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Randy Gonzales

Associate Professor of English

Dr. James Wilson/BORSF Eminent Scholar Endowed Professorship in Southern Studies

Co-director of Creative Writing

Coordinator of Professional Writing 

Ph.D., The University of Southern Mississippi, 2014
M.A., University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 1994

Office: Griffin 263
Phone: 337-482-5486 
E-mail: randy.gonzales@louisiana.edu

Teaching and Research Interests

Professional Writing, Poetry, Asian American Literature, and Filipino American Studies.

Noteworthy

Randy Gonzales is a poet, writer, and community historian. His work and research on the Filipinx diaspora have been featured on CNN, BBC, HuffPost, The FilAm, ABS-CBN, and HBOMax's Take Out with Lisa Ling. Randy's debut poetry collection Settling St. Malo won the 2024 Summerlee Book Award. His second collection There No More is forthcoming (UL Press, 2026).

Randy's ongoing projects include

  • Settling St. Malo: The Film (post-production), Randy co-wrote, co-produced, and features in the documentary film adapted from his poetry collection Settling St. Malo.

  • Adobo at Gumbo: Savoring the Culinary History and Food Culture of Filipino Louisiana (under review), a narrative of cooking and eating as memory, connecting generations, geographies, and communities while exploring the culinary legacy of early Filipino settlers in Louisiana.

  • To the Unnamed, collection of epistolary poems, each addressing unnamed individuals in life stories. 

  • Filipinola.com, a website and online archive that shares the history of Filipinos in Louisiana. 

    • “As a storytelling project, Filipino La. represents an emerging segment of AAPI community media dedicated to collecting oral histories and archives in order to reconstruct community history”–AAPI News Media: Origins and Futures

Randy has been recognized for his work by academic and public audiences. 

  • Awarded Summerlee Book Award--Creative (2024) for Settling St. Malo for enriching our understanding of the history of the Gulf Coast region.

  • Named a research fellow (2024-25) at the Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast for research on the foodways of Filipino Louisiana.

  • Awarded documentation and creation grant (2024-25) by New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation to support the film adaption of Settling St. Malo.

  • Invited to speak about his work by book festivals, conferences, art museums, historical societies, universities, and community organizations.

Randy was the lead writer on UL Lafayette’s University’s 2020 Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), a substantial report written in support of the University’s accreditation that was selected by SACSCOC as a model for other organizations preparing QEPs.

You can find out more about Randy at randygonzales.com