This article combines data from two research projects to examine teacher activism in two places sometimes framed as "terrible cities." Drawing from critical place inquiry, critical urban studies, and border thinking, we analyze media discourses and interviews with two Latinx teacher activists. Our analysis shows that the focal teachers explicitly rejected colonizing global designs by engaging in context-specific and multifaceted praxis to envision and enact alternative urban placemaking. Extending teacher activism scholarship beyond global cities, we contribute to educational research on these under-documented places and add to the growing body of research that centers Latinx teacher-activists' agency and resistance.