In part 2 of this two-part episode, we talk to the creative team behind the Librarians with Spines book series calling for radical librarianship, Yago Cura, Max Macias and Autumn Anglin. This trio of "information agitators" share the origins of this series, the need for necessary boundary-pushing in the library profession, and the importance of having a strong support system when doing antiracism work.
Hear about the efforts that went into the design and creation of Vol. 3, released in fall of 2022, and get a sneak peek of what's next for this series of essays pushing for a new era of librarianship.
Listen to Part 1 here.
Order Librarians with Spines v.1, 2 & 3 here: https://www.hinchaspress.com/librarians-with-spines
Visit the Librarians with Spines Blog
Link to the EDI & ANTIRACISM TOOLKIT
Hosts: Constance Palaia & Ericka Brunson-Rochette
Date Recorded: December 23, 2022
In part 2 of this two-part episode, we talk to the creative team behind the Librarians with Spines book series calling for radical librarianship, Yago Cura, Max Macias and Autumn Anglin. This trio of "information agitators" share the origins of this series, the need for necessary boundary-pushing in the library profession, and the importance of having a strong support system when doing antiracism work.
Hear about the efforts that went into the design and creation of Vol. 3, released in fall of 2022, and get a sneak peek of what's next for this series of essays pushing for a new era of librarianship.
Listen to Part 1 here.
Order Librarians with Spines v.1, 2 & 3 here: https://www.hinchaspress.com/librarians-with-spines
Visit the Librarians with Spines Blog
Link to the EDI & ANTIRACISM TOOLKIT
Hosts: Constance Palaia & Ericka Brunson-Rochette
Date Recorded: December 23, 2022
*Intro Music*
Ericka Brunson-Rochette: Hello, and welcome back to Overdue: Weeding Out Oppression in Libraries, a podcast production by The Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Antiracism Committee of the Oregon Library Association. I am one of your hosts, Ericka Brunson-Rochette. And again, I am joined by the wonderful Constance Palaia. And we are welcoming back some of the creators of the Librarians with Spines Series. So for our part two, we're going to have our wonderful guests give a little bit of background about who they are as individuals. And we're going to have Yago, Autumn, and Max tell us about who they are.
Yago Cura: Thank you, Ericka. So my name is Yago Cura. I am a public phasing public librarian in South Central Los Angeles. I've been a public librarian for about seven years. I thought in library school I wanted to be an academic librarian, or I was going for the certificate there for school librarian. But I realized that public librarian really kind of merges my love of education and kind of a customer interaction really, really nice. So for about seven years, we've been publishing books through HINCHAS Press. Hincha is a homicidal fan of soccer, and I used to run a journal called Hinchas de Poesia. We did about 25 issues. I am a writer, translator, father, butt-wiper, vomit-cleaner, what have you. I'm a mercenary of love for my kids and my wife, and I do whatever I need to do to make them happy.
But I'm also a zinester. I love to make zines, the resident smart-ass. And really I just kind of love the work that I do with the people that I do it with. And I have my good days. I have my bad days. But I feel very blessed and very fortunate to do the work that I do. From Miami, grew up in Miami, born in Brooklyn, been in LA for about 10 years. And yeah, I mean, used to skateboard, now I'm too old, so it's soccer. And that's about it. Thank you for that opportunity,
Ericka Brunson-...: Max, we'd love to hear more about you.
Max Macias: Yago, I still skateboard. And I'm older than you, man, so that is no excuse.
Yago Cura: I'm sorry. I'm old, my knees. My knees, I can't anymore.
Max Macias: No, man, [inaudible 00:02:31]. Yeah. Max Macias, independent librarian. I teach part-time for Portland Community College, information literacy courses. I am an information agitator in an age of stagnation. What else? I'm from San Jose, grew up in San Jose, California. I live in Silverton, Oregon now. And I work primarily remotely. I'm full-time instructional support technician. I help people with their classes, instructional support, using D2L, the learning management system at PCC with a bunch of other stuff.
