La Voz as Latine Counterspace
A space of literary freedom for Latine students, long before SU became an HSI
Among the many student publications produced on Southwestern’s campus over the years, one of the most unique and significant is La Voz: La Revisita de Literatura Latina.
La Voz existed for four academic years, 1997 to 2000. When Marisela Treviño Orta ‘99 founded the publication, she put her soul into creating a literary space for Latine students on campus, and succeeded in her time. Today, her work to create this important literary counterspace is not remembered on campus, and this entry seeks to change that.
Today, Marisela Treviño Orta is a successful playwright, someone who has spent her life giving voice to Latine stories. After graduating from Southwestern with a BA in International Studies with a focus in Latin American history in 1999, Marisela went on to receive a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco and another Masters in Playwriting from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop.
Marisela and I met to talk about the history of La Voz recently, creating a moment for her to reflect on the publication and her time here at Southwestern.
Marisela says it was her Latin American history professor Dr. Daniel Castro who inspired her to found La Voz. Marisela’s sophomore year as a student was Dr. Castro’s first year teaching at Southwestern, and he shared with her his curiosity about the lack of a specifically Latino publication on campus.
“It felt like a suggestion, the way he was talking about it,” Marisela said, “almost as though he was laying down a mantle for someone to pick up.” Marisela had a strong background in literature and was a poet, so she did just that: she picked up the mantle and created La Voz.
The creation of the literary journal was heavily supported by Latinos Unidos, and the majority of contributors to the journal participated in the student organization. Marisela recalls putting a call out for entries most likely through Latinos Unidos.
There was no specific target audience or targeted set of contributors. Rather, Marisela aimed to create a platform for people to be able to put their thoughts out into the universe: “We don’t know what we’re thinking unless we articulate what’s in our heads,” she said. The purpose of sharing it through La Voz “was to feel seen and to feel heard.”
This was the late 1990s, in the early days of the internet and desktop publishing. Submissions came to Marisela either through email or as printed copies through campus mail, and she compiled the journal together herself in her free time working in the Academic Accommodations office, using their copy of PageMaker. There was no official meeting time or space, hence why she considers it a “one woman operation.”
Each time La Voz was published, seeing the journal circulate stood as a reminder to Marisela that “we” (Latine students) were on campus. The hope was to write something that would resonate with others, to provide comfort and recognition to the student body.
Southwestern’s Distinctive Collections & Archives has hard copies of all four editions of La Voz archived. Looking back at them today, you get a really strong sense of what it would have been to be a Latine student at Southwestern in the 1990s.
Many of the pieces published in La Voz revolve around Latine identity and the challenges of being a bicultural Latine student on a predominantly white campus, an important theme that Marisela believes was not properly addressed in the 1990s at Southwestern, when inclusion essentially meant assimilation.
The entries written by Marisela provide us a window into the experience she had along with what were then only a handful of Latine students. For example, in a piece titled “What do you mean I gotta change?” from the 1998 edition of La Voz, Marisela directly challenges the assumptions of many Anglo students at the time. She states: “I gotta change? / I have to be more like you / and less like me / you want me more like you / go on and say it / more like white.” The force of white, Anglo culture tries to indoctrinate anything that identifies as ‘other.’ Such a determined argument would not, and can not, stand: “I refuse to sacrifice myself / for I cannot live without this part of me anymore / than I could live without la sangre en mis venas.”
In our interview, Marisela said that her experience as a Latina student on campus wasn’t negative but rather somewhat of a shock: “It felt like all the Latine students could sit at one cafeteria table…maybe two. It was a very small population.” When taking classes outside of her major, she noted being the only minority student in such settings.
In reaction to this, Marisela stated that “you have to decide who you are” and to do it “very big.” College is a time of discovery, a time of learning about the person you are and the person you’re becoming. “That’s part of the story with the establishment of the journal,” she said. It was about “letting people feel seen and having a space to articulate what they're feeling and thinking about.” As Marisela states in the provided entry: “I will not die.”
One of Marisela’s works from the 1997 edition titled “Fighting with Numbers” really made me think about both the similarities and differences between Marisela’s time at Southwestern and my own.
This piece revolves around a question Marisela was often asked by Anglo students at Southwestern: “Why do Hispanics get all of the scholarships?” In response, Marisela found the statistics to prove why such a question is irrational. Later in the piece, she describes a protest she attended in support of Affirmative Action right on Congress Avenue in Austin, she noted that there was barely any media coverage on it. Over 600 people were in attendance, but the news refused to perceive it as relevant. She makes a statement in the piece that I found important for discussion: “In a state that will mostly be Latinos by 2025, newspapers are blatantly ignoring their customers.”
Finding the year 2025 marked in the entry majorly stood out to me writing this entry in 2025, especially given Southwestern’s recent designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and the current state of cultural politics around Latin American immigration and the conservative backlash against DEI.
When I pointed out her prediction regarding the year 2025, Marisela was surprised about this coincidence, and we had a lively discussion about it.
Marisela said that when La Voz was published, there were only a few people like her demanding space for Latine voices at Southwestern. She said that even the term ‘Latino’ was very new in the 90s, quickly becoming a new umbrella term. Then, it was a push against ‘Hispanic,’ which was a term automatically given by Anglos, whereas ‘Latino/a’ was chosen for themselves.
Looking at it now, in 2025, it is widely discussed that the terms ‘Latino’ and ‘Latina’ still do not encompass the community as a whole, and tend to erase certain aspects of identities. Marisela told me that she imagines “we’ll come up with more terms,” but also that it will always matter who is generating the terms.
Bringing up the philosopher Antonio Gramsci, she discussed his philosophy regarding cultural hegemony. Societies with multiple cultures in them have one mainstream culture that “suppresses, oppresses, and marginalizes other smaller groups,” Marisela reflected. Even as a young woman, Marisela believed that “eventually things are gonna change, that’s what America’s makeup looks like, and it’s gonna be different!”
She also recalls being in the computer lab writing a paper with cultural hegemony in mind, thinking “the people in power…when they start to feel like they’re losing it, they’re gonna feel like they’re backed into a corner and anytime anyone is backed into a corner, like wild animals for example, they get very violent.”
Marisela says the current attack on the Latine community is frightening, but Marisela has hope because, while power never gives up, neither do the people. She believes that fighting for community right now is dire and necessary. It has succeeded in other realms, such as the LGBTQ+ community, which is now more mainstream and not ostracized.
One important way to imagine a different future is to observe the ways it’s been fought for in the past. La Voz is a prime example of this. While a small publication on a small campus, it had an impact then, and could continue to do so for a new generation of students after its rediscovery. La Voz, a passion project of Marisela's, came and went with her years at Southwestern. So, why don’t we talk about it, why do we not know about it, and how can we bring awareness back to this progressive publication?
The mantle of La Voz has the opportunity to be picked up again, Marisela confirmed. We live differently now, so it should be able to serve the purposes of the 21st century students. Through advocacy and awareness, the community of future generations of students can appreciate La Voz
and use it as inspiration. It’s time to bring the voice back to the people, to minorities, to the future–by responding to the voices for change from the past.
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