A Genealogy of Resistance on the Border: The Naming of Colegio Jacinto Treviño

Abstract: This essay investigates how Chicanx activists formulated a specific Mexican American identity, rooted in intergenerational memories of resistance, of political and pedagogical significance, for the Chicano Movement. Colegio Jacinto Treviño (1970–76), the first Mexican American college, was the culmination of years' worth of school walkouts by Texas Chicanx student activists. This essay delves into oral histories of the Colegio's founders and students recalling its naming after a local figure—Treviño—who was mythologized through folksong and popular memory in the aftermath of early twentieth-century anti-Mexican violence. Coming from diverse class and geographical backgrounds, Colegio founders collectively drew from their experiences of public schooling, migrant work, and the traumatic recollections of their families to choose Treviño as the rebellious namesake of their institution. The memories of the naming articulate a genealogy of resistance that linked a developing 1970s Chicanx identity to a century of Mexican American history.