poetry, many literary translations, conference appearances, advocacy for the language and other scholarship.