Quick Summary
Latinx library professionals play a crucial role in creating environments that promote knowledge, community, and inclusion. To honor and highlight these individuals, we will be sharing their stories in the coming weeks. This week’s story comes from Tana Lucero, a youth services librarian at the Duluth Public Library.
In her role as youth services librarian, Tana celebrates diverse cultures and backgrounds to create a welcoming environment for all. Do you have a Latinx library story to tell? Share it with us via our Google Form.
Please share a bit about your background and what led you to work in libraries.
My dad was a Chicano artist, and my flower-child mother worked in restaurants for most of her working years, using her artistic sensibilities to make childhood magical on a next-to-nothing income. Our house was lined with overflowing bookcases and lively conversations filled with deep metaphysics and wild creativity. Conversations regularly started with, "I just finished a really cool book " or "Have you read this yet?" and then an impromptu book talk would start that sometimes (usually) had significant spoilers in it, but the story was never ruined. Curiosity had been piqued and the books were shared and shared again.
I accidentally started working in libraries late in my life, but the ethos of learning, curiosity and discovery was instantly familiar, harkening back to those shared books and reverence for ideas. These days, a lot of my workplace conversations start with references to podcasts about science and history - but almost all of those start with an author speaking about the book they just wrote. Sometimes I'm startled to find myself working in a government institution, but then I look around at all the books and remember this has always been my place.
How do you see your role in libraries impacting the Latinx community, and/or other underrepresented communities?
Well, I hope I am making a positive difference in the library - helping make the library a more welcoming and engaging place for everyone. I think I'm always looking for ways to integrate cultural elements from a variety of ethnicities in a way that is celebratory and informative and matter of fact, in a very intentional way. I wish we could move away from the special months and special days, and just have cultural and historical elements integrated throughout the year. I try to do this in my displays and programming, in the hopes that it becomes normal for everyone. Everyone benefits from knowing the truth about our shared history - about the world's shared history. It's important to recognize the painful things and also celebrate the beauty. It is important to see and be seen.
What would you like others to know about the importance of diversity and representation in libraries?
It is not enough to buy diverse materials or to occasionally bring in diverse presenters. It is vital to have diverse staff helping to craft the spaces and offerings that libraries provide. You don't know what you don't know - so it is important to widen the profession so that the institutional knowledge itself is diverse and dynamic.
