Hinojosa began mentoring young people who were in similar situations. “It obviously goes against the anonymity of Alcoholics Anonymous … but by putting myself out there I’ve been able to meet people who are struggling as well.” “Some of the people that mentored me when I first got sober, they were really big about the importance of the advocacy behind it, and the activism involved in recovery,” Hinojosa said. The well-known program provides anonymity to protect from the stigma that comes with addiction, but Hinojosa decided to speak up about his personal experience. He is graduating with a master’s in history. Matt Hinojosa, who will be heading to Princeton this fall, sits in UTSA's Mexico Center, where he did a lot of his research on Chicano activism against addiction. At 22, Hinojosa decided he was done with it and sought help. He lived mostly in the Northwest Side but eventually all over the city.ĭrug and alcohol use when he was a teen morphed into an addiction that brought him more trouble than he could have imagined. Hinojosa, 28, moved here with his family from Laredo when he was 8 years old. Required Reading: Get San Antonio education news sent directly to your inbox “It helps us gain an understanding of how the past has informed the present, especially for a city like San Antonio,” he said. Just like folklore and traditions get passed through generations to shape a culture and keep it alive, Hinojosa believes the history surrounding addiction is important knowledge to pass on and learn from. Chicanos had fought this battle mostly in silence. His UTSA professors guided him through research as an undergraduate, and the topics of addiction and recovery produced unexplored issues so deeply embedded in local history that he continued probing them through his master's program.Īddiction is not rare across Hispanic and Latino communities - what is rare are open conversations about recovery and access to help, Hinojosa said. “So I wanted to figure out why it was that AA, even in San Antonio of all places, was so disproportionately white.” “One of the things I noticed pretty early on is that there was a pretty big racial disparity, as well as a big geographical disparity,” Hinojosa said. While attending meetings all over town, he realized that access to them varied widely. It was his struggle with alcoholism and involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous that led Hinojosa to question the history of recovery programs in San Antonio.
Matt Hinojosa, a UTSA graduate who will be heading to Princeton this fall to continue his research on Chicano activism targeting addiction.
“It’s important for our people to know this history, because for the most part, our past has been obscured and incorporated into the American historical narrative without any consideration of who we are as people, or where we come from,” Hinojosa said.
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He wants to one day come back to San Antonio ready to teach college students how to put taboo, forgotten or distorted subjects out in the open. Hinojosa’s plan is to continue his research into how the Chicano community dealt with drug and alcohol use, addiction and recovery.
Without much fanfare - since he decided not to walk the stage this year - the young historian will begin a PhD program at Princeton University this fall. “I never thought I would be a historian, I never thought I’d be doing it. “I just fell in love with it,” Hinojosa said.
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