And so, I'm involved with the OLA EDIA committee, which has been fantastic and amazing. And so yeah, I'm just very happy to be here and honored, and thank you so much. I live in Silverton. I said that before, but I forgot to mention I live with my wife. And my three kids are all out of the house now, so it's an interesting time. Thanks so much for having me.
Autumn Anglin: My name is Autumn Anglin. I kind of do a lot. I do a lot of everything. So I'm a graphic designer. I'm the designer and illustrator of Librarians with Spines and most of the books produced by HINCHAS Press. I'm also a web designer and have designed most of the websites that we have in our collection here. I am now working as an autism assistant in the public school district here, working with students with autism in the entire school district in Salem. I live in Salem, Oregon, on a one acre farm with sheep and chickens and dogs and two teenagers and cats. I own a ceramics business and have artwork showing at the Salem Art Association right now and artwork that'll be shown at the Oregon Potters Association that I'm members of.
I'm the vice President of the Willamette Valley Mushroom Society and created a college level mycology course, a year-long curriculum to study fungi. I've discovered 33 new species of fungi, and I'm going to be in a bunch of new scientific papers for all the species of mushrooms. It's very slow work and tedious work, but I just reached over a thousand observations on my iNaturalist account, and that's all within about a hundred-mile radius of Salem, Oregon. So that's pretty exciting for me.
I've recently gone through an entire process of having my son diagnosed with autism, which has been very difficult and challenging, which is the reason I'm in special education now, because I feel like I've done so much to help him, that I can use this knowledge and help other kids. And I'm super proud of where he is now. And of course, my other son too, I'm super proud of him as well. He's in marching band, so I'm that typical band mom driving kids to band practice five days a week and so busy-busy.
Ericka Brunson-...: Well, thank you for that. Thank you to all three of you. You're all so phenomenal and inspiring in both your professional and personal lives. Are we ready to dive back into part two of our question series? Here we go. Librarians with Spines: Volume III is full of powerful essays that cover a wide range of librarianship, everything from Come See the Violence Inherent in the System, Labor and the Neoliberal Academic Library by Andrew Barber and Michelle Gohr, to Our Silence Will Not Save Us: Confronting Racism and Oppression in Public Librarianship by Yesenia Villar.
How did you seek out contributors in topics for this anthology? And how much autonomy did the authors have in what they wrote? And we'll start this one with Yago, and then hand it over to Max.
Yago Cura: The best thing about putting together LWS is that we don't pressure anybody into doing anything. Max and I and Autumn, because of our different interests and pursuits, we talk to a lot of people from different backgrounds. And we really are open to anybody sending us their work. You don't have to be a... If you're like a clerk, and you write an awesome chapter, we're taking it. In theory, send us your work, and we'll take it. But also in theory means that we're presenting best practical solutions, that include the communities, that have to include the communities that are being served by that information professional. Also, honestly, guys, Max and Autumn have way more etiquette and way more class than I do. I literally harangue people until they relent, and either work with me on their chapter or just write it themselves and send it my way.
I call people when I'm commuting home, and I pretend I'm like a player in Hollywood. I'm taking interviews and having people kiss my circulation wand. But I have worked with Yesenia Villar, as a bilingual outreach librarian for the LA PL. And a lot of the things that she writes about in the chapter were things that I experienced personally. I've also worked with Dan. We wrote the thing... It's not the anti-EDI kind of preface, but it is one that is critical of EDI work and the data that we were able to find. So he's way smarter than me and helped me to articulate what I wanted to articulate. So sometimes, the texts and the chapters come from frustrations we're currently feeling.
Sometimes, it's just a stroke of luck. I'm always amazed. What Max was saying with the first one, he came up with this brilliant idea of sending a golden ticket. And because of that, and because we had talked with someone like Loida Garcia-Febo, she was able to give us a chapter, which blew my mind, because she's the president of IFLA. You know what I mean? She's huge. She's all over the world. You know what I mean? And here she is being kind to us and being like, "Hey, you know what? This is important work to me. This chapter that I'm giving you is important. And I want you guys to take care of it." And so, wow, I guess the way that we do it is by doing it. We've been very lucky, but we've also worked very hard. And that's a killer combination. You know what I mean? Max, how did we do it? Autumn, how did we... How do we do it, Max? What do you think?
