S3, E2: Connecting Libraries with Communities w/ Immer Honorato

In this episode, Immer Honorato, Library Outreach Specialist at the Tualatin Public Library, talks with us about connecting his library with his community in Tualatin, Oregon.

 As an immigrant of Mexico who grew up in Tualatin, Immer brings an important bilingual and bicultural perspective to bridging the gap between library services and a library’s community. He reminds us that there are steps that all of us can take to improve accessibility, a sense of belonging, and relevancy  in our libraries.

Winter 2024 OLAQ - "Bibliotequitas para Tualatin  (Bibliotequitas for Tualatin)"  Pg. 29-31

Hosts:  Joan Vigil & Kristen Curé
Date of Interview: April 9, 2024

Transcript

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 [Intro Music Playing] 

Joan Vigil:  

Welcome to OVERDUE: Weeding Out Oppression in Libraries, a podcast produced by the Oregon Library Association's Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-racism Committee. My name is Joan Vigil, my pronouns are she/hers, and I'm the Assistant Director of Public Services for Jackson County Library Services. I am joined by my co-host, Kristen. 

Kristen Curé:  

Hi, I'm Kristen Curé, my pronouns are she/her, and I'm the Spanish Language Services and Latino Liaison Librarian at the Springfield Public Library in Springfield, Oregon. It is a pleasure to be here today and a joy to introduce our guest, Immer Honorato. Immer, he/him, is the Library Outreach Specialist at the Tualatin Public Library. He's an immigrant of Mexico and has a passion for social justice through library work. Tualatin Public Library was awarded an ARPA grant from the State Library of Oregon to develop the Bibliotequitas para Tualatin project, as a way to connect Spanish-speaking community members with the library. Welcome, it's great to be here today with both of you.  

Joan Vigil: 

We'll start with an icebreaker question. The first one is, could you tell us about a childhood memory that brings you joy? 

Immer J. Honorato: 

I think a lot of my core memories of that time are based in Mexico, and then in Tualatin, actually, when we first immigrated here. We immigrated to Tualatin, which is a very full-circle moment for me to do my work, but just visiting the parks. And in Mexico, the area I lived in was near the ocean, so going to the beaches a lot and being around nature and stuff was something that we always did growing up. So those are some of the things that I still like to do and are things that I like to do in my spare times with my partner and my family and stuff like that, so yeah. 

Kristen Curé:  

Thank you. It's great to see that you came to another place where there's lovely outdoor spaces to be as well, and have that connection to your childhood and what you enjoyed. So we're going to just jump right in. Can you tell us how your work in libraries began? 

Immer J. Honorato:  

I really stumbled into libraries during my undergrad. I was finishing up and I didn't really have a sense of direction, but went to school at Portland State University and one of my professors who was the head of the Latino Chicano studies department would mentor me and suggested this internship actually at the Tualatin Library. One summer went by, I got the internship. I did that during the summer and after that I fell in love with library work and the idea of helping the community and being somebody that also the community can rely on. 

Yeah, after that internship, it just snowballed. A year passed and there was a position open at Tualatin and it was a part-time and I got it. And then I just learned my way through library work. Yeah, it's something that I plan to pursue as I continue my library career. 

Joan Vigil:  

Awesome. I think a lot of us stumble into library work in a similar way. So the next question is, we often think of Tualatin and Hillsboro and Beaverton as the cities where wealthy Intel and Nike workers live. Can you tell us a little about the Spanish-speaking communities that you serve in the area? 

Immer J. Honorato:  

Yeah, absolutely. Like I mentioned earlier, I myself am an immigrant, and coming to Oregon was very different, so to speak. And the community in Tualatin, the Spanish-speaking community is also very different in the sense that a lot of the people here are actually from the state of Guerrero, which is southwest Mexico. And Guerrero is also one of the, or if not one of the most poor states in Mexico. What makes that community really interesting and for me is that a lot of those people are people that are from my hometown or from neighboring towns in the state of Guerrero. So in a way, we came to a community that was already here that was relatively small, but had already built these communities in Tualatin. And being here, being a part of that and then also having that complete contrast of predominantly white community and then the location of Tualatin being, it's relatively accessible for normal everyday people that are commuting to work and taking I-5 up and down the metro area, but makes it also really difficult to serve the communities when you rely, as libraries rely on organizations and nonprofits to distribute resources and point people into the right direction and have resources nearby. And that's kind of the case of Tualatin, that it lacks a lot of those resources and we rely heavily on, are Washington County resources and governments that are in Hillsborough, which is not super close to Tualatin right up here in the Washington County kind of metro area. So yeah. 

