Infrastuctures of Opportunity

I recently finished reading American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures, compiled and edited by America Ferrera. In this amazing collection of personal stories from thirty-one of her friends, peers, and heroes, we see how each develop a sense of identity as they struggle with what it means to be “American” while also maintaining their understanding of their other cultural identities. They are all immigrants, children or grandchildren of immigrants, or indigenous people.

While I was entertained, moved, and inspired by all of the stories, I was struck by a comment made by Joaquin Castro, a US Congressman representing Texas’ 20th Congressional District. In his story, he talked about the US providing an “infrastructure of opportunity” and the importance that infrastructure played in his family; from his grandmother with little education to him serving in Congress and his twin brother Julian serving as mayor of San Antonio and then in President Barack Obama’s cabinet.

Castro tied his comment on the infrastructure of opportunity to immigrants, people of color, and others caught in systemic poverty. This infrastructure of opportunity has been a hallmark of US culture, though often one that has been denigrated and denied to many. If we are to be a world leader we must embrace and grow the infrastructure of opportunity for all, especially to the underrepresented and underserved.

As I’ve reflected on Castro’s comments the world of libraries immediately came to mind.  Libraries, both public and academic, have provided part of that infrastructure of opportunity – an opening of the world of information and knowledge that can change individuals and the world. Two examples from the academic world help illustrate this.

In a recent post, a Tony Zanders, a colleague at Boston University, reflected on diversity residency programs after participating in the IDEAL Conference at Ohio State University. One of the key takeaways from his reflection, for me, is the need for academic libraries to build an infrastructure of opportunity for librarians of color that breaks down racism, does not tokenize the resident, and provides real opportunities for both the resident and the library that employees them. While he doesn’t provide a solution he does raise some critical issues on how the current infrastructure can be racist and tokenizes the resident in ways that doesn’t help these new librarians nor does it help the sponsoring library.

The second idea came from my own reflection on a question I was asked during a job interview by Dr. Barbara Turnage, an African American professor of social work at Middle Tennessee State University. She wanted to know what an academic library might do to change the opportunities for children of color in the local public schools. Having had a couple of weeks now to reflect on the question, I think that an academic library, especially one, that supports a teacher education program, could address some issues of structural racism in its children’s literature collection. 

Children’s literature in the US has been traditionally white, with few if any characters representing children of color in a positive and affirming way. In recent years there has been a surge of new books for children through young adult, which have children of color or LGBT individuals as main characters represented in a positive light. Now that this literature is being published and distributed by mainstream publishers it needs to begin finding its way into children’s literature collections in academic libraries. Making sure that this new literature is being seen by students preparing to teach could be helpful.

I will confess I’ve not given enough thought about school libraries, other than acknowledging that they can play an important part in a child’s education. In schools with a diverse group of students, it is critical to have library books that represent and celebrate diversity. Students should not grow up with books where they cannot see themselves as characters in the story.  Nigerian-American YA author Tomi Adeyemi, noted that she was able to write only white characters until she began to encounter characters of color. As part of building an infrastructure of opportunity, as a measure of community outreach, an academic library might help fundraise for books for school libraries or for classrooms. Every academic institution wants to be involved in and make a difference in their local community. The academic library could help lead a campus initiative that would involve the library, student groups across campus, and a variety of academic programs on campus.

Infrastructures of opportunity are everywhere if we want to look. Libraries are one place that are doing this consistently and where library leaders are always looking for ways to increase their impact.

What infrastructure of opportunity will you help build?