Max Macias: Just asking people and knowing people. I'll say two things. Social media used to be a killer way to network with people, really killer. I got a really great network from Facebook about whatever, 2007 through 2012 maybe. And when once their algorithms and stuff came up, it went to crap. It's garbage. They just tried to manipulate the hell out of me. The other thing is I'm a social media addict. That's why I deleted all of my social media accounts. I'm still on LinkedIn, but I don't really consider that social media so much. That stuff sucks. But that was the way I met people. And I met a lot of people online. And then I got to go to the REFORMA Conference in El Paso and meet people there. And then I was fortunate enough to have friends, like Louisa and Isabel Espinal who gave me opportunities to serve in high-level ALA taskforce and councils.
I'm not part of any library organization. I don't work in libraries, really. So I teach part-time for a community college library, but that's it. And so I'm not going to pay any fees or join any organizations. But I was able to represent the unrepresented and able to bring a lot of stuff that wasn't there to EDI work a long time ago. They gave me those opportunities. So I was able to network with people, is what I'm saying, get involved with REFORMA. That was a good way to meet people and to help people and to learn. REFORMA bums me out though. Now I can't even send a job announcement to the listserv. I sent one the other day, and I was like, "Oh, I would send this job announcement, but I'm not allowed to." I don't know. They're going to kick me off, probably.
But anyway, asking people and creating trust and letting people know too that they're going to be autonomous, that's a big thing. That's a big thing. And that's why I think these books are unique. When you look at them, they don't look like any other book I've ever seen, in a good way. And we have flavor; we got style. And our working is an example of doing that EDI work, creating change in our industry, but going, "Wow, there's no way to do it. How do we do it? Oh, we're going to do this/ and now we're doing this." And we're giving other people opportunities to do this with us and to do their own thing and to create something ongoingly great, so all of that. Autumn, I want to hear from you. What do you want to say, please?
Autumn Anglin: So especially with Volume III, I remember that we had to... So I'm not in the part of finding the authors at all. Yago and Max do all of that, because I'm not as well-networked as them. But I am involved with some of the editing and talking with the authors. And I do remember some Zoom calls, where our team got together with an author. I really pushed for no censorship for them, and I had to state my case to everybody. I was like, "Please, this work this author is bringing is public information. We need to give them a voice." And time and time again, I've heard from these authors that they are so grateful, that we gave them a platform to use their voice. I get a lot of DMs from authors in my Instagram accounts, just thanking me for everything that we do and that they didn't have a platform before. They didn't even know they were capable of writing some of this stuff, until we asked for it.
That is amazing. We've given them a platform and not censored them and inspired them to create something amazing and then followed through and published this stuff. It's so inspiring. And I think that's why we just keep doing it, because, I mean, look at the articles in here. There's one with Star Khan, and you don't know how long it took Yago to get that interview, because of so many things that happened. But it's one of my favorite articles in this book. And Star's badass, for real. So yeah, I just want to make it clear that we don't censor them. We do some minor editing to make sentences clearer, but there's no censoring.
Max Macias: Shout out to the Hales. I wanted to say shout out to the Hales. Yeah, it's coming.
Ericka Brunson-...: Well, we've had some wonderful contributions about those who have written essays and shared some of their really powerful words and stories in this series. But I'm going to shift gears here a little bit and want to acknowledge the beautiful artwork and design elements that are in this series. There are portrait sketches, collages, photography, to name just a few. How did you decide what direction to go, when it came to including artwork amongst the essays? And what was the final layout? How was that decided of the anthology and how that would look? And I'll start with Autumn for this one.
Autumn Anglin: So the creative direction was definitely left up to me, that Max and Yago have been super kind in letting me choose the layout and really grow as a graphic designer and artist. And you can see that growth in this series. And I love to look at back at it and look and see how much things have changed and how much it stayed the same. My vision, the root of it, has stayed the same. So I'm an artist and always wanted to have art as part of this, because it's such a big part of our culture and identity. And I think it really adds value to written works. These essays are so loaded, and they take a lot of thought. You have to read them and then read them again. And one of the ways I wanted to give your brain a break was to put art in between each chapter so you could stop and reflect on what you just read.
