Chancla: Healing Our Families, Ourselves, and Our Culture Through Nonviolent Parenting

A parenting guide that speaks directly to Latinx families with language, history, and lived experience that honors and celebrates our cultura--while helping readers unlearn violence and shame as tools of discipline.

For many in the Latinx community, "la Chancla"--what we learn to see as the warning sign for disciplinary violence--has become a cultural symbol that has spawned relatable memes that many of us laugh about and bond over. But what if it's also a symbol of something more harmful?

In Chancla, educator and Latinx Parenting founder, Leslie Priscilla, invites readers, parents, and the Latinx community on a transformative journey away from cycles of fear, shame, and corporal punishment. With warmth and deep cultural insight, Priscilla explores the historical legacies attached to Chancla while offering a path forward rooted in connection, self-reflection, and ancestral healing. Chancla is the nonviolent parenting practice that celebrates Latinx cultura, while teaching its readers--and their Mamis, Papis, Tias, and Tios--how to heal from generational violence.

Blending personal storytelling, historical context, and actionable tools, Chancla helps readers not only nurture their children, but their wounded inner child. Readers will see themselves in these pages, because ultimately Chancla encourages them to unlearn what they've inherited and make space for what they deserve: homes full of love, safety, and respect.

Author: Leslie Priscilla
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Published: 08/18/2026
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.20w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780316567602


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/25/2026
Library Journal 06/05/2026 pg. 1

About the Author
Leslie Priscilla is a first generation mother to three bicultural children. She identifies as both Mexican-American and a Detribalized Indigenous mujer. Priscilla shares her medicine by offering coaching, workshops, support, and advocacy for Latinx/Chicanx families locally, nationally, and internationally both in-person and online via the Latinx Parenting organization. She founded this 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. Priscilla currently lives in Santa Ana, California with her family.