by Ellen-Rae Cachola, JCLC Travel Award recipient
February 8-12, 2023 was the first time I attended the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC). The conference spoke to relevant issues affecting racialized groups in our communities and in our information profession. Words shared from different National Associations of Librarians of Color (NALCo) resonated with me, such as the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA), REFORMA, American Indian Library Association (AILA), and Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA).
I learned that our purpose as librarians, archivists, and information workers is to support public access to education, information, and knowledge services. But there is a need to organize our colleagues and communities, locally, regionally, and nationally, to coordinate and align our purposes. While institutions are now implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, there are also shortcomings in these policies. Blatant acts of racial, gender, class, and immigration discrimination are on the rise in different levels of government and among the public.
JCLC featured speakers who discussed how we can use information and organization to challenge racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, xenophobia, and continue to advocate for the freedom to read.
- Rachel E. Cargle and Julius C. Jefferson, Jr. discussed Rachelʻs new book A Renaissance of Our Own. Rachel is a community leader who took the initiative to organize and distribute learning resources to Black women and girls, such as mental health therapies and writing workshops. She also organized opportunities to educate white women on racism and was unapologetic about getting compensated for that work. While she isn’t a librarian, she modeled innovative tactics and strategies for using information to connect, heal, and transform communities.
- During the Q&A and forum sessions throughout the conference, I heard many anecdotes from conference participants about the backlash they received from members of their organizations and communities for addressing racism and implementing DEI into their library programs. Some experienced intimidation from others when they placed a Black Lives Matter sign on their window, featured a trans person during a children’s storytime, or tried to be their authentic selves within a predominantly white workplace.
- In the panel “A Place at the Table: The Jewish Community Within the Library Diversity World,” I learned from a Jewish librarian about antisemitism’s connection to racism. The history of Jewish expulsion throughout Europe was based on notions of blood purity, which eventually informed white supremacist laws that would relegate African people to enslavement and second-class citizenship in the Americas. This talk brought up histories that could be pathways for white and BIPOC librarians to work across the color and culture lines to address discrimination in public policy and attitudes.
There were speakers who talked about how we can influence our institutional administrations, state legislatures, congressional leaders, and broader public to understand and defend the freedom to read and the freedom of information that underlie our profession.
- One panel talked about DEI initiatives at the student and administrative levels. An Asian American librarian’s presentation, “Supporting Student Unity and Agency in the Asian-identified Students After the ‘China Virus,’” revealed how she took initiative to reach out to Asian American students on campus to nurture their leadership in raising awareness about anti-Asian violence and to implement strategies to undo ingrained biases within the curriculum and school culture.
- Another librarian presented “Beyond Performative: Experiences of an Action-focused DEIA Committee,” which discussed how she collectively organized goals and timelines with her colleagues at the faculty, staff, and administrative levels to advocate for DEI positions, and to ensure that BIPOC-informed priorities would be implemented. She also talked about how to navigate various emotional responses and communication blockages when colleagues and administrators are uncomfortable discussing conscious and unconscious biases within themselves.
- Another panel, “See Change: BIPOC Worker-Led Collective Approaches,” discussed advocating for better pay and positions for qualified DEI staff members by utilizing academic worker organizing tactics. They developed core committees consisting of students, staff, and faculty so that their demands could be pushed through higher levels of the organization, utilizing the solidarity they created with one another. Through these inroads, they were able to influence administrators to open up and hire a DEI staff member who was qualified and committed to implementing goals that were reflective of the demands of students, staff, and faculty of vulnerable BIPOC backgrounds.
I also learned about archival and information services that were based on serving those in the community.
- In “BIPOC Memory Keepers, Solidarity, and Collective Power,” I learned that the Arizona State University Library Community-Driven Archives Initiative and Labriola National American Indian Data Center are engaged in initiatives to build Black archives and Native American information services to counter the white settler narrative that dominates Arizona state history. They saw their archives as the antidote to racist state policies that disproportionately impacted Latine, Asian, Pacific Islander, Black, and Native peoples. They advocated for their collections by developing community-driven archival programs and raised funds to carry out innovative services relevant to marginalized communities’ information needs.
- In “Sankofa, Osiyo and Adelante! Tulsa City-County Library’s Journey to EDI: The Case for Resource Centers,” panelists discussed how they reached out to Latine and Black communities. Each community had diverse perspectives. The Resource Center coordinators organized programs and events that would reach out to these various interests in the community, including cultural activities, book talks, and site visits of historic places, such as the site of the Tulsa race massacre.
I also felt that people were tired of leading DEI initiatives and had to deal with the emotional labor of receiving backlash or discomfort from others. But I also listened to the wisdom that conference participants shared. Librarians and archivists work to facilitate the remembering of our histories, which includes the experiences of pain, trauma, and displacement of all our peoples. But also, librarians and archivists hold information that inspires hope and healing to educate our communities and our nation as a whole on how to live better with one another. We are stewards of information and collections that remember the historical patterns that enacted and reproduce oppressions, as well as stories and histories of people changing oppressive mindsets and helping each other.
- In the panel “Radical Practices of Love and Healing: Unmasking and Undoing the Personal, Professional, and Intersectional Interstices of Whiteness in Higher Education, I learned about the concept “microaffection,” or showing and giving thanks to others when we do see and receive support and help from others.
- Reyna Grande gave a talk about her book A Ballad of Love and Glory that shared insight about understanding one another across race and ethnic lines, and crossing boundaries that may have made us ignorant of one another. Her story reminded me of our work as holders of information—we provide opportunities for people to learn each other’s histories, to change our attitudes and former perspectives, to create connection and humane relationships with one another instead.
BIPOC librarians in the ranks of the information economy reminded me of our purpose to protect, defend, and draw from our own wells of ancestral resistance and resilience to keep our community memories alive and consciously aware of where we can go as a society.
Attending JCLC as a person of Filipino descent residing in Hawaiʻi, I asked how to start an APALA chapter where I live. While I did receive instructions on how to do so, I also asked about the word “American” in the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association. I am sensitive to Native Hawaiian history, and America is sometimes seen as a colonizer and occupier of Hawaiʻi. The U.S. overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom and has been using Hawaiʻi’s land for military and corporate purposes, leading to land and cultural displacement of Native Hawaiians, exploitation of immigrants, and endangerment of our resources, such as what is happening with the aquifer at Red Hill. Hawaiʻi is being used as a stepping stone for militaristic U.S. foreign policies that lead to the military build up of Pacific Island and Asian nations. Some in Hawaiʻi hold the perspective that our library affairs should not be associated with America because of the long history of distrust with the United States.
But JCLC showed me that not all people in America are the same. JCLC has brought together different ethnic communities that also experience police violence, settler colonialism, militarism, imperialism, displacement, discrimination, abuse, and exploitation. There are many Americans who experience micro- and structural aggressions because of their skin color, ethnicity, class, gender, immigration status, and indigeneity. I learned a lot dialoguing and listening to JCLC attendees struggling with various forms of oppression in the continental U.S. Many people in Hawaiʻi have families in the continental U.S. Many issues in America affect Hawaiʻi because our government operates as the 50th state.
In addition, the people of Hawaiʻi, the Pacific, and Asia, are affected by American policies. Our profession’s leaders lobby representatives in the U.S. Congress so that public libraries and archives can receive funding to serve public education and preserve community heritages. I look forward to more people of Hawaiʻi connecting with JCLC and other NALCo to communicate our professional and institutional needs to other information workers at the national level, so that library and archival needs in our region will not be marginalized and unheard.
Editing support by Kim Nguyen.