As far as the sketches of the authors, I wanted to make the books, I don't know, sort of seamless and have its own sort of look and voice. And I didn't want them to end up being really stuffy academic journals. I really wanted them to be dynamic. And I wanted you to get the feeling that you are about to embark on something that's agitating. You are about to read something so important, that we needed to show... And not with a photograph, I didn't want any photographs of the authors, because I wanted everybody to be shown in the same way. Because we're virtual, and I can't see everybody in person and stylize everybody in the same way, the best thing that I thought would be to do these simple line drawings of the authors and put them all on the same page. Some of these authors have PhDs, and some of these authors are high school graduates, but all their voices are so important and all equally valuable. And so I wanted to sort of make everybody's portraits almost immortal.
The feedback that I've gotten from the authors has been really amazing. They all really appreciate it. There's been authors that have asked to use them on their own websites. And I've gotten long letters from others that say they didn't know how that would go, but they trusted the process. And now, they're amazed and so happy that they let me do that. And so, it's really an honor for me to get to know them and draw them into, I don't know, almost immortality. It's an extra step that I feel like I can give, as an artist, to them as gratitude for their amazing work.
Yago Cura: I think, Autumn, what she said about trusting the process is super important, when it comes to the visual aspects of what she's put together. The other thing is I'm not a very smart man. I just know when to shut up and when to get out of the way. With Autumn, it's very easy to know when, because she gets very excited about these ideas. And then, the way that her brain thinks, it's very logical, but then also it expands. It's exponential. And I barely know what day it is today, so it's good to get out of the way when a person has a very strong, very tactile, very, very great idea.
I just wanted to bring one thing to bear here. Ever since I've been publishing these books, the idea that I'm not a real publisher, because I'm a vanity press has been really kind of on my forehead. I've been thinking about how I feel about that, because I think it's very limiting. Because really if you think about it, there's no criteria for what is a publisher. The difference between Penguin and I is they have a ton of other people working and millions of dollars. But basically, we do the exact same thing. We slap an ISBN and the thing on a book. We send it to print, and then we try to place it. I mean, there's not much of a difference. But it's always curious to me, and whatever I've done, it's always been, "Oh, that's cool. That's a vanity press."
So I just wanted to bring to bear that I think I let go. And I said, "You know what? You want to see what a vanity press is? We're going to show you what a beautiful, aesthetic, completely tactile, and homemade, like artsy, crisp, something that pops. It's going to be so DIY, it's going to be hyper-vanity-press. You want to see a vanity press? Here you go." And what we gave people were beautiful, personal, tactile, almost tangible representations of the respect, graciousness, admiration, that we felt putting this stuff together. And then also just staying the hell out of Autumn's way, or Max's way when he had an idea, or just really trusting. Again, trusting the process, trusting each other, super hard, super hard, but possible.
I'm sorry to interrupt, Autumn, but I wanted to say that, because it is such a beautiful aesthetic. I'm like, "Yes, we are vanity press. Hell, yeah, we own this. Yeah, you want to see how you want to see how vain we are? Look at this beautiful stuff that we're going to put out into the world. Look at this aesthetic stuff that we're going to do. It's going to be so crisp. And it's going to make you want to send us a chapter." And I think it's done its job. Sorry, I got really excited there. I'm so sorry.
Max Macias: No, no, no, man. It's true. And so a vanity press book that is used in LIS classes, man, that's that's pretty awesome, man. And then do your WorldCat search to see how many places have our books, it's nice. It's really beautiful. And our books... And I want to say too, Librarians with Spines isn't just BIPOC people; it's everybody, man. Anybody that wants to create change, please, we're multicultural, in the biggest sense, the truest sense of the word. But no Nazis, no white supremacists, no, we don't allow that. We're not one of those people that's like, "Everybody's accepted," because they're not, man. You got to be cool. That's it.
