Born in Bakersfield, California 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 1997 González enrolled in a PhD program at the University of New Mexico 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, 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 seventh year, for the El Paso Times of Texas. He is also contributing editor for 'Poets & Writers,' an executive board member of the National Book Critics Circle, 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.



Gonzalez is an award-winning author of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual children's books, and self-identifies in his writing as a gay Chicano. He is also contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine, an executive board member of the National Book Critics Circle, and is on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/Latino activist-writers.



Respected for his versatility with literary genres and for his generosity toward 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.