Loving, Luchando, and Literacy: Bilingual Latinx Mothers and the Power of Testimonios in a Community Book Club

This study explores how bilingual Latinx mothers engage in storytelling as a powerful form of familial and cultural literacy. Drawing from sociocultural theory, community cultural wealth, and translanguaging, the research centers a six‐week bilingual summer book club for mothers and their children. Through cuentos and testimonios, the mothers articulated themes of language, love, and luchando (striving), using multimodal and translingual storytelling to affirm cultural identity, resist deficit narratives, and transmit intergenerational knowledge. These narratives positioned mothers not only as caregivers but as pedagogical leaders, challenging narrow definitions of literacy and offering alternative frameworks rooted in emotional labor, cultural memory, and relational teaching. Findings highlight how literacy, when rooted in community and love, becomes a tool for healing, resistance, and reimagining educational spaces. This research affirms the critical role of Latinx mothers as storytellers, educators, and cultural workers, expanding the field's understanding of where and how literacy happens.