If you have work, we have a website where we publish blog posts, if you want to do something shorter, talk to us. If you want to publish in one of our books, talk to us. Go to librarianswithspines.com and check it out. You can contact us via that site, and we'd love to hear from you all. Even if you just want to say, "Hey, we didn't like your book," or, "Hey, we really liked your book," whatever, let us know. That'd be great, and you can do that through that site, so yeah.
Constance Palaia: Thank you. So I know we're all excited, and you did say that you envisioned a Volume IV. Can you tell us a little more about your future with Librarians with Spines? Are there stories you'd like to hear, that you haven't been able to include yet? And I'm going to start with Autumn for this one. Thanks.
Autumn Anglin: Yes, there is a Volume IV. It's not... Well, I will say it's going to be a special volume. It's not Volume IV; it's actually going to be a special one. And then Volume IV will come after that, I'm sure of it. Next up, we're publishing a combo of one, two, and three in a hardback edition. That'll be available early 2023. We're actually doing the final edits on that right now. And so we're really excited about that. We are... By we, I mean I am desperately trying to get us all of the ebook versions of I, II, and III out. It's just time consuming, and I haven't had the time. But I'll get it. It's on my to-do list.
Then we will be publishing the Lowrider Librarian Edition. That'll probably come late 2023, as long as we can all get it together. But that one is pretty much all done. I think we have all the articles for that one. We just have to do some last minute things on it. But we all have full-time jobs and families, so Librarians with Spines is just done in our free time, which we don't have a lot of. So it's coming. It's coming as soon as we can get it out.
Constance Palai...: How about you, Max? Are there stories you'd like to hear that you haven't been able to include?
Max Macias: I'd to see a feminist volume. That would be awesome, man. I would like to see more ideas generated by the community too, about what we could do, because that's where we'll get some really good stuff. I'm sure. So yeah, feminism... A lot of my background and research and involvement with EDI stuff and social change comes from reading the Black Panthers and people from AIM and those kinds of movements. And I think that I would like to see maybe some chapters written or volume written in that kind of vein or about how that era influenced people in library science. But I don't know how many other people are influenced by that era. That's my thing, I love that era and those people, so just some of that stuff. I'm open. The Lowrider Librarian Edition is really exciting to me. I finally get that stuff into a book format would be nice.
And so all of that, and just keep going, keep doing what we're doing, I think is the most important thing to me. It's a beautiful thing. Autumn mentioned we're doing edits on that book. I need to get on that. But nobody's pressuring me, you see? I haven't got an email from anybody here saying, "Hey, dude, get on it." But I need to get on it, and I will. Everybody knows that, so it's cool. And again, that's so beautiful, man. So just keep working like that. I want to keep producing stuff that nobody else produces, this quality stuff that's beautiful and unique and beautiful. I mean, in the truest sense, the designs and artwork that Autumn's been able to garner and to do has just been incredible. It's added so much.
And those books, again, I think like Yago mentioned earlier, these books would never have happened if it wasn't for all of us. And we're all equals too, in that respect. So it's not like Yago and I are the librarians or anything like that, man. We're equal. And I think that that is another part of why it works so good. It's really truly non-hierarchical and just like... Yeah, and we all listen to each other. So yeah, all of that. Thanks for the question.
Yago Cura: Yeah, I mean, it's just trust in the process, right, Max? Autumn knows stuff that I have no idea about. And so it's like, "What do I do? Do I trust her or do I... " It's always turned out well when we trust each other and we work together.
Max Macias: Teamwork in the truest sense.
Yago Cura: Yeah, without a doubt, man. And like Autumn says, we have stuff. We were talking earlier. My kids have been sick this whole week. I'm the only one that hasn't gotten sick. I'm just waiting to, because I might not make it through tonight and just... I'm probably going to wake up tomorrow on Christmas Eve sick, and I have to work tomorrow. I'm covering at the library. So anyways, I did want to say this. The HINCHAS Press kind of model is bibliophilia for all, so we want literacy. We want books. We want people to... My parents are from Latin America, and there's this idea that, "No, North America is America." And it's actually las dos américas, right? There's North America; there's South America. Let's work together. Why do we have to work against each other?
