Vicente M. Diaz is Pohnpeian (Caroline Islands, Federated States of Micronesia) and Filipino, born and raised on Guam. He received his bachelors and masters degrees in Political Science, and a graduate certificate in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and his doctorate degree from the History of Consciousness at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Diaz taught Pacific History and chaired the graduate program in Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam from the early 1990s to 2001. In 2001, he moved to the University of Michigan's Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies (A/PIA), housed in the Program in American Culture, where he is currently Associate Professor of A/PIA.

Diaz is a leader in the field of Native Pacific Cultural Studies, and has published widely in topics including American and Spanish imperialism in the Pacific, including indigenous Catholicism, anti-colonial historiography and narratology, Native self-determination, traditional voyaging and seafaring practices, Pacific and Pacific Islander film and video, and Native masculinities through sports and religion.

His book, Repositioning the Missionary: Rewriting the Histories of Colonialism, Native Catholicism, and Indigeneity in Guam (University of Hawaii press, 2010) scrutinizes the political, cultural, and historiographical stakes in the historic and ongoing effort to canonize the 17th century Spanish Jesuit who is credited, or debited, with bringing Christianity to the Chamorros of the Mariana Islands.

Diaz is also the co-producer of Sacred Vessels: Navigating Tradition and Identity in Micronesia, a half hour documentary about the survival and revival of traditional canoebuilding and long distance navigation in the Marianas and the Central Carolines.