Consejo as a Literacy Event: A Case Study of a Border Mexican Woman

Drawing on sociocultural approaches to literacy and literature on the communal spaces of teaching and learning of Latino/as, I share one Mexican border women’s life story and analyze her literacies and ways of knowing in relation to the literacy event of giving consejo. Using data gathered through individual interviews and observations, I present the case of Lucía, the owner of a burrito’s restaurant. She draws upon a mix of oral and print language, as well as other multimodal resources (visual, spatial, audio forms), in order to perform a particular speech genre: consejo. Lucia’s unique way of giving consejos is presented here, along with suggestions as how to recruit these communal literacies in classroom practice. This paper adds to the growing body of literature that identifies Latina/o’s pedagogical tools in family and community contexts and challenges deficit views.