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Webinar: Ending Chancla Culture – Decolonizing Our Familias and Raising Future Ancestors

The chancla, Spanish for sandal or flip flop, is a term that has a special connotation for many Latinx people, either because of personal experience or from the stories of family members and friends. Getting hit or spanked with a chancla is a common form of discipline or punishment.

The chancla has made its way to pop culture, being featured in memes, skits, television shows, and movies. There’s even a Minor League Baseball team in Texas called The Flying Chanclas. But what does the normalization of “chancla culture” teach Latinx children?

“Chancla culture” refers to “power over” parenting practices and expectations in Latinx families. This webinar is an introductory workshop for parents, caregivers, and others who want to decolonize their parenting and end “chancla culture” in their relationships with their families.

In this webinar — hosted by LA Best Babies Network on April 26, 2023, for staff in our network of home visiting organizations and Welcome Baby hospitals — Leslie Priscilla, founder of Latinx Parenting, led an interactive workshop discussing:

  • Examples of chancla culture in the media
  • Shared trauma and trauma bonding between Latinx people
  • Mental health impacts of corporal punishment on Latinx kids
  • The root of chancla culture: colonization and conquest
  • How oppression is passed down
  • Chancla culture as reinforcement of values
  • Migration effects on discipline for the diaspora
  • Why it is important to end chancla culture
The webinar recording is not available, but don’t miss the links to related resources below.
About the presenter:

Leslie Priscilla is a first-generation Xicana (Mexican-American) and mother to three bicultural children. She has her B.A. in Child Development and Family Studies and is a certified trauma-informed nonviolent parenting coach and facilitator. Leslie is the founder of Latinx Parenting, a bilingual organization and movement “intentionally rooted in children’s rights, social and racial justice, the individual and collective practice of nonviolence and reparenting, intergenerational and ancestral healing, cultural sustenance, and the active decolonization of oppressive practices in our families.” She sits on the boards of the U.S. Alliance to End the Hitting of Children and StopSpanking.

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