<p>Prominent education scholars have advocated for using care/cariño as a relational approach to teaching historically marginalized K-12 youth. However, as Lilia I. Bartolomé reminds us, care/cariño—a practice aimed at humanizing historically marginalized students—must be coupled with authentic respect and a commitment to challenging educational inequities to be truly transformative. Critical reflection is essential, enabling educators to examine their instructional and community-engaged practices with multilingual learners within broader social and political contexts. This reflective process deepens teachers’ understanding of equitable education, heightens awareness of diverse learning needs, and urges them to confront injustices both professionally and personally. While many teacher preparation programs incorporate critical reflection, the influence of a program’s stance on this reflection process remains unclear. This narrative inquiry explores how twelve in-service teachers’ critical reflections on their pedagogies with multilingual learners and their families were shaped by a community-centric authentic cariño approach in teacher education. Grounded in Black and Latinx feminist scholarship, this paper offers recommendations for teacher educators and practitioners on enacting a community-centric authentic cariño approach in education and teacher development efforts.</p>