So in that vein, I just wanted to talk about two or three things. Max and Autumn came up with this brilliant idea where, during the pandemic, we actually did a Zoom with librarians in Latin America, teaching them how to use popular applications, like Slack and Basecamp for managing emergencies and stuff that comes up, like pandemics. That video includes Madeline Peña from LA PO and a bunch of other luminaries. And it's available on librarianswithspines.org. We're not charging for people. They can watch it if they want. Why am I telling you guys this? Well, we're trying to translate Librarians with Spines Volume I for the Spanish, the Latin American market, and eventually Brazil as well. And the reason we're doing this is because I was fortunate enough that LA PO sent me to the Feria de Libros in Buenos Aires in 2018, so I was able to go over there and make some connections with bibliotecas populares and a bunch of other institutes and organizations.
And what I found was that the... Man, if you ever feel like you're underpaid and that no one gives a crap about you, think about the librarian in Latin America that do miracles with just the worst pay and really no resources. And the amount and the professional librarianship that they exert is really phenomenal, given the resources that they have. So what we're trying to do is, again, in our land of plenty, in our land where libraries are institution, free from really any type of influence... And we forget, for example, the libraries in Latin America, many were built by military governments. So what kind of premium on privacy do you think they really have? Versus our libraries, where it's like ethics, privacy, is a whole class you got to take in library school, and we have this conversation. We're involved in the Patriot Act, or trying to not make sure it passes and all this stuff.
So we're very keen on those things here in North America. And so the question was how do we share and collaborate and really give love to librarians that are doing the exact same work that we do, but south of the border, whether they're in Columbia or Chile or Argentina. So that's really something I'm kind of geeked about, is really bringing the gospel and trying to figure out how we can work more closely with those librarians, because the work that they do is excellent, and they do it with so little resources, so little guidance. You know what I mean? And we could definitely lend a hand. And I think our books could do really a lot of good down there. So that, I'm actually looking forward to Lowrider Librarian Edition, because of chapter by the Hales and Max's artwork.
And one of the things, again, going back to this idea is one of the founding principles for that edition, and this was Max's idea, was him going through an old blog he used to keep and really asking people, "Hey, I want you to engage with this critically. And I respect you, and I respect your prowess as a scholar. And I just want you to read this, and I want you to give me some feedback. And I'm not saying I believe this, but this is what I wrote. And my views might have changed; they might have not have. But I want you to engage with this critically." And let me tell you, that takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of self-knowledge. And I commend Max for doing that, for putting himself out there, because not everyone is willing to do that.
So again, guys, I think it's this thing where it's like we put it out, and have we had our hearts broken, guys? For sure. For sure. We've had our hearts broken. We've had things that we would've like happen that haven't. We reached out to Roberto Delgadillo before he passed away to see if he could write an intro for us. And we were like, "Oh man, that would be phenomenal, because he's just the dude." And he was so integral to librarianship in California, especially with SALALM and all the work that he did there. So that didn't happen. And we were just like... But it would've been nice, and the gesture was there. If I think he had more time in his schedule, he definitely would've said yes. But I don't know. We're open, and we're willing, and we're willing to have our hearts broken, but we're not fools. We definitely want to progress, and we want to do something beautiful. And we appreciate the support of Oregon State Library and the people and librarians of Oregon always have given us. Someone, please talk, because I'm just going to keep going.
Ericka Brunson-...: Well, we appreciate you. We appreciate all three of you making time and space for this very important dialogue today. And I know that I am just feeling so inspired right now. I'm inspired by the stories that all three of you shared on your journey to get here. I'm inspired by this beautifully dynamic relationship that the three of you have together and pulling skills and knowledge and just your respective viewpoints on the world, on this work, together in such a wonderful way. And thank you so much for coming today and sharing your voice. And thank you so much for keeping on doing this work. I am so excited and elated for the next projects that are coming out. And yes, I am just overjoyed with things.
Max Macias: We'll get a chapter from you, right, Ericka?
Ericka Brunson-...: Yeah, I'd be happy to.
