Martha Gonzalez (musician)

Martha Gonzalez is a Chicana artivista (artist/activist) musician and feminist music theorist. She is an assistant professor in the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o Latina/o Studies at Scripps College. She is also a lead singer, percussionist, and songwriter for the band Quetzal, which won a Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop, Rock or Album.

Gonzalez holds a PhD degree in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies from the University of Washington and a BA in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was a Fulbright Garcia-Robles Scholar (2007–2008), a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow (2012–2013), and a Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellow (2016–2017). In September 2016, Gonzalez began a one-year artist-in-residence program at Arizona State University in Phoenix.

Gonzalez is a singer/songwriter and percussionist for the Chicano rock band Quetzal. Gonzalez also performs with the band FandangOban. In addition, Gonzalez and her partner Quetzal Flores have played a key role in connecting Chican@/Latin@ communities in the U.S and Jarocho communities in Veracruz, Mexico. In September 2011, the U.S. Library of Congress and Kennedy Center invited Gonzalez to perform and speak as a part of their "Homegrown" music series.

Gonzalez has collaborated musically and/or toured with numerous artists, including Los Lobos, Los Van Van, Jackson Brown, Susana Baca, Perla Batalla, Jaguares, Ozomatli, Jonathan Richman, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, ¡Cubanismo!, Taj Mahal, Tom Waits, Los Super Seven, Lila Downs, Raul Malo, Rick Trevino, Son de Madera, Relicario, Chuchumbe Charanga Cakewalk, B-Side Players, Teatro Campesino and Laura Rebolloso.

In the summer of 2014 Gonzalez’s tarima (stomp box) and zapateado shoes were acquired by the National Museum of American History.

Gonzalez trains other local Los Angeles-based artists in the Collective Songwriting method, and she works with The Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) on implementing the method.

Gonzalez is the middle of three children, born in Los Angeles to parents who had immigrated from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Gonzalez and her siblings grew up singing in downtown Los Angeles. She is married to her Quetzal bandmate Quetzal Flores, and they have a son together.

• 2015 “Sobreviviendo: Immigration Stories and Testimonio in Song:” Center for Latino Research at University of De Paul University.
• 2014 “Creating a Mexican-AfroCuban American Beat” in What It Means to be American http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2014/12/05/creating-a-mexican-afro-cuban-american-beat/chronicles/who-we-were/ Zocalo Public Square. December.
• 2014 “Mixing in the Kitchen: Entre Mujeres Feminine Translocal Composition” in Performing Motherhood: Artistic, Activist and Everyday Enactments. Ontario, Canada. Demeter Press.
• 2014 “Introduction: Digital Humanities, Public Humanities.” New American Notes Online (NANO). New York City College of Technology. New York, July. http://www.nanocrit.com/issues/5/introduction-digital-humanities-public-humanities
• 2014 A de Activista. (Spanish Children’s literature and adaptation to Innosanto Nagara’s A is for Activist) Seven Stories Press, New York, New York.
• 2014 “Chican@ Artivistas at the Intersection of Hope and Imagination.” Journal of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldua Conference, El Mundo Zurdo. University of Texas Press. July.