Nicki Gonzales | |
---|---|
Born | |
Alma mater | Yale University, University of Colorado Boulder |
Occupation(s) | Educator and historian |
Children | Danny and Teddy |
Nicki Gonzales is an educator and historian. She is an associate professor of history at Regis University, and was the Colorado State Historian in 2021-2022. She was the first Latino person in this role.
Nicki Gonzales was born and raised in Denver, and her family comes from southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. [1] Her family was part of the coal mining and agricultural communities in southern Colorado, until her grandparents moved to Denver for economic opportunity during World War II. [2] Her grandfather was an active union member in the meat packing industry. [3] She identifies as Mexican-American and Chicana. [4]
Gonzales graduated from Yale University with a BA in English literature in 1992. She earned her PhD in American History from University of Colorado Boulder in 1997. [2] While at CU Boulder, she was one of the researchers who built the case for the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant lawsuits. Additionally, she developed a research interest into Mexican-American and Chicano Vietnam war veterans, partly because her father was a Marine during the war. [5]
Gonzales is a professor of history and vice provost for diversity and inclusion at Regis University. [6]
She is a member of the State Historian's Council. [6] She served as an advisor for several History Colorado exhibits, including El Movimiento: The Chicano Movement in Colorado and Zoom In: The Centennial State in 100 Objects. [7] She was appointed in 2020 by Governor Jared Polis as vice chair of the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board. [6] She also served on Mayor Michael Hancock's advisory panel for renaming public landmarks. [8]
In 2021, she was named Colorado State Historian by the State Historian's Council. [6] One of her goals was to create "a more inclusive, broader history of our state." [1]
Gonzales was a major contributor to Denver's first Latino/Chicano Historic Context study. [9] Her research expertise is in Chicano history and Southwest social and political movements, including the experiences of Chicano/Latino Vietnam veterans. [1]
Gonzales has two sons, Danny and Teddy.
The Chicano Moratorium, formally known as the National Chicano Moratorium Committee Against The Vietnam War, was a movement of Chicano anti-war activists that built a broad-based coalition of Mexican-American groups to organize opposition to the Vietnam War. Led by activists from local colleges and members of the Brown Berets, a group with roots in the high school student movement that staged walkouts in 1968, the coalition peaked with a August 29, 1970 march in East Los Angeles that drew 30,000 demonstrators. The march was described by scholar Lorena Oropeza as "one of the largest assemblages of Mexican Americans ever." It was the largest anti-war action taken by any single ethnic group in the USA. It was second in size only to the massive U.S. immigration reform protests of 2006.
Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales was a Mexican-American boxer, poet, political organizer, and activist. He was one of many leaders for the Crusade for Justice in Denver, Colorado. The Crusade for Justice was an urban rights and Chicano cultural urban movement during the 1960s focusing on social, political, and economic justice for Chicanos. Gonzales convened the first-ever Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in 1968, which was poorly attended due to timing and weather conditions. He tried again in March 1969, and established what is commonly known as the First Chicano Youth Liberation Conference. This conference was attended by many future Chicano activists and artists. It also birthed the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, a pro-indigenist manifesto advocating revolutionary Chicano nationalism and self-determination for all Chicanos. Through the Crusade for Justice, Gonzales organized the Mexican American people of Denver to fight for their cultural, political, and economic rights, leaving his mark on history. He was honored with a Google Doodle in continued celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States on 30 September 2021.
Chicanismo emerged as the cultural consciousness behind the Chicano Movement. The central aspect of Chicanismo is the identification of Chicanos with their Indigenous American roots to create an affinity with the notion that they are native to the land rather than immigrants. Chicanismo brought a new sense of nationalism for Chicanos that extended the notion of family to all Chicano people. Barrios, or working-class neighborhoods, became the cultural hubs for the people. It created a symbolic connection to the ancestral ties of Mesoamerica and the Nahuatl language through the situating of Aztlán, the ancestral home of the Aztecs, in the southwestern United States. Chicanismo also rejected Americanization and assimilation as a form of cultural destruction of the Chicano people, fostering notions of Brown Pride. Xicanisma has been referred to as an extension of Chicanismo.
The Chicano Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement in the United States that worked to embrace a Chicano/a identity and worldview that combated structural racism, encouraged cultural revitalization, and achieved community empowerment by rejecting assimilation. Chicanos also expressed solidarity and defined their culture through the development of Chicano art during El Movimiento, and stood firm in preserving their religion.
Patricia Nelson Limerick is an American historian, author, lecturer and teacher, considered to be one of the leading historians of the American West.
Chicano poetry is a subgenre of Chicano literature that stems from the cultural consciousness developed in the Chicano Movement. Chicano poetry has its roots in the reclamation of Chicana/o as an identity of empowerment rather than denigration. As a literary field, Chicano poetry emerged in the 1960s and formed its own independent literary current and voice.
Hispanic and Latino Coloradans are residents of the state of Colorado who are of Hispanic or Latino ancestry. As of 2020, Hispanics and Latinos of any race made up 21% of the state's population, or 1,269,520 of the state's 5,770,545 residents.
