Adult immigrants bring rich experiences to the English as a Second Language (ESL) literacy classroom, and these experiences, which are often fraught with emotion, can influence how they participate in the learning process. In community-based classrooms, where teachers typically have the flexibility to create their own curriculum, there are many opportunities to develop innovative ways to harness students' emotions and promote student participation. One adult ESL literacy class, offered through an organization on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, takes an approach that offers students a variety of leadership roles. Findings from this study show that a teacher's consistent encouragement of students permeated throughout the classroom; when a student took on a leadership role, she, too, became an encouraging force, not only because of the mentoring she received, but also as the result of complicated experiences beyond the classroom context.