 In 1998, Rodriguez received the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature.among other awards for his writing and community work such as the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award, a PEN Josephine Miles Literary Award, a Lannan Poetry Fellowship, a Poetry Center Book Award of San Francisco State University, a Paterson Poetry Prize, Get Lit Players Ignite Award, and more.In 1993, Luis also received a Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize in Journalism with photojournalist Donna De Cesare to cover Salvadoran gang youth in Los Angeles and El Salvador.