Antiracist writing centers work towards inclusivity, and thus resist and transgress narratives that limit who can tutor and who can serve in leadership roles in the writing center (Barron and Grimm; Condon; Aikens). However, the responsibilities of writing center administrators (WCAs) do not end with simply hiring a more representative and inclusive staff. In order to increase equity and inclusion in the field of writing center studies, WCAs need to disrupt the traditional mentoring that happens in writing centers and move towards a deeper consideration of racialized experiences in graduate students who staff writing centers. This article weaves together theories of mentoring that are grounded in culturally specific ways of knowing (Alaoui and Calafell; Ribero and Arellano) with narratives from BIPOC graduate students in the writing center (Burrows; Epps-Robertson; Faison and Treviño; Martinez). The author develops a process of critical reflection driven by Asao Inoue’s elements of white habitus to help identify and excavate the ways her current mentoring practices serve to reproduce the status quo, and then the author moves themselves through this reflective process for readers. Ultimately, the author develops a set of antiracist, culturally responsive mentoring elements informed by BIPOC graduate students’ experience to replace the elements of white habitus in her practice. By building a culturally responsive mentoring program that centers BIOPC graduate students’ embodied experiences, all graduate mentees benefit (Faison and Treviño). WCAs who are committed to access and equity in writing center studies and who mentor historically oppressed graduate tutors will find this article useful in building a culturally responsive mentoring process.

To teach food as a written art form is to teach a part of what it means to be human. Through the record of food traditions, culture and history are transmitted as well as transformed—practices of s...