I have a staff of thirty-seven people who work for me at a public
library in
and nearly half of them are immigrants to the
say that the majority of the patrons are recent immigrants and their children. There
are large Korean, Indian, Persian, Taiwanese and Chinese communities in
and
Neighboring cities have other large identified neighborhoods, the most well-known being Little Saigon in the northern part of the county.
I had lunch recently with some of the ten young women from
volunteer to help us add Korean language books to the collection. Ten to
fifteen years younger than I with the energy and commitment of young mothers
everywhere, they described their many activities: the PTA, their churches, after
school activities with their kids, their group which meets once a month at the
library to help “new arrivals” (their words) acclimate to the culture. They talked about the mayor who is from Korea; he is the first Korean mayor of a major city in the U.S
Japanese restaurant. At one point they talked about the Japanese occupation of Korea
a weekly Korean language story time for kids. The daily experience at the
reference desk is helping a child without an accent and a mother or father with
one. When I walk from the check-out desk to my office in the back of the
building, I walk past our tables of computers and on a daily basis I see that about
half are occupied by women wearing hijab. All the local shopping center store
names are in a variety of languages, small businesses owned by local residents,
side by side with a Jamba Juice or Subway.
library sees over 1,000 patrons come through our doors each day. In 2009, we checked out over one million
items. Even on a Friday before the Fourth of July weekend, we are filled with
people sitting and reading, working on a project with other people, bringing in
their children to find books, using one of our computers or working on their
laptops. We provide everything from the most diversionary reading to free WiFi to help finding
information on how to start a business or find a job. We can provide a tutor to
learn English. One tutor and learner used to use my office to work in, and a
few times I worked at my desk while they worked at a table together, a
twentysomething African-American woman teaching a fortysomething Arabic woman in
hijab how to read English. I witnessed the day when their work together ended; the learner shed tears of gratitude as they hugged goodbye.
States
about the
is that all these people are living here and working on what they’re working
on, sharing the same space in the same building. I’m glad to be part of the
public library, which stands for the ideals of bettering oneself through
learning (with or without school) and is open to all. It exists because we believe in free speech and uncensored
print as well as an uncensored internet. It exists because we provide civic services to people. The
majority of people never talk to us, they just come in and get what they need,
or work quietly without conversation. We provide a space for their thought,
reflection, and work.
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Thank you Stacey and David for an exhilarating week!–SB