Derek Xavier Garcia

Derek Xavier Garcia was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. 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. He is currently a 2025–2026 Scholar-in-Residence at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, and was previously a 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 at the intersections of culture, memory, and history—particularly at Colegio Jacinto Treviño (1969-1976), the first Mexican American college in the United States. 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. He has published with American Quarterly, Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies, and Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies.