In Los Angeles, a Spanish-language book festival is about much more than books. It is about memory, identity and the right to hear yourself—and your history—reflected in the language you speak.

There are cities where Spanish is spoken.

And then there is Los Angeles.

After Guadalajara, Los Angeles is home to one of the largest concentrations of people from the Mexican state of Jalisco. It is a city where Spanish is not simply a language carried across a border; it is woven into neighborhoods, family histories, music, food, faith, art and the everyday rhythm of life.

That reality gives the annual LéaLA Spanish-Language Book Fair & Literary Festival a significance that extends far beyond the pages of the books gathered inside LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes.

For four days, September 24–27, the 11th annual LéaLA transformed the historic downtown Los Angeles cultural campus into a gathering place for Spanish-language literature, poetry, music, visual arts, film, entertainment and, perhaps most importantly, memory.

This year’s theme—“The Stories That Unite Us Speak Spanish”—felt particularly resonant at a moment when the Spanish language itself can become a target of political and cultural anxiety.

LéaLA offered a different message: Spanish is not something to apologize for.

It is something to preserve.

It is something to celebrate.

And for thousands of children growing up in Los Angeles, it is something that belongs to them.

A Language Is More Than Words

“After Guadalajara, the biggest majority of ‘jaliscienses’ live in Los Angeles. We want to keep the culture and language alive,” said Marisol Schulz Manaut, director of LéaLA.

That statement captures the larger purpose behind the festival.

Preserving Spanish in Los Angeles is not simply about ensuring that another generation can read a book in Spanish. It is about maintaining a connection between generations—between the grandmother who tells stories in Spanish, the parent who understands the language but may not speak it confidently, and the child who is negotiating what it means to be Mexican American, Latino, bilingual or bicultural in a city where cultures constantly intersect.

At LéaLA, those connections were made tangible.

The festival welcomed 13,780 attendees, while its collaboration with the Los Angeles Unified School District extended the program into classrooms and brought approximately 2,000 elementary and middle school students from 36 schools into contact with Spanish-language literature and cultural programming.

On opening day alone, more than 700 LAUSD students arrived at LA Plaza.

For many of them, the festival became something of a cultural playground—an environment where Spanish was not merely a language spoken at home or studied in school, but the language of imagination.

Children painted, played, listened to stories and encountered authors whose books and experiences reflected pieces of their own worlds.

And their parents played, too.

Because LéaLA understands something important about cultural preservation: it cannot be imposed. It has to be experienced.

Where Memory Becomes Literature

Memory was at the heart of this year’s festival.

“Our lives are shaped by memories,” Schulz Manaut said. “In the various sessions that make up our literary program, we will explore the role of remembrance and memory in literature.”

That philosophy extended beyond the festival’s conversations.

For the first time, LéaLA introduced “The Voice of Memory,” a writing contest created to preserve the anecdotes, lessons, traditions and memories passed from one generation to another. The winning entries were recognized during the festival’s final day.

It was a fitting addition.

Because oral history is often where cultural memory begins.

Long before a family story becomes a book, it is told around a kitchen table. It is repeated at birthdays and holidays. It is remembered differently by each generation. Details disappear. Others become embellished. But somehow the story survives.

That survival is cultural continuity.

And in a city as large and culturally complex as Los Angeles, preserving those stories becomes an act of belonging.

From Books to Mariachi: A Story About Survival

Perhaps nothing illustrated that idea more powerfully on opening day than the pairing of the documentary Ugly Little Monkeys with a live performance by Los Changuitos Feos de Tucson.

The documentary is based on a book by one of the youth who participated in the youth mariachi group Los Changuitos Feos.  Directors  Enrique Castillo and David Valdez based their documentary on this group, chronicling the extraordinary history of the first youth mariachi group in the United States.

Their story is complicated.

It is a story about young people breaking cultural ground in 1960s America. It is also a story marked by betrayal and trauma after the priest who helped bring the young musicians together was later exposed as a sexual predator.

Yet the story does not end there.

The young musicians survived.

The music survived.

And the cultural legacy survived.

The film’s screening followed by a performance from today’s young musicians of the same group created an extraordinary bridge between past and present: the children who once had to fight for space in American cultural life and a new generation standing on the same stage decades later.

The symbolism was difficult to miss.

The “ugly little monkeys” had grown up.

And their music had traveled.

For LéaLA, it was an especially appropriate story to tell—a reminder that cultural memory is not simply about remembering what happened. It is about deciding what deserves to be carried forward.

A Literary Community Takes Root

The festival’s literary program brought together approximately 30 writers, poets and creators, including Carmen Boullosa, Mónica Lavín, Sara Poot-Herrera, Verónica Gerber, Mónica Nepote, Cecilia Eudave, Benito Taibo, Antonio Ortuño, Julia Santibáñez, Alejandro Rosas, Bernardo Fernández “Bef,” Rodrigo Morlesin and Joselo Rangel, among others.

More than 348 publishing catalogs were represented across 33 exhibition and sales spaces, reinforcing LéaLA’s identity not only as a literary festival but as a true Spanish-language book fair.

That distinction matters.

Los Angeles is often described as a city of entertainment. Hollywood dominates the global imagination of the city. But LéaLA offers another narrative: Los Angeles as a center of Spanish-language intellectual and literary life.

Its programming also reached beyond the festival grounds. Students and teachers engaged with authors including Benito Taibo and Flor Aguilera, while the Cabaret Capricho troupe brought performance into the educational experience.

Ten workshops led by the University of Guadalajara’s Letras para Volar team explored family history, emotions, legends, nature and cultural roots. Educators participated in a workshop focused on identity and vernacular literacies.

The goal was not simply to teach Spanish.

It was to demonstrate what Spanish makes possible.

Building Something Permanent

Perhaps the most consequential developments of LéaLA 2026 were not confined to the four-day festival.

The University of Guadalajara announced a permanent space for its Carlos Fuentes Bookstore, while the establishment of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Institute, to be directed by scholar Sara Poot-Herrera, signals a deeper commitment to creating a permanent intellectual and cultural presence in Los Angeles.

That may ultimately be LéaLA’s most important contribution.

Festivals end.

Books remain.

Institutions remain.

And memories—when they are intentionally preserved—can become part of the foundation for what comes next.

Luis Gustavo Padilla Montes, president of the University of Guadalajara Foundation USA, described LéaLA’s original mission as bringing Spanish-language books and literature closer to Los Angeles and creating a gathering place centered around the language.

By that measure, the mission has evolved from aspiration into reality.

The Importance of Belonging

There is something quietly powerful about watching hundreds of children walk into a cultural institution and discover that their language is not peripheral.

It is central.

That their stories are worth telling.

That the books on the shelves are written in the language their grandparents may have spoken.

That poetry can sound like the conversations they hear at home.

That mariachi can belong on a stage alongside literature.

That Spanish is not merely a language of the past—but a language of the future.

At a time when speaking Spanish can sometimes be treated as evidence that someone does not belong in America, LéaLA offers an entirely different proposition.

You belong. And your language belongs, too.

That is why LéaLA matters.

It is a book fair, yes.

It is a literary festival.

It is a cultural gathering.

But at its deepest level, it is an act of remembrance—and an act of resistance against forgetting.

The stories that unite Los Angeles do, indeed, speak Spanish.

And LéaLA is making sure the next generation continues to hear them.

LéaLA Returns in 2027

The 12th annual LéaLA Spanish-Language Book Fair & Literary Festival will take place September 23–26, 2027, at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, 501 N. Main St., Los Angeles.

For more information, visit LéaLA.

The post LéaLA 2026: “The Stories That Unite Us Speak Spanish” first appeared on .