Deena J. González

Deena J. González (August 25, 1952) is a Chicana historian and former Provost and Senior Vice President of Gonzaga University (GU). González is responsible for the releasing over 50 academic publications over the history of Chicanos/as and their presence in the United States. She is also a founding member of the national organization, Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) (Women Active in Letters and Social Change), that promotes research in Chicana, Latina, Native American, and Indigenous communities.

In 2006 as part of the Smith College project, González has been acknowledged as one of the fifty most influential living women historians in the U.S.

Early life

Deena J. González, daughter of Santiago and Vidal Trujillo González, was born in Hatch, New Mexico on August 25, 1952. She was raised in Garfield, New Mexico as a Catholic.

González's childhood consisted of living on her family farm, where she would help her family out, but apart from that would spend her free time playing sports such as basketball or softball with the other kids in her neighborhood.

González's was inspired by her mother, Vidal Trujillo González, a school teacher who ensured to instill vital life lessons in her children. As a result of her impact, Deena and most of her siblings found careers in academia.

Staying in that position for nearly a decade, she moved on to Gonzaga University as Provost and Senior Vice President (2019-2021). After returning to the faculty as Senior University Fellow and Professor of History in 2024, she retired back to New Mexico from full-time teaching. She served in her last working years as Chair of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies, the disciplinary organization where scholars of Chicana/o/x gather annually.

Scholarship

Monograph- Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe 1820-1880 (1999) González's dissertation was published as "The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe: Patterns of Their Resistance and Accommodation, 1820–1880." in 1985. The monograph is a continuation of that specific study. The book focuses on the impact of the annexation of New Mexico into the United States, and specifically how it affected Mexican American Women. The book goes over the legal disputes Spanish-Mexican Women had to endure and provides a feminist reconstruction of Gertrudis Barceló.

The work was meant to correct the role women had in history as they've been relegated to smaller roles when they've truly had been responsible for more than they've been given credit.

The title "Refusing the Favor" is supposed to represent the sentiment "I refuse the favor of your colonization of me!"

“Malinche As Lesbian: A Reconfiguration of 500 Years of Resistance” (1991) Released in the journal, California Sociologist, the author focuses on why Malinche wasn't talked about as much when she's been credited with a pivotal role in the conquest of the Aztec empire. Upon closer inspection, there's a distinction of her treatment being similar over time to the treatments lesbians endure, thus making the simile more rhetorical on the treatment through a queer lens. By using this lens, she's able to create a compelling argument over how marginalized the queer community is and how prejudice just serves as a vehicle to reach that point.

MALCS went on to publish their journal "Chicana/Latina Studies" which is a comprehensive collection of articles specifically pertaining to the furthering of academic study of Latina/Chicana/Native Americans.The Journal also included her work in a couple of the journals releases. Deena J. González spoke on panels for MALCS on different subjects within feminist Chicana history and also served on both the editorial and planning board from 1982-1990. While no longer on the board, González continues to attend the conferences.