José B. González, PhD, is the Connecticut Poet Laureate and has been a featured speaker at colleges, universities, and organizations throughout the U.S. and abroad. He infuses his presentations with a mix of poetry, humor, and social commentary and has been featured on NPR, Univision, CBS News Radio, and the syndicated show, American Latino TV. He has been a featured storyteller on The Moth. His poetry was part of the first ever Latino exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. A Pushcart Prize Winner, he is the author of the International Latino Book Award finalists, Toys Made of Rock and When Love Was Reels. He was born in San Salvador, El Salvador, and immigrated to New London, Connecticut at the age of eight when he knew no English and is now a professor English with a PhD in English. Contact him at https://josebgonzalez.com/contact/ or find out more at JoseBGonzalez.Com.
A Fulbright Scholar, he has been the recipient of such honors as the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education Outstanding Latino Faculty of the Year Award, Connecticut’s Higher Education Multicultural Faculty of the Year Award. He has been anthologized in The Norton Introduction to Literature, Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States and Theatre Under My Skin: Contemporary Salvadoran Poetry. He is the co-editor with John S. Christie of Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature.
He is available for the following presentations:
* Flipping the Narrative: The Resilience of Latino Populations
* From No-English to Professor of English: Lessons from Being Falling to Rising
* Latino, Hispanic, Latinx, Latino, Latin American: And What Difference Does It Make Anyway? (Ideal for Hispanic Heritage Month and other culture-themed functions)
* Poetry Readings and Customized Presentations
Here is a small sampling of where he has presented:
* Featured Speaker: University of Florida
* Featured Speaker: Rutgers University
* Keynote Speaker, Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program and ESL Conference. Harrisburg. PA.
* Featured Poet (with Hieu Minh Nguyen, Tarfia Faizullah, and Emmy Perez), Poetry & Migration Poetry Series, Poetry Foundation, Chicago, IL. Co-sponsored by Letras Latinas and Kundiman
* Featured Poet, Busboys and Poets, co-sponsored by Letras Latinas and Split This Rock, Washington DC
* Featured Poet, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. Smithsonian Latino Center Young Ambassadors Program. Washington D.C.
* Latino Poets Panelist, Sunken Garden Poetry Festival (featuring U.S. Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera) Farmington, CT
* CT Immigration Day Keynote Speaker, Hartford Capitol
* Featured Reader, Riverwood Poetry Series, Middletown CT
* Featured Reader, A Multilingual Reading, New York City
* Featured Panelist, Connecticut Book Festival, Hartford, CT
* Keynote Speaker, Cornell University, Latino Ivy League Conference, New York
* Keynote Speaker, Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, TX, Hispanic Heritage Month
* Featured Speaker, Harvard University East Coast Chicano Student Forum Conference
* Featured Speaker, Three Rivers Community College, Norwich, CT
* Featured Poet, El Salvador International Poetry Festival
* Featured Poet, Julia de Burgos Park, Willimantic, CT
* Featured Poet, Floricanto Festival, Barcelona, Spain
* Keynote Speaker, Pittsburg State University, Kansas
* Panelist, Modern Language Association Convention, Pennsylvania
* Featured Poet, Expressiones Cultural Center, New London, CT
* Undocumented Hispanic Migration Conference, Connecticut College
* Featured Poet, Gemini Ink, San Antonio, TX
He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Rhode Island and a Master’s in Teaching in English from Brown University.
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