“This Works”: The Testimonios of Latino Faculty–Student Mentoring Experiences Through Pláticas

Sharing their testimonios via pláticas (dialogic conversations), guided by embodied counterspace, the authors share their successful mutually benefiting faculty–student mentoring relationship experiences as two Latino men with shared identities and lived realities. Three questions guided the study: (1) How do we consistently show up and look out for each other in our mentoring relationship? (2) How does our mentoring relationship act as an embodied counterspace? (3) In what other ways do we humanize and create embodied counterspaces in our mentoring relationship that make this work effectively? Recommendations are shared for higher education agents to consider when building and maintaining mentoring relationships centering platonic love, trust, advocacy, cultural familiarity, and humanization.