Safhat Sophie

This blog fulfills a requirement for a Library Science class. I am though delighted to be forced into doing something like this as it seems like much fun. By means of introduction: I work for a public library doing outreach and programming for the international community. I have worked with this library for six plus years and have had the delight to work  and  collaborate with many different agencies serving this community and have been most touched by the men, women and children who by happenstance or choice found themselves settling in to this Kentucky metropolis. 

 

I myself had fled my hometown soon after college graduation having gotten a taste of larger locales and the myriad of delights they had to offer. As a teenager, I often visited my mother and little brothers who had resettled in Washington DC. My mother’s office was down the street from the Library of Congress. In university I had spent a year in England and a semester in Spain. While here in the Midwest I was very active with the international student club and there found refuge from the terrorizing sorority girls who drove me to the brink of insanity by their badgering and unpleasantness. I lived in an apartment complex with Iraqis and Palestinians and spent late night hours with mostly a foreign born crowd. We all had our various reasons for not fitting in to a southern Indiana small town. (Mine mostly having to do with a shaved head and the predilection of dressing like a 12 year old, male, Minor Threat fan.)  In the library we of different disciplines would sit side by side and enjoy discourse of many a disparate field. Having been reared in my formative years in a book store I would walk the aisles and sniff, inhale, and be at peace. I would pull books and browse the table of contents for some kernel of validation for whatever new theory I felt the need to inflict on those around me. These days the computers (something I had only touched a handful of time in high school as they were still such a novelty) were in a separate computer lab and were just for typing!  

 

I spent time living in New York after graduation – spending a lot of time in the library on the Upper West side my first year and the remainder at the Brooklyn Library on Flatbush. Living in Crown Heights Brooklyn and working with teen girls in state care from areas such as Harlem and the Bronx again made me a minority. Being a secular person of limited means, that need for community and shared experience always was met in long hours reading or perusing the public libraries.  After five long years of losing my heart to children abused, neglected, and destined to face insurmountable challenges (and a restraining order against a male teenager who threatened my life from the other end of a baseball bat that came down inches from me onto a tv set that had once spent hour upon hour polluting my girls with the “WB” and talk shows to which they continually interacted – truly seeming to think their colorful opinions would be heard by the guests that even still could be portrayed as having it “ worse off” than they) I began to long for the peaceful life of academia and a life time of Stafford Loan debt.

 

Not being able to afford higher education in New York City (fantasies of the New School as unattainable as affording daily organic food) I returned home. I earned a Masters in Political Science and landed a position as an R.A in the process. This job was heavenly as it allowed a research (mini) room for me in the university library. Need I say I was in heaven to have my own piece of library in which I could hunker down and lose myself in the valley of the word.

 

I found a position in Japan teaching English on a university campus. My vision was to spend a few years in multiple countries – learn a few languages – and move back to D.C or NYC to work in international advocacy. The United Nations was the normal fantasy destination of choice.

 

I write this first entry on September 11 and feel such a release at this moment in time as I can finally, for the first time,  cry today. I went a whole work day wanting to talk about it with someone but now it is as if we do not even acknowledge the significance of the day. It changed so many of us forever. I was on holiday from my position in Japan about to fly back on September 14. My job was given away to someone else as I could not leave the country and though I was offered an office type job with the same company I could not get on a plane even when it was permissible. I could not understand the world or where I fit in it. I could not leave my hometown.

 

I found a position with the public library in the children’s department – driving a bookmobile and reading stories to children. I love children. I did not love the bookmobile. I try not to be negative but driving that vehicle was one of the most unpleasant things in my life. I was ever encouraged by the purpose and the smiles I knew we would receive upon arrival but every journey put many lives on the road at risk. I was not a very skilled driver. My favorite part of this job was visiting the community centers and apartment complexes which housed the foreign born. I realized more and more I just wanted to be with them – working with and serving this particular population.

 

When my current position opened up it was a perfect match. With funding cuts and staff shortages my job is being pared back and I think fondly on how much time and how many resources I was allowed to use in pursuit of this work. As I work on my degree to be a “for real” librarian I wish only for opportunities to use my skills and passion to introduce this population to the public library, life time learning and community.

 

This morning on my outreach to the refugee resettlement agency I brought books and movies and music to Iraqi refugees starting over from a disaster that need not have been , Karen ( from Karen State in Burma) who are suffering systematic destruction of their people by the most brutal means  possible – smiling and proudly showing one another their library cards. Their U.S library card which we will fight to signify intellectual freedom, equal access, critical thought, a means for cultural heritage and sense of belonging, and life time learning at arms reach of those so different and yet so very much the same.

 

Peace to us all this September 11^th and welcome to my blog.

