From Italian language books to Mandarin story time: Influences of new residents on the local library

• In Event: 30420 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 6: Race, Place Making, and Culture

Abstract

Libraries have played and continue to play important roles in the life of a community, providing individuals with free access to books and other forms of information, serving as a community gathering center, and increasingly a source of assistance for the neediest. They also play a particularly critical and specific role for immigrants, with research illustrating the role of libraries in incorporating newcomers into American society (Grossman et al., 2022). These institutions offer everything from ESOL classes to information on citizenship acquisition, aiding important forms of incorporation (Gordon, 1964). What has received scant attention is the ways in which new residents shape this institution, which in turn, educates and redirects the larger community in which it is situated, speaking to a process of neo-assimilation (Alba & Nee, 2003). The project is based upon in-depth interviews, archival data, and participant observations to better understand how and through what mechanisms new residents shape the local library. The data illustrate three main ways in which immigrant and ethnic groups alter this local institution, and thus, the larger community through 1) the diversification of staff, volunteers, and patrons, 2) the development of a more diversified collection, and 3) the growth of multi-cultural and multi-lingual programming that serves as a form of “public” education.

Author

• Catherine Simpson Bueker, Emmanuel College