Rigoberto González
Encyclopedia
Rigoberto González is an American writer and book critic. He is an editor and author of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual children's books, and self-identifies in his writing as a gay Chicano
. His most recent project is Black Blossoms (Four Way Books, 2011).
on July 18, 1970, and raised in Michoacán, Mexico, he is the son and grandson of migrant farmworkers, both parents now deceased. His extended family migrated back to California in 1980 and returned to Mexico in 1992. González remained alone in the U.S. to complete his education. Details of his troubled childhood in Michoacán and his difficult adolescence as an immigrant in California are the basis for his coming of age memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa.
During his college years he also performed with various Baile Folklorico
and Flamenco
dance troupes. He earned a B.A. in Humanities and Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of California, Riverside
, and graduate degrees from the University of California, Davis
, and Arizona State University
in Tempe. His former teachers include the Chicano poets Gary Soto
, Francisco X. Alarcón
, Lorna Dee Cervantes
, Pat Mora
and Alberto Ríos
, and the African American writers Clarence Major
and Jewell Parker Rhodes
.
in Albuquerque, but dropped out a year later to join his partner in New York City and to pursue a writing career. The two published their first books only a few months apart in the spring of 1999 and received numerous awards and recognitions for their works. In 2001, González pursued a career as an academic, holding distinguished teaching appointments at The New School
, the University of Toledo
, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
, and Queens College/City University of New York
.
González has lived and worked mostly in New York City and currently teaches at the writing program of Rutgers University
in Newark, where he is Associate Professor of English. He also holds a part-time appointment with the Vermont College of Fine Arts
in Montpelier. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship
and a National Endowment for the Arts
fellowship, the American Book Award
from the Before Columbus Foundation
, The Poetry Center Book Award from San Francisco State University
, the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America
,, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and of various international artist residencies including stays in Spain, Brazil, Costa Rica, Scotland and Switzerland, he writes a monthly Chicano/Latino book review column, now entering its ninth year, for the El Paso Times
of Texas. He is also contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine, an executive board member of the National Book Critics Circle
, a contributing writer for Lambda Literary and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and is on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/Latino activist-writers.
In 2008 he was named to the position of 2009 Poet-in-Residence by the Board of Trustees of The Frost Place
, the farm house of Robert Frost
located in New Hampshire. He was also named one of 100 Men and Women Who Made 2008 a Year to Remember by Out magazine
. In 2009, My Latino Voice named him one of the 25 most influential GLBT Latinos in the country.
Respected by members of the literary community for his versatility with literary genres and for his advocacy of emerging writers, González has championed a number of efforts to give visibility to marginalized voices. He curates and hosts The Quetzal Quill, a reading series in Manhattan, and has featured a number of poets on The Poetry Foundation
blog Harriet, and on the National Book Critics Circle
blog Critical Mass through the Small Press Spotlight Series.
Bilingual Children’s Books
Novels
Memoirs
Short Story Collections
Works Edited
Chicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
. His most recent project is Black Blossoms (Four Way Books, 2011).
Personal life
Born in Bakersfield, CaliforniaBakersfield, California
Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....
on July 18, 1970, and raised in Michoacán, Mexico, he is the son and grandson of migrant farmworkers, both parents now deceased. His extended family migrated back to California in 1980 and returned to Mexico in 1992. González remained alone in the U.S. to complete his education. Details of his troubled childhood in Michoacán and his difficult adolescence as an immigrant in California are the basis for his coming of age memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa.
During his college years he also performed with various Baile Folklorico
Baile Folklorico
Baile folklórico, literally "folkloric dance" in Spanish, is a collective term for traditional Latin American dances that emphasize local folk culture with ballet characteristics - pointed toes, exaggerated movements, highly choreographed. As mentioned below, baile folklórico owes its inception to...
and Flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
dance troupes. He earned a B.A. in Humanities and Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of California, Riverside
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside, commonly known as UCR or UC Riverside, is a public research university and one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system. UCR is consistently ranked as one of the most ethnically and economically diverse universities in the United...