Libraries and Refugees

In my job as a community outreach coordinator I get to meet every incoming refugee, thanks to a 5 year  collaboration with our refugee resettlement agencies. It is truly a perfect arrangement. I am able to make everyone a library card within days of their arrival to Louisville. I then see them weekly and am in such a position to  get to know them as individuals – the circumstances of their arrivals, the challenges they face and their dreams and their passions; not to mention their favorite Bollywood actors.  A vast majority of the individuals I work with have quite a penchant for Hindi movies. This has included Somalis, Sudanese, Albanians, Meskhetain Turks, Bhutanese, and Afghanis to name but a few. I have not yet experienced a Cuban or Vietnamese patron ask for Sushmita Sen but I feel it is coming. (Our films are all a bit dated.)  I am very interested in the burgeoning Nigerian film industry and need to learn much more about the Swahili market. It is an interesting question in collections. The need is there. There are a million reserves on each title we own and yet there is hesitancy amongst some to grow the collection as the films are not considered educational. I personally have never watched a Bollywood film from beginning to end, though I have been known to dance around and swoon to the synchronized movements of young celluloid Indian actors. But I think the cross cultural experience involved with the sharing of this bloated, at times grotesque, and often visually and aurally  stunning industry is remarkable. We need more. I am eager to take a class on collections as it is such a wonder world to me. Such power lies in the office that actually picks and chooses what gets purchased. Granted, outsourcing often involves someone from the outside selecting from a list but there is still so much freedom and choice that goes with a library our size. The “give them what they want” versus “what they need” is age old – as is the question of neutrality and objectivity in your selection process – impossible indeed!

 

 The clientele I work with are small in number but big in need. When there are budget cuts sometimes such voices aren’t going to rise to the top of the list. There is also a high percentage of language learning material that disappears. I meet people new to the city, often in trauma or shock on so many levels. They have a limited time to learn English then are turned loose on the world. The jobs they take are often grueling and beneath that which they are accustomed to – or in such a different realm ( Bantu farmer learning to stand in a factory for 10 hour shifts with high tech machines to run) that they are all consumed. Meanwhile the children learn English swiftly though not in such a manner to produce adequately in their grade level classes. There is no help with homework in the home and often no relationship with the schools and suddenly the adolescents in a search for self begin adopting US customs that don’t jibe with home traditions and the mix is lethal. So that language learning material falls to the way side. Or in a good case we find them again – in their houses of worship, in their grocery, at social events and attempt to reconnect them with the library. Remind them that when they have time, we can continue to help with English, computer skills, and better job placement. The children can come to find help with homework and cultural programs can be organized to reignite a pride in home. Now when dealing with refugees from a war torn area these showcases of culture can be a nightmare. Opposing sides want you to pick who exactly you are representing – ethnically or religiously or by recognizing one community leader over another. At times there is no way to be inclusive, try as one might, and it is quite sad. The only hope lies in the children. If through interaction at school, on the playground, in the apartment complexes and in the library they can overcome the obstacles of centuries old conflict in their homeland then all should be well. The worry is not from different nations as our library has various little posses of kids from Vietnam, Mexico, Sudan and Somalia – all running around together – ripping thorough computer programs like they were weaned on Xbox instead of the difficult infancies in refugee camps, campos and urban blight. They can – did I actually just almost use the word Pimp as a verb – fandango their myspace sites to the greatest heights. And yet their reading levels may still be on a third grade level when they turn 17 and the humiliation and frustration they face in the mainstream science class may be enough to make them give up. This I have witnessed with some of my Somali boys and it breaks my heart. They have spent years in the library after school but some gave up long ago on the studying. Others have such potential and we feed and water and hope that our tiny dab in the educational big picture will be enough to make up for innumerable set backs. We set out books by the likes of Mawi Asgedom who in his memoir Of Beetles and Angels discusses his struggles and accomplishments as he eventually reached Harvard.  Nice recognition of the role of the public library in his life as well.  From his perspective he can even add insight on the youth of the U.S.

 

On whether American teens are spoiled and immature: “I think teens in other countries would often do anything to have the opportunities American teens have. By and large, American teens are great people, but they don’t always have the drive to succeed, because they don’t have to.”

On whether American teens are growing up in a sick culture: “The world is putting stuff into teens’ minds very early — even 8 or 9. Parents need to be putting the right stuff in even earlier. I think parents like to think, ‘I know what’s going on in my teenager’s life because I was a teenager.’ Not true. It’s a different world.”

On what parents can do to help their adolescent children: “Plant the right values. A parent who wants to encourage the quality of giving should do community service projects together (with their child). Talk about what character is about. There’s got to be a lot of respect for what kids know. Listen with your ears open.”

 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/139708_moment16.html

 

So as social worker, educator, advocate and friend somehow the modern librarian must embrace an age old tradition of helping newly arrived men and women find a home in the United States and embrace life long learning as a way to connect with their youth and maintain cultural traditions that will be a defense against  pockets of depravity in US culture instead of losing their youth as they struggle for a self identity and adoption of often times, in poor areas, the worst elements of teen culture. At the same time we can work to teach civics, civil liberties, and social justice to enhance the positive attributes of our fine country that will, ideally, allow everyone a fighting chance.

The problem is advocating for the future of the US (demographically speaking) who may not speak English, may not vote and may not fall high on agendas.  This is the population of tomorrow and if we do not invest in their library experience, it will surely come back to haunt us all. This is our history and it is our future – as public librarians in the United States – to represent equal access and service, to all.