We're celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with conversations featuring Hispanic and Latino changemakers, innovators and creators.
In 2021, Nicki Gonzales became Colorado’s first Latina state historian. History is a lifelong vocation for the Regis University professor, one that has helped Gonzales pay tribute to her family’s legacy and inform her own identity.
"When I was state historian, I would dedicate my presentations and my activities to my paternal grandmother, who I never met, but who was a single, mother of three boys here in Denver,” Gonzales said. “Her family — they were miners and they worked in the agricultural fields of Northern Colorado, Boulder County. And I think the most satisfying thing has been being able to honor my family's history."
Gonzales’s work has helped her to provide us with a fuller picture of Colorado’s cultural landscape, uncovering state history and acknowledging its problematic details.
In 2020, she was appointed by Gov. Jared Polis to serve on the state's Geographic Naming Advisory Board, which helps replace the names of geographic features and areas bearing derogatory titles. Gonzales says that work helps the state reckon with problematic elements of its racial past. She and board members recently took on the high-profile renaming of Mount Evans, the namesake of a disgraced Colorado territorial governor. Mount Evans is now Mount Blue Sky.
On today's episode, Gonzales reflects on her search for identity and deeper meaning, starting with her own family history.
An earlier version of this story identified Mount Blue Sky as Colorado's tallest peak. Mount Elbert is the tallest mountain in Colorado.