, and graduate degrees from the University of California, Davis
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis is a public teaching and research university established in 1905 and located in Davis, California, USA. Spanning over , the campus is the largest within the University of California system and third largest by enrollment...
, and Arizona State University
Arizona State University
Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
in Tempe. His former teachers include the Chicano poets Gary Soto
Gary Soto
Gary Soto is a Mexican-American author and poet.Mexican-American parents Manuel and Angie Soto . In his youth, he worked in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley and in factories in Fresno. Gary's father died in 1957, when he was just five years old...
, Francisco X. Alarcón
Francisco X. Alarcón
Francisco Xavier Alarcón is an American poet and educator.-Life:He moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, when he was 6...
, Lorna Dee Cervantes
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Lorna Dee Cervantes is an award-winning Chicana-Native American poet who is considered one of the major Chicana poets of the past 40 years. She has been described by Alurista, as "probably the best Chicana poet active today." Lorna Dee Cervantes was born in 1954 in California. She grew up in San...
, Pat Mora
Pat Mora
Pat Mora is a Chicana author known primarily for her poetry and children's books.- Writer's Life and Work:Pat Mora is a writer and cultural preservationist who seeks to document the lives of Mexican Americans and U.S. Latinas and Latinos through varying genres such as children's books, poetry, and...
and Alberto Ríos
Alberto Ríos
Alberto Álvaro Ríos is an American author of nine books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. He is a Regents' professor of English at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona...
, and the African American writers Clarence Major
Clarence Major
- Biography :Clarence Major is a poet, painter and novelist who was born in Atlanta, Georgia and grew up in Chicago. In his early twenties he started publishing his own literary magazine, Coercion Review, which featured poets and writers such as Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen and Lawrence...
and Jewell Parker Rhodes
Jewell Parker Rhodes
Jewell Parker Rhodes is an American novelist.Rhodes is professor of Creative Writing and American Literature and former Director of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Rhodes is the Artistic Director for Global Engagement and the Piper Endowed Chair of...
.
Professional Background
In 1997 González enrolled in a PhD program at the University of New MexicoUniversity of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
in Albuquerque, but dropped out a year later to join his partner in New York City and to pursue a writing career. The two published their first books only a few months apart in the spring of 1999 and received numerous awards and recognitions for their works. In 2001, González pursued a career as an academic, holding distinguished teaching appointments at The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
, the University of Toledo
University of Toledo
The University of Toledo is a public university in Toledo, Ohio, United States. The Carnegie Foundation classified the university as "Doctoral/Research Extensive."-National recognition:...
, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
, and Queens College/City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
.
González has lived and worked mostly in New York City and currently teaches at the writing program of Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
in Newark, where he is Associate Professor of English. He also holds a part-time appointment with the Vermont College of Fine Arts
Vermont College of Fine Arts
Vermont College of Fine Arts offers four distinct graduate programs, awarding Master of Fine Arts degrees in Visual Art, Writing, Writing for Children & Young Adults and Graphic Design. The student to faculty ratio at VCFA is 4-to-1.. The faculty and alumni of VCFA have won many literary awards,...
in Montpelier. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
and a National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
fellowship, the American Book Award
American Book Award
The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
from the Before Columbus Foundation
Before Columbus Foundation
The Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, Victor Hernández Cruz, Shawn Wong and Rudolfo Anaya to be "a multi-ethnic organizing dedicated to promoting a pan-cultural view of America," especially through the promotion of multicultural writers.One of...
, The Poetry Center Book Award from San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
, the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America
Poetry Society of America
The Poetry Society of America is a literary organization founded in 1910 by poets, editors, and artists including Witter Bynner. It is the oldest poetry organization in the United States. Past members of the have included such renowned writers as Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent...
,, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and of various international artist residencies including stays in Spain, Brazil, Costa Rica, Scotland and Switzerland, he writes a monthly Chicano/Latino book review column, now entering its ninth year, for the El Paso Times
El Paso Times
The El Paso Times is the English-language newspaper for the U.S. city of El Paso, Texas. The paper was founded in 1881 by Marcellus Washington Carrico. It originally started out as a weekly but within a year's time, it became the daily newspaper for the frontier town.The newspaper has a daily...
of Texas. He is also contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine, an executive board member of the National Book Critics Circle
National Book Critics Circle
The National Book Critics Circle is an American tax-exempt organization for active book reviewers. Its flagship is the National Book Critics Circle Award....
, a contributing writer for Lambda Literary and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and is on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/Latino activist-writers.
In 2008 he was named to the position of 2009 Poet-in-Residence by the Board of Trustees of The Frost Place
The Frost Place
The Frost Place is a museum and nonprofit educational center for poetry located at Robert Frost's former home in Franconia, New Hampshire, USA....
, the farm house of Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
located in New Hampshire. He was also named one of 100 Men and Women Who Made 2008 a Year to Remember by Out magazine
Out (magazine)
Out is a popular gay and lesbian fashion, entertainment, and lifestyle magazine, with the highest circulation of any gay monthly publication in the United States. It carries itself in a similar editorial manner to Details, Esquire, and GQ. Out was published by PlanetOut Inc...
. In 2009, My Latino Voice named him one of the 25 most influential GLBT Latinos in the country.
Respected by members of the literary community for his versatility with literary genres and for his advocacy of emerging writers, González has championed a number of efforts to give visibility to marginalized voices. He curates and hosts The Quetzal Quill, a reading series in Manhattan, and has featured a number of poets on The Poetry Foundation
Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation is a Chicago-based American foundation created to promote poetry in the wider culture. It was formed from Poetry magazine, which it continues to publish, with a 2003 gift of $200 million from philanthropist Ruth Lilly....
blog Harriet, and on the National Book Critics Circle
National Book Critics Circle
The National Book Critics Circle is an American tax-exempt organization for active book reviewers. Its flagship is the National Book Critics Circle Award....
blog Critical Mass through the Small Press Spotlight Series.
Published works
Full-Length Poetry Collections- Unpeopled Eden (Four Way Books, 2013)
- Black Blossoms (Four Way Books, 2011)
- Other Fugitives and Other Strangers (Tupelo PressTupelo PressTupelo Press is an American not-for-profit literary press founded in 1999. It produced its first titles in 2001, publishing poetry, fiction and non-fiction...
, 2006) - So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks (University of Illinois PressUniversity of Illinois PressThe University of Illinois Press , is a major American university press and part of the University of Illinois system. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, plus 33 scholarly journals, and several electronic projects...
, 1999)
Bilingual Children’s Books
- Antonio’s Card/ La Tarjeta de Antonio (Children’s Book Press, 2005)
- Soledad Sigh-Sighs/ Soledad Suspiros (Children’s Book Press, 2003)
Novels
- Mariposa Gown (Tincture Books, 2012)
- The Mariposa Club (Alyson Books, 2009; Tincture Books, 2010)
- Crossing Vines (University of Oklahoma PressUniversity of Oklahoma PressThe University of Oklahoma Press is the publishing arm of the University of Oklahoma. It has been in operation for over seventy-five years, and was the first university press established in the American Southwest. It was founded by William Bennett Bizzell, the fifth president of the University of...
, 2003)
Memoirs
- Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (University of Wisconsin PressUniversity of Wisconsin PressThe University of Wisconsin Press is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It primarily publishes work by scholars from the global academic community but also serves the citizens of Wisconsin by publishing important books about Wisconsin, the Upper Midwest, and...
, 2006)
Short Story Collections
- Men without Bliss (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)
Works Edited
- Xicano Duende: A Select Anthology (Bilingual Press, 2011)
- Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing (University of Arizona Press, 2010)