by Michael Lambert, City Librarian of San Francisco
The City of San Francisco is known for many things: cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf, our hills, and our unique vibrancy and embrace of inclusivity and diverse cultures and lifestyles. San Francisco is also home to the largest and oldest Chinatown in the country, established in 1848, and benefits from a growing, diverse Asian American community that now represents over one-third (37.2%) of the location population.
A few years back during the COVID-19 pandemic, like many major cities across the country, San Francisco experienced a sharp rise in anti-Asian racism. In January 2021, the tragic killing of an 84-year-old Thai elder, Vicha Ratanapakdee, a result of his being forcefully pushed to the ground in a daylight attack, became a lightning rod for the Stop AAPI Hate movement. It was in this tense climate that the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) partnered with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and community partners, the Booker T. Washington Center, the Chinese Historical Society of America, and the Asian Pacific American Heritage Foundation, to stand together and recognize the shared struggle of our African American and Asian American communities against the multiple forms of discrimination and racism that combine, overlap and intersect to affect our communities.
Together with the support of these prominent nonprofit organizations, SFPL and our sister department was able to organize what has now become an annual joint celebration of Black History Month and Lunar New Year entitled: “Drumbeats, Heartbeats – Communities As One.” The inaugural event four years ago witnessed a tremendous turnout and featured what has become a tradition with the program beginning with a procession of traditional African drummers coupled with a lion dance troupe leading program participants from outside the building into the Main Library’s beautiful atrium. The procession inevitably guides patrons into the Koret Auditorium on the lower level of the Main Library for an engaging program expertly curated every year with engagement from our library’s Chinese Center and African American Center staff.
The event has featured top-shelf talent over the years including Filipina rapper Ruby Ibarra and former San Francisco Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin. This past February’s joint celebration and 4th annual Drumbeats, Heartbeats event featured the local favorite Lion Dance Me troupe and Duniya Dance & Drum leading the procession before incredible performances from our current S.F. Poet Laureate Genny Lim, the first Chinese American to serve in this post, and new Vice Youth Poet Laureate Aisha McCulloch.
Community based organizations and nonprofits are invited to table during the event to showcase the good work they are doing in the community. The library purchases a robust selection of books celebrating African American and Asian American history and culture for free distribution to all attendees to take home and keep. The event culminates with everyone breaking bread enjoying a down-home meal of southern style soul food coupled with traditional Asian fare. The Friends & Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library has enthusiastically supported this program from its inception.
As the first Asian American City Librarian for the San Francisco Public Library leading an institution with a diverse workforce that features 45% of our staff identifying as Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, and/or Filipino, it has been deeply gratifying to mobilize our library system’s organizational resources to support greater cultural awareness and healing in our community.
At its core, the goal of Drumbeats, Heartbeats has been to dispel the narrative that our African American community and our diverse Asian American communities cannot coexist and thrive in community with one another. This effort supports the library’s mission to connect our diverse communities to learning, opportunity and each other. As a nod to the growing importance of our diverse Asian American community, San Francisco’s Mayor Daniel Lurie can often be heard remarking “… So goes Chinatown, so goes San Francisco…”. The San Francisco Public Library embraces its role as an anchor institution to serve as a cultural amplifier and support our vision for a democratic, equitable, and vibrant San Francisco for everyone, where our library workers and library system helps our residents live their best lives.