Joan Vigil: 

Thank you.  

Kristen Curé:  

Thank you for giving us that background on the community in the Spanish-speaking community in Tualatin. It's interesting. I think if you went to each community in Oregon that has a Spanish-speaking population, it would be from a different, slightly different area of Mexico or Latin America. And it's one of those things that when people come here, they build community where they come, and so then more people will come, "Oh, I know somebody who lives here, so I'm going to move here." It's really a beautiful thing. So in your winter 2024 OLAQ article, you speak to rebuilding trust with the Spanish-speaking community in Tualatin. This is not an uncommon challenge for many libraries serving the Latino community, but as we know there is harm that can come from performative or disingenuous efforts. What would you advise libraries to keep in mind when looking to authentically build or mend relationships with their Spanish-speaking community members? 

Immer J. Honorato: 

Yeah, I think building the trust within the community is so crucial for libraries. I think a lot of our immigrant communities, refugee communities at time come with a perspective of government distrust based on their country of origin. And I think Mexico, it's not an exception to that. And I think it's building trust with the communities that you're working with, and especially because often times libraries are associated or in conjunction with our government institutions, that building that trust just becomes really essential. Celebrating the communities and making sure that those ties are real and being present in important parts or events of the community. And oftentimes those communities will know if it's disingenuous or not, especially when you're coming with perspectives or ideas or things that matter to them versus maybe trying to get data of things that perhaps aren't relevant to them or aren't the first thing that are their priority, that is their priority. But a lot of that trust is just built and being out there talking to people, making those connections and really establishing yourself as somebody that people can rely on. And oftentimes, I don't even see that as seeing actual data or maybe seeing people through the door, but also just making sure people know that we're there and that they can go there if they need assistance of any kind or if they just need really anything that we could help out with. And also just kind of shifting that mentality, which from my personal perspective is kind like a generational thing also, and kind of shifting that maybe we won't get those numbers now, but that's why we're doing the work and we're laying the foundation for the people who are going to generationally be here, but also extending our hand to the people who are here and trying to survive day-to-day and stuff. So yeah, trust is a huge part of what outreach is and what libraries do and what we're trying to connect when we're trying to connect the community to the libraries. 

Joan Vigil:  

As a follow-up to that question, what advice would you give to libraries who want to engage with the Spanish-speaking community but don't even know where to start? 

Immer J. Honorato:  

Yeah. I mean, I think just start wherever, whether it's developing a collection, whether it's maybe we don't have the ability to do the outreach, but maybe we can have some sort of social media presence. I think programs are always a great way of culturally diverse programs are a great way of establishing those connections. But then also creating those partnerships with maybe agencies that have those connections and becoming more visible to the community or trying to reach, and there's ways of piggybacking off of those relationships in order to create your own. And I think a lot of library work is very much that piggybacking off programming or collaborating with nonprofits or agencies and just being out there and being visible. Capacity is also an issue, but I think there's small ways like the ones I mentioned that can help serve the communities. 

Joan Vigil:  

Thank you.  

Kristen Curé: 

I really appreciate that you keep bringing back that it comes back to the relationships that we build and how we can grow in trust with the community. And it's relationships with individuals and it's also relationships with organizations that are already embedded in our communities. And that doesn't translate immediately to statistics like a door count or attendance or something, but that it's laying the foundation for future growth. Something else that we often talk about is how hiring library staff that reflect the community served is crucial when libraries are looking to build these relationships and invite in people who are not in the habit of using the library. What do you think the library world can do to support more Latino and Spanish-speaking people to work in libraries? 

Immer J. Honorato: 

I think libraries and really government institutions that serve also our Spanish-speaking communities and minorities and refugees can only benefit from providing the accessibility to those communities. You are developing that trust, you're establishing that they're also part of the community, especially for me, one thing that is kind of crucial when we're doing that is that there's also a level of you're proving something to those communities when traditionally a lot of those communities are very tight-knit. It's like they function within their own network and you're really the outsider coming in. And I think providing people who are culturally specific, it helps you kind of break those boundaries at times and it makes it easier for them to identify needs and people to just come to them. I think it's easier for that trust building when somebody can communicate with them in their own language that can facilitate the process and explain things. 

There's a lot of legwork in between that, it's not just the one-on-one when you're helping somebody, but also just all the backend work that you do, whether it's translating flyers or providing special assistance to individuals or all the special programming, it's about visibility. It's about institutions also making sure that whether it's an admission statement that is embedded in their organization, that they're actually providing that in a way that is kind of breaking those barriers and establishing the relationships with people. So hiring culturally relevant people, staff, it's only a benefit to them. 

Joan Vigil:  

It goes to the piece that representation kind of matters and- 

Immer J. Honorato:  

Totally. Yeah. 

Joan Vigil:  

Yeah. That's really important. And it's also good for children who are coming in and they see someone who's working in the library that looks like them and they're like, "Oh, maybe that's something I can do someday." It kind of builds that, puts those things in motion. It's kind of cool. 

Kristen Curé:  

I have a question. I'm wondering, in your experience, and maybe this is a question for both of you, but especially for Immer. In your experience, what do you think that libraries maybe are doing well or could be doing to really help recruit and retain and support having such a diverse workforce, a workforce that reflects the communities we're working to serve? And maybe what has helped you in your career path? 

Immer J. Honorato:  

I've been lucky that I've had the opportunity to just grow within my position or the position that I've had here at Tualatin. And I guess, the opportunity's always been that, right? I think for when I first started working here part-time, I was doing kind of teen stuff with the teen librarian and that got me really focused on those things. And then I kind grew and I was doing outreach as well. And then I kind of grew into this position where I was outreach specialist, and I think a lot of what I appreciated was that opportunity and the help and the space to learn. And I think it's hard to kind of say that maybe all libraries can do that, but I think that because of our size of a library, everyone kind of dips their toes in everything. It just helps me in that way. I think particularly when we're dealing with folks who maybe don't have, are coming into these positions that don't have a background or knowledge of it, is really making sure that we are helping those individuals grow into the positions like me. And I think a lot of it just has to do with the lack of people who can't speak Spanish or another language that fit the library roles. And I think that falls within the library to kind of adjust job listings and modify those things to make it accessible and to give people opportunity to work in libraries and provide those skill sets that really the library field needs and in order to move forward with the work that we're doing in the communities that require that. I don't know if I answered of your question, but. 

Kristen Curé:  

Thank you. No, it sounds like Tualatin, even though it's not a huge library system, that Tualatin offers entry points for staff like you to come in at different levels of experience in libraries, it's not like you were expected to come in with all of this experience in libraries already. They had an internship program for you and then you had different positions after that you were able to grow in while also using your language and cultural skills to help the library do a better job. 

Immer J. Honorato:  

I feel lucky in the opportunities that I've had because the internship was one thing that happened that summer, and the funny part was that my professor sent it to me and I applied. And I got to the interview and then they were like, "Nobody else applied. Do you want it?" The snowball kept on rolling after that, but it's just one of those things. But definitely the job, I'm sorry, the city along with the library has done a really good job about just modifying those job listings and making sure that if we're looking for somebody who is required to speak Spanish, that it's not going to be out of the realm and it's not going to be something that we put out there and nobody applies because nobody has the qualifications for. So it's something that we've done, I think a pretty good job about, and it's resulted in amazing colleagues that we have here. So. 

Joan Vigil: 

You designed the Bibliotequitas project as a way to reconnect with Tualatin Spanish-speaking community. How has your community been receptive to Bibliotequitas and the free Spanish language books? 

Immer J. Honorato:  

The Bibliotequitas program was, it had an exception before I took my position as outreach specialist, and it was something that they were kind of conjuring up and trying to manifest for a while. It just worked around that after I became full-time as an out specialist for the library, that it kind of all manifested coming out of the pandemic, the ARPA grant, we're awarded the ARPA grant. And then I was asked if I wanted to take the project on. I was like, "Sure." First kind of project as outreach specialist, and we kind of brainstormed along with my public service supervisor and our library director as to how to go about it. And we kind of identified locations and places and it was a real trial and error at first. And once we kind of got the locations down and kept trying places, it really kind of was very positively accepted. People really liked that the books were free. The locations that we worked with, which were two Latino grocery stores in town, they were happy to have the books out there. And they kept telling me, they kept getting comments about like, "Oh, when is it going to get restocked?" Or a point for the community and the business owners? And it all kind of worked out, but it took a while for us to get there. We tried schools at first and we tried apartment complexes and other miscellaneous locations and they just weren't points of interest. And I think also the time coming out of the pandemic was something that didn't really help us out. People really reserved about just grabbing stuff and schools had just a lot on their plate and they just weren't focused on maybe a project like that. And it wasn't the first thing that they were trying to promote or kids just didn't understand it in that format. And I think once it got to the grocery stores, people kind of just understood it a little bit better. And I think the demographic was, I think the point of change there, where I think you got a lot of parents and moms and stuff and they were just grabbing stuff for their kids. And it was also a point where a lot of these Mexican grocery stores are access points for a lot of our immigrant communities where they cash checks, they send money to people abroad and they buy groceries there. And just this kind of Mecca of our community. So that was really a good transition point and once we got to that point, we were really excited to keep continuing it and all that jazz and it went well. 

Kristen Curé: 

I love the idea that you ended up... The last place you ended up having the Bibliotequitas was in the grocery stores and the local businesses. Because it's exactly what you said, that's the part of everybody's life, that's the part of the community where everybody goes., And as libraries, we should be there, be a part of people's everyday life. It's great. Do you have, well, I guess both for you and also for the community, what were favorite items that you had in the Bibliotequitas? What was the most popular? 

Immer J. Honorato:  

Oh, gosh. I mean, we had so many things there. I mean, I really bought a broad range of materials. It was mainly books, that's really what we distributed through that. But we had board books, we had picture books, we had YA titles, we had juvenile titles, just really everything. And I would kind of restock everything based on the stock that we had because we kind of pre-bought everything once the money rolled down, and then that gave us time to extend the project a little bit to where I think we had a timeline to spend the money and then we had a timeline to fulfill the project. But really a lot of the board books and the juvenile materials were the most popular towards the end when we had the similar copies of adult chapter books, adult fiction and nonfiction. I had to find ways to get rid of those just because I think everyone who wanted a copy of it had it, but for the most part, all that children's material was what really took off from children's to board books to our YA titles I think is just super popular. All Spanish language books. And I mean, I can't even remember a lot of the titles anymore. I think I still have a title is a Don Francisco biography. I don't know, a couple other random titles. But yeah. 

Joan Vigil:  

Has anyone requested anything special? 

Immer J. Honorato: 

No, not necessarily. I think people generally, for the most part, they were just happy to see different materials there. I would go every two weeks, every three weeks. It was kind of when we restocked and I think they were just excited to see new materials and new titles and like I said, all the stuff was kind of pre-bought after our Bibliotequita ARPA money ran out. We haven't really restarted it back up, but the framework's there so we know how to redo that right. 

Joan Vigil:  

Can you tell us about some of the biggest surprises your team faced with the Bibliotequitas project? Anything that was unexpected or unpredicted? 

Immer J. Honorato:  

The biggest surprise was really it not taking off at the schools that we identified. So a lot of the schools that we chose were, we have a bilingual immersion school here in town. We did two middle schools with our heaviest immigrant and Spanish-speaking population, and then we did the middle school and the high school. And I think that was the biggest surprise, because we have really good relationship with them. But I think the timing was just, like I mentioned earlier, the timing was just not right. Teens and kids were just going through so much readjusting and relearning of a lot of things, and that really impacted the program, the Bibliotequitas program that we were trying to introduce for that school year, really because we started in the fall and then through the summer, towards end of the summer. That was really the biggest surprise. Other than that, it was a lot of just troubleshooting after that. We weren't giving out the books as fast as we intended until we landed at those grocery stores. And once that happened, it was kind of no looking back. I mean, we were there more often than we had ever been to the locations, really. But the program itself ran fairly smoothly up until those instances occurred. But yeah. 

Kristen Curé:  

Bibliotequitas was a really big project. What's next on your list for the community at the Tualatin Public Library? 

Immer J. Honorato:  

We're always working towards kind of new things, and the ARPA grant really gave us opportunity to fulfill that project. I think in our ideal world, we'd love to continue that as find funding for it to become something that we do all the time. Because we already have the framework, the impact that we identified is already there and we'd be able to just slide back in and restart that project back up. Aside from that, outreach never ends, and we're constantly trying to connect people to the library through cultural events that we have here, all our Spanish language materials that we have. I went to the FIL this past fall and that was an amazing experience and we bought a ton of stuff for our Spanish adult collection. And we're really excited to process all those items and get them on our shelves. And that's happening right now. 

But just working towards developing for library and our Spanish collections a little bit further. It's been taking a little bit since the pandemic, and then being able to re-change some things, adjust things and work towards making the library more accessible for our community is kind of our top priority. And just providing relevant programming and all of the resources that we can offer to them and just making sure that we're serving our community the best way possible, really is our endless next big project. But that's on the path that we're on right now and it's exciting to be a part of that though. 

Kristen Curé: 

Yeah, thank you. It's great to hear that you went to FIL. For our listeners who may not know why we all get so excited, FIL is the Feria Internacional del Libro in Guadalajara, and it's the largest Spanish-speaking book fair in the world, and it's actually the second largest book fair in the world of all languages with only being outranked by one in Germany. But it's the best way for libraries to be able to build their Spanish-speaking collections with authentic and interesting and fun and beautiful books. And ALA has a program that helps support librarians across the country to go. And if you're in Oregon, there's a special program called Libros for Oregon that helps support libraries to send folks. So that's my little public service announcement because more people need to know about it. I really appreciate what you said Immer about how it's this ongoing work, not just ongoing outreach and ongoing building your collections and ongoing providing meaningful programs for the community. And I hope that you find some funding to keep Bibliotequitas going because it sounds like such a great project. I'd love to see that in my community as well. 

