Sunday Speaker Series: Singing Resistance at the Colegio Jacinto Treviño

The Rio Grande Valley sings of resistance. Founded in 1970, the Colegio Jacinto Treviño, the first Mexican-American college, was the culmination of the combined efforts of a group of Rio Grande Valley and South Texas student activists. “Singing Resistance at the Colegio Jacinto Treviño,” a Sunday Speaker Series presentation featuring Derek Xavier Garcia, will take place at the Museum of South Texas History April 28 at 2 p.m. Garcia will focus on the naming of the college after a local folklore hero, Jacinto Treviño, and the contested narratives surrounding this naming.

In this presentation, Garcia will also highlight the personal stories of different members of the Colegio Jacinto Treviño to demonstrate how they molded Treviño’s experience into their Chicano perspective. By retelling these personal histories, this presentation will amplify how they understand their contribution to the Chicano Movement almost 50 years later and reveal the still-disputed history of Jacinto Treviño in the Rio Grande Valley as well.

Garcia was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley of deep South Texas. However, his research and studies have led him far from the border: a bachelor’s degree at Amherst College to a master’s degree in Civilisation Américaine at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3). He now resides in Montréal, Canada, where he is a doctoral student in history at Concordia University. His research focuses on historical Mexican-American and Chicano educational activism in South Texas, with an emphasis on folklore and oral history. His work on folklorist and scholar Américo Paredes has been published in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies and Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies.

Sunday Speaker Series is included in the fee for regular museum admission. FRIENDS of the MOSTHistory are admitted free as a benefit of FRIENDship and must present their FRIENDship card at the Admissions Desk.

This program is made possible with generous support from the Carmen C. Guerra Endowment. Mrs. Guerra was deeply committed to supporting educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley. This named endowment was created at the museum by her family to honor her memory and to continue her commitment to providing opportunities for education to the community.