Student affiliate
Derek Xavier Garcia was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. However, his research and studies have led him far from the border: from a BA at Amherst College, to a Master’s degree in Civilisation Américaine at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3), to doctoral studies in History at Concordia University, Montréal. Most recently, he was the 2023-2024 Mellon Foundation Resident Scholar in Latino Studies at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His Fonds de recherche du Québec Société et culture (FRQSC)-funded research explores Chicanx educational activism in South Texas, history, and memory at the first Mexican American college in the United States, Colegio Jacinto Treviño. In February 2022, his research proposal on the Colegio received the Catarino and Evangelina Hernández Fellowship in Latino History by the Texas State Historical Association. His work on folklorist and scholar Américo Paredes has been published in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies and Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies.