Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers 2008—The Latinos Shaping the Future of Libraries.

-- Críticas, 3/15/2008

Many of the 50 individuals profiled in Library Journal’s 2008 Movers & Shakers are Hispanic librarians that are overcoming obstacles and making a difference for the millions of Spanish speakers in the United States. These are the leaders who are shaping the future of libraries and Spanish-speaking communities nationwide.

 Mario Ascencio, George Mason University Libraries

REFORMA president Ascencio understands the value of diversity at a gut level. An American of Salvadoran descent raised in a Mexican American enclave in Los Angeles, he saw personally how educators’ assumptions that minority students couldn’t succeed could translate into self-fulfilling prophecies, and that made him mad. Today, Ascencio says, he no longer gets angry about prejudice; instead, he turns his anger into fuel that powers his “drive to make a positive impact in my communities.”

Now, as visual arts liaison librarian at George Mason University Libraries, he’s one of the few Latino professionals on campus. A past beneficiary of REFORMA sponsorships, he makes a point of mentoring the university’s minority students and supports its Spanish-speaking MLS students’ attendance at REFORMA conferences.

Veronda Pitchford, program officer at the Urban Libraries Council, says Ascencio is adamant that REFORMA be “an organization of librarians who serve Spanish-speaking populations and their supporters, not just an association of Latino and Hispanic librarians.” Further, she says, he is devoted to the empowerment of other minorities, reflected in his work with ALA’s Black Caucus, GLBT Round Table, American Indian Library Association, and Asian Pacific American Library Association.

Sol Gómez, Pima County Public Library

Gómez was a construction worker when he entered the University of Arizona’s (UA) Knowledge River program, which trains librarians to serve Hispanic and Native American communities. Now, as a branch manager at the Pima County Public Library (PCPL), his raw materials are young minds, and what they’re building is a better future.

During his rise through PCPL, says Deputy Director Patrick Corella, Gómez built a “following of kids who participated, collaborated, and created games,” showing their peers how to use library resources and computers to find information. When ­Gómez took over a distance education program to train Spanish speakers to use computers, he realized how many students were dropping out. He enlisted UA honors students to help them and followed through with his own personal commitment to their success with frequent calls and coaching.

Gómez worked with UA honors students again to create a Spanish-language computer course focused on job searching and résumé building. Corella calls this a win for everyone: students emerge with the skills to create a résumé and apply for jobs online; the honors students get service learning credits and improve their Spanish; and Gómez’s branch meets important user needs.

PCPL director Nancy Ledeboer calls Gómez a “powerful mentor,” who works with REFORMA and Knowledge River, recruiting and mentoring a new generation of librarians. Gómez likes being a role model—and he recognizes its transformational power. “The kids see me and think I’m one of them,” he says. “But then they realize I went to school and got degrees and know it’s a possibility.”

Lucía González, Broward County Library

As a child in postrevolutionary Cuba, Lucía González would sit enthralled in the unelectrified dark as her great-aunt told stories. Growing up in Miami, she savored memories of that magic, which paved the way for her career as a children’s librarian, storyteller, and writer. She’s been reaching out to the Spanish-speaking children of South Florida and their parents since she started at Miami-Dade Public Library System (MDPLS) in 1991, where an all-day storytelling workshop made her fall in love with children’s librarianship.

Through her programs at the Imagination Factory (an MDPLS program promoting reading through storytelling), she encouraged Hispanic children to read and their parents to read to them. Now with the Broward County Library, she’s developed bilingual children’s story times for libraries, public schools, and daycare centers throughout the county. Her efforts to expand the library’s Día de los niños/Día de los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day) helped the library win the prestigious Mora Award for 2007.

Her storytelling goes beyond the library, too. While living in Venezuela after college, González learned that many Venezuelan folktales, children’s songs, and games resembled those with which she’d grown up. That inspired her to write those stories in English, to “pass
them on to our children in the United States.” These became her award-winning books: The Bossy Gallito (Scholastic, 1994) and Senor Cat’s Romance and Other Favorite Stories from Latin America (Scholastic, 1997).

REFORMA colleague Isabel Espinal admires González not only for the national impact her work has had but also for speaking out against her own Cuban American community to defend Alta Schreier’s Vamos a Cuba (Let’s Go to Cuba), a book about Cuba that was banned in Miami schools. For González, it was simply her “duty to defend children’s right to accurate information about Cuba”—and any other country.

Annabelle Núñez, University of Arizona

Núñez became passionate about health issues when her mother’s chronic illness made her understand the cultural and financial barriers to good health and preventive care among Hispanics. Now, in her daily work at the Arizona Health Sciences Library and in frequent conference presentations, Núñez helps medical professionals, community leaders, and librarians understand those barriers “so they can work very hard to close that gap.”

She led one such conference, the 2007 Trejo Foster Foundation Institute’s ¡Salud Se Puede! (You Can Be Healthy!), and provides continuing information for medical practitioners at her Hispanic Health site (hcoe.ahsl.arizona.edu).

Núñez has also taken health information directly to Hispanics at local health fairs and shown students in the University of Arizona’s School of Information Resources and Library Science program how to do likewise. Her visionary reach has brought together Hispanic and Native American LIS students with local high school classes to demonstrate the importance of health information.