Max Macias: Yeah.
Ericka Brunson-...: I'd be honored.
Max Macias: Ah, yeah.
Ericka Brunson-...: Well, thank you all.
Max Macias: Thank you. It was an honor being here, and really appreciate you all. Thank you.
Yago Cura: Thank you so much. We appreciate the support. We appreciate your time. And thank you for these thoughtful questions. They actually made us reflect and kind of think about what it is that we do, because sometimes we're so busy doing it, we don't take time to reflect. So thank you for giving us this moment to reflect on the impact that our work has had. And thank you for your ear and your eagerness and your enthusiasm. And always, always, always, thanks for the support. It's meant the world to us.
Ericka Brunson-...: Oh, wow. I am still just feeling so inspired by Yago, Autumn, and Max, and all of the work that they've been doing, and just the incredible feats that they have overcome, even though they have never even been in the same room. It really speaks loudly to how passionate they are and how they will not allow barriers to stand in the way of getting this really important word out into the world.
So Constance, I feel like one thing that really stuck out to me, that I am still thinking about, because it really has ties to just my personal life and the work that I do, is when Yago mentioned that we can all spot inequity. We see it all around us. We know what it looks like. We often know where it comes from. And we can acknowledge that thing and give it a name and speak a name to it. But oftentimes, there aren't actions around it. And if there aren't actions around it, you are really truly just window shopping.
So I am going to put a challenge out there to our listeners to think about anything that maybe you feel like you have been window shopping. So you have noticed you know it's not right. Maybe you haven't taken steps to address that it's not right. So I want you to move beyond that window. I want you to open the doors, walk inside, and put money where your mouth is on that issue. And it can be even just a small thing, but we do know that those small things will add up to really big change. What about you, Constance?
Constance Palai...: A lot of what I was thinking too, some of those things just stood out so much to me. But my overarching feeling was about safety and what safety I have that other people don't have that BIPOC librarians don't have, and BIPOC patrons maybe don't have. And Yago's reference, and I think Max too, the coyote tickling out controversy in order to have it. Once it's there, then you can deal with it. And I think that's kind of what you're saying too, is it's no longer window shopping. It's out there.
So my challenge I think, is to do what I can because I have more safety. I have the ability to be that trickster. And in some ways in my school library, I'm kind of at the point where, "Bring it on. Ban it. I want to have that out there, because yes, I'm teaching your kids these things. And I'm showing them these things." And I want people to know that it's important. Those are important things. So that's my challenge to myself is to take those risks even more, because I can do it, and somebody else can't do it, so...
Ericka Brunson-...: Absolutely. I love that Constance. And I love that you're not only challenging yourself, but in by doing so, I think maybe even challenging our listeners to do the same. I know you have certainly challenged me to do the same in recognizing some of my privileges, in knowing what power I carry and what power I can easily disseminate to others. So thank you for being thoughtful about that. And thank you for joining me today. It's always a pleasure to co-host with you.
Constance Palai...: Yeah, thank you.
Ericka Brunson-...: Hopefully, we'll be able to do it again?
Constance Palai...: Absolutely. This was wonderful. Thank you.
Voiceover:
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Oregon.
Este proyecto ha sido posible en parte por el Instituto de Servicios de Museos y Bibliotecas a través de la Ley de Servicios de Biblioteca y Tecnológia (LSTA), administrada por la Biblioteca Estado de Oregón.
Voiceover:
We would like to take time to acknowledge historical injustices. We recognize Oregon was established as a white sanctuary state with the intent to exclude African American and Black people on ancestral lands stolen from dispossessed Indigenous peoples. We recognize and honor the members of federally recognized tribes and unrecognized tribes of Oregon. We honor Native American ancestors, past, present, and future, whose land we still occupy. This acknowledgement aims to deconstruct false histories, correct the historical record, and disrupt genocidal practices by refocusing attention to the original people of the land we inhabit, the slave trade and forced labor that built this country, and to the oppressive social systems interwoven into the fabric of our national and regional heritage. We ask that you take a moment to acknowledge and reflect as well.
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