Joan Vigil: 

Okay, so this next question is, what is at the top of your wish list for Oregon libraries and the communities that they serve? 

Immer J. Honorato:  

Yeah, I think there's so many things that we could benefit of library workers or institutions. I think that being able to provide more funding for immigrant and language stuff would be amazing. I think as libraries change and grow as they're always doing social work and all those things are becoming super important with all the communities that we encounter here at the library. So just adopting changes. And I don't think that's something that libraries are necessarily, they're not bad at them at all, I guess is what I'm saying. We're constantly changing and adopting things, and I think a lot of the wish lists could be, is just going to be very unique to every library as communities are different and as the needs are different and how we can adopt those things for the betterment of our communities. I think for Tualatin, I love to see the city's doing such a great job of providing a space for our Spanish-speaking community with city council and city management and all those things. And just to continue that work is I think the first step forward and kind of identifying really the needs of the community and what we can do better from the library standpoint. I can't think of any one specific thing off the top of my head right now, but there's so much of, I think the work that just needs to continue in order to be able to figure out and request and dream about what's next. 

Joan Vigil:  

I think that's really great that the city supports the community in that way and supports the library. It sounds like you all have a lot of good support there. 

Kristen Curé:  

Yeah. I appreciate that you brought up that your city council and city manager's office are also supportive of connecting with the community and inviting them in. We need to remember that libraries are Public libraries are always part of a larger government institution, and so having that support outside of our libraries is really important to supporting the work that we do as well. 

Joan Vigil: 

It's come to an end, so thank you very much for being part of this podcast. 

Immer J. Honorato:  

Thank you guys so much for having me. It's a great opportunity to speak to you guys and brag about our library here in Tualatin, just kind of all that work that libraries do and that you guys do as well and often to be sitting here with you both. So thank you. 

Kristen Curé:  

It's been a lovely conversation. Thank you. It's an inspiration, so thanks. It's great to [inaudible 00:28:56]. 

Joan Vigil:  

I really enjoyed this conversation we had with Immer and how he engaged with his community and found out ways that worked best for them and setting up the Bibliotequitas and working out with the grocery stores, trying to get to know the community that's around them. I also really loved what he said about starting with recruiting library staff to start working for libraries where, how he started out as an intern and he had that opportunity. And I think some of those ways would really be great for all libraries just to start as a place to recruit and retain staff that reflect your community. That type of representation just really matters for them to be able to see that in the library staff and be able to make those connections even more important. 

Kristen Curé:  

Yeah, I really agree with you, Joan. This was a really uplifting conversation for me because Immer had so many just really positive examples of ways that we can reconnect with our communities, whether it's our Spanish-speaking community or maybe in our library, it's another language or cultural community that we need to reconnect with. But it was great how they first started the Bibliotequitas with the schools and they realized that they weren't quite reaching folks that they wanted to, and then they reached out to the Latino owned grocery stores. And it makes me think about all the places that we in our communities might not think to reach folks and where we need to develop relationships. He had some really great suggestions about how libraries can work to have staff that better reflects their community from having an internship program to having job descriptions that don't exclude folks, that encourage folks to apply. 

The other thing that I really appreciated was that he talked about now you've connected with people and what does your library offer when they come, in looking at the programs that you offer or developing your collection. He brought up going to the FIL, the Feria, Internacional del Libro in Guadalajara to better develop a Spanish language collection. There's so many ways that we can improve how we serve our communities. I think for me, I would love to see folks who are listening to our podcast to take a moment and think about which of the ways they could start to improve how they serve their communities. Whether it's developing relationships or working on having a staff that reflects their community or looking at how their services and collections can best provide for people in their communities. There's so much we can do, just pick one place you're going to start today. 

Joan Vigil:  

Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think it'll make a world of difference. 

Kristen Curé:  

Well, thank you. This was such a great conversation. I appreciate it. 

Joan Vigil: 

Yeah, thank you. 

Kristen Curé:  

We'll catch you all in the next podcast episode. 

[Voiceover] 

OVERDUE: Weeding Out Oppression in Libraries would not be possible without the generous support from the Oregon Library Association and the State Library of Oregon, whose mission is to provide leadership and resources to continue growing vibrant library services for Oregonians.

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 enforced 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.

[Outro Music Playing]