UCLA AISC Staff: Vicente M. Diaz

Vicente (Vince) Diaz is originally  from the Pacific island region of Micronesia. He was born and raised in Guam, with maternal lineage to Pohnpei Island in the Eastern Caroline Islands (present-day Federated States of Micronesia),  and paternal lineage to the Philippines.

Diaz brings three decades of engaged, interdisciplinary scholarship and program/community-building to the Department of American Indian Studies and to his new role as Associate Director for Engagement for the American Indian Studies Center.  Presently Past President of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), Diaz is a leader in the fields of Pacific Islands Studies and Critical and Comparative Indigenous Studies.  He received his PhD in the Board of Studies in the History of Consciousness from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1992, and a masters degree and graduate certificate in political science and urban and regional planning respectively from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1984.  Diaz has held tenured positions in multiple departments and disciplines (History, University of Guam, 1992-2001),  American Studies and Ethnic Studies (University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, 2001-2011), Anthropology and American Indian Studies (University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. (2012-2015), and most recently, in the Department of American Indian Studies at  University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (2015-2024), where he served as department chair and won numerous honors and awards, including entry into UMN-TC’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers.

Diaz researches, publishes, and regularly teaches in the a wide array of subjects in indigenous Pacific history, culture, and politics, ranging from Indigenous Christianity in Guam, to Indigenous sports and film. He also does work in visual production.  Diaz’s  principal and sustained area of work is in Indigenous canoe culture revitalization, which includes traditional outrigger canoe building, use, and voyaging technology and knowledge  from the Central Carolines region of Micronesia. He brings to UCLA The Native Canoe Program, which in the past two decades has involved collaborative projects between Pacific Islanders in the US midwest and Anishinaabe and Dakota communities and traditiions.   The Native Canoe Program uses Indigenous watercraft culture, technology, and ecological knowledge, for engaged research, teaching, knowledge and community/nation building.  In addition to working across Indigenous communities and traditions in Turtle Island and Oceania at the local, regional, national, and international levels,  the hands-on work of the Native Canoe Program also involves collaboration across academic fields and disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and computer science and engineering in virtual, augmented, and mixed reality platforms.