His most recent project is Latino Poetry, a Library of America anthology, which gathers verse that spans from the 17th century to the present day.

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.

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.

[19] As of 2018, González sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Machete Series (Ohio State University Press), which "showcases fresh stories, innovative forms, and books that break new aesthetic ground in nonfiction—memoir, personal and lyric essay, literary journalism, cultural meditations, short shorts, hybrid essays, graphic pieces, and more—from authors whose writing has historically been marginalized, ignored, and passed over".

[21] As of 2020, González serves as editor of the University of Arizona Press Camino del Sol Latinx Literary Series.

[22] As of 2021, González serves on the editorial board of the Immigrant Writing Series at Black Lawrence Press, alongside Abayomi Animashaun, Sun Yung Shin, and Ewa Chrusciel.

[23] In 2024, González received the 9th Annual Lifetime Achievement Award (alongside Dave Eggers and Quincy Troupe) from the Los Angeles Review of Books and his alma mater, the University of California-Riverside.