Delilah Montoya is a contemporary American artist and educator who was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and was raised in Omaha, Nebraska, by her Anglo-American father and Latina mother. She earned her BA, MA and MFA from the University of New Mexico. Her art is noted for its exploration of Chicana identity and for innovative printmaking and photographic processes. She is also noted for her use of mixed-media installations and often incorporates iconic religious symbols in her pieces. Montoya attributes the politicization of her work to the formative influence of her upbringing, within the environment that afforded her exposure to pivotal social movements including the Brown Berets, the Civil Rights Movement, and the plight of Mexican migrant workers. Montoya divides her time between Albuquerque and Houston. She taught at the University of New Mexico, Institute of American Indian Arts and California State University before accepting her current position at the University of Houston. She was a 2008 Artadia awardee.
Lena Lovato Archuleta was an American educator, school librarian, and administrator in New Mexico and Colorado for more than three decades. In 1976 she became the first Hispanic woman principal in the Denver Public Schools system. She was also the first Hispanic president of the Denver Classroom Teachers' Association and the Colorado Library Association, and the first female president of the Latin American Education Foundation. She was instrumental in the founding of several political and community advocacy groups for Latinos and served on numerous city and community boards. Following her retirement in 1979, she became a full-time volunteer for the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1985. In 2002 the Denver Public Schools system dedicated the Lena L. Archuleta Elementary School in northeast Denver in her honor.
Patricia Zavella is an anthropologist and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Latin American and Latino Studies department. She has spent a career advancing Latina and Chicana feminism through her scholarship, teaching, and activism. She was president of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists and has served on the executive board of the American Anthropological Association. In 2016, Zavella received the American Anthropological Association's award from the Committee on Gender Equity in Anthropology to recognize her career studying gender discrimination. The awards committee said Zavella’s career accomplishments advancing the status of women, and especially Latina and Chicana women have been exceptional. She has made critical contributions to understanding how gender, race, nation, and class intersect in specific contexts through her scholarship, teaching, advocacy, and mentorship. Zavella’s research focuses on migration, gender and health in Latina/o communities, Latino families in transition, feminist studies, and ethnographic research methods. She has worked on many collaborative projects, including an ongoing partnership with Xóchitl Castañeda where she wrote four articles some were in English and others in Spanish. The Society for the Anthropology of North America awarded Zavella the Distinguished Career Achievement in the Critical Study of North America Award in the year 2010. She has published many books including, most recently, "I'm Neither Here Nor There, Mexicans"Quotidian Struggles with Migration and Poverty, which focuses on working class Mexican Americans struggle for agency and identity in Santa Cruz County.
Vicki Lynn Ruiz is an American historian who has written or edited 14 books and published over 60 essays. Her work focuses on Mexican-American women in the twentieth century. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal.
Carlota D.d.R EspinoZa is an American painter, muralist, and activist in her Art. She is one of the early Latina / Chicana muralists in Denver with works in Cuba, San Francisco, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado.
Yadira D. Caraveo is an American politician and pediatrician serving as the U.S. representative for Colorado's 8th congressional district since 2023. A Democrat, she is Colorado's first Latina member of Congress.
Maria Guajardo Lucero is an American educator and advocate for children and the Latino community. Born to illiterate Mexican migrant workers in California, she earned her undergraduate degree in psychology and social relations at Harvard University and her master's degree and doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Denver. From 1988 to 2013, she worked in several state and national government-level positions to increase opportunities for low-income children and Latinos, and served as executive director of the Latin American Research and Service Agency. In 2013 she moved to Tokyo, Japan, to develop a new degree program in international liberal arts at Sōka University. She served as dean of the program from 2013 to 2016, when she was promoted to vice president of the university (2016-2020). She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, and was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2010.
Los Seis de Boulder were six Chicano activists and students killed in two car bombings in Boulder, Colorado. The bombings occurred at the end of May 1974, with the name Los Seis de Boulder coined posthumously. The students were protesting the negative treatment of Mexican-American students at the University of Colorado, Boulder at the time of their death. A monument was erected for them in Chautauqua Park on May 27, 2020.
Mary Romero is an American sociologist. She is Professor of Justice Studies and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University, with affiliations in African and African American Studies, Women and Gender Studies, and Asian Pacific American Studies. Before her arrival at ASU in 1995, she taught at University of Oregon, San Francisco State University, and University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Professor Romero holds a bachelor's degree in sociology with a minor in Spanish from Regis College in Denver, Colorado. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Colorado. In 2019, she served as the 110th President of the American Sociological Association.
Guadalupe "Lupe" Villalobos Briseño is a civil rights activist who led the Kitayama Carnation Strike in 1968-1969. In 2020, Briseño was recognized for her work and was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame.
Deborah Mora Espinosa is a Chicana activist in Colorado. She worked for History Colorado as the director of El Pueblo History Museum.
Shirley Romero Otero is a Chicana activist who co-founded the Land Rights Council in 1977 to regain the rights for heirs of the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant. She is an educator and leader in the San Luis Valley region. She is the director of the Move Mountains Youth Project and sits on the board of directors of the Acequia Institute.
Lucy Lucero was a Latina community leader in Denver, Colorado. Her home on Galapago St. was known as a haven for the Hispanic and Latino community, especially for young gay latinos who were ostracized from their own families. She was the great-aunt of author Kali Fajardo-Anstine.