Stephanie Herrera, also known as Soli, began the Amoxtli book club when starting her sobriety journey almost three years ago. Now twenty-eight, she said that in her early 20s she was accomplished and smart but her partying and drinking were a distraction from her goals. Once Soli got sober, she felt isolated from friends who continued to party. Asking herself, “How can I find nerdy friends? How can I find people that love school and education?” she posted to Instagram asking if anybody was interested in starting a book club. She thought maybe a couple people would respond. Instead, about fifteen people reached out, and she knew meeting at a coffee shop wasn’t going to cut it.
A week prior, she had met Teresa Magaña, co-founder and executive director of Pilsen Arts and Community House. Herrera asked Teresa if she could use the space to host her first meeting and one fateful night in late November 2022, Herrera was entrusted with the keys for PACH. “I remember feeling so grateful because I didn’t know this woman. She didn’t know me, but she just trusted the community activation,” Herrera said.
Many of the early book club attendees were also college-educated Latinos, a dramatic shift from being one of few Latinas in her engineering classes as an undergrad. There were also many creatives: photographers, artists, poets, and musicians. In March 2o23, she and her friend Pancho Garcia asked during a book club meeting if anyone was interested in starting an artists’ organization. Not long after, Ruidosa Art Collective was born.
“People have pulled me aside personally and really expressed how the book club has changed their lives and their outlook on friendship and that community aspect that they were missing,” Herrera said. I joined the book club last year after I fact-checked an article for South Side Weekly about Ruidosa. In between moving to Pilsen and going through a break-up, I needed connection and I found it with the people at Amoxtli.
In addition to spinning off Ruidosa, which now hosts the annual El Barrio Arts Festival, and creating strong friendships, the book club continues to foster community engagement with a range of events. Amoxtli has hosted open mic nights fundraising for PACH, held poetry workshops, and invited authors from the books being discussed to come speak with the group. For this year’s Sor Juana Festival at the National Museum for Mexican Art, Herrera interviewed Paola Ramos, author of Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What it Means for America, a book the group read shortly after inauguration day.
On August 4, book club member Antonio “Tony” Aguilar interviewed Dr. Lilia Fernández, author of Brown in the Windy City: Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Postwar Chicago, at the National Museum for Mexican Art. Aguilar is a Psychology PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago (where Fernández is on the faculty), and joined Amoxtli in January after his first semester in grad school. After struggling to find friendships attending commuter schools, he found connections at Amoxtli and said he has helped him grow as a researcher.
“I think it’s fun [to] create questions and lead a discussion,” he said. “The topics I read about, it’s also pretty fun seeing everyone be super engaged because of [the] facilitation too. I feel like that’s pretty rewarding just creating those moments to share amongst each other is. I think that’s pretty cool.”
Amoxtli book club has been a source of community activation for the Latinx community in Chicago, and Herrera’s words ring true to me.
“Lean into the power of community,” she said. “It could be scary… because it’s not something maybe that we’re used to, but that there is true healing. The revolution really starts with us, and it starts at a one-on-one level, with yourself, but once you accept that you’re able to move on to the bigger picture and the bigger picture is always, always leaning into community for and by the people.”
Amoxtli Book Club meets every Monday from 7pm- 9pm at Pilsen Arts and Community House, 1637 W. 18th St. Follow @amoxtli_club on Instagram for updates.
Rubi Valentin(they/she) graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and studied gender and women’s studies and professional writing. They are currently an educator in the South West side, and a fact-checker for South Side Weekly.