Chicana/o Movement Politics, the Cold War, and the White Racial Frame: The Case of El Colegio Jacinto Treviño

Abstract

Abstract This article examines resistance to the establishment and operations of El Colegio Jacinto Treviño in the early 1970s. El Colegio, a direct outgrowth of Chicana/o movement activism as it gained notable traction across the United States in the late 1960s, was founded in the small border town of Mercedes, Texas, and, despite its short history (1970–76), is remembered as the first “Chicano” college in the United States. Yet, from its inception, it was mired in controversy as one local citizen, the Reverend Oliver W. Sumerlin, led what one local newspaper described as a “one-man war against Jacinto Trevino College.” Drawing on archival research, this examination of Sumerlin’s and others’ resistance to the establishment of El Colegio reveals how, in the wake of the “counterframe” offered in and through El Colegio, the White racial frame was defended and bolstered in the Rio Grande valley.