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Is anybody using book discussion groups as way of either building community, or promoting dialogue about current events within a community?

I ask because last night this came up at my library book club. We were discussing T.C. Boyle's The Tortilla Curtain and it sparked a really interesting discussion on race and immigration. Members of my book club all live in the same neighborhood (our meetings often end with "neighborhood" business being discussed). Our neighborhood is a very diverse community (I think over 80 languages are spoken in the legislative district that includes our neighborhood), with in particular, a large first, second, and third generation Latino community and large immigrant southeast asian community (there are many other cultural groups represented as well). Sometimes there are misunderstandings between neighbors, that probably have to do more with not understanding cultural differences or perhaps language barriers--I'm not sure.

But, I was so inspired by our discussion last night and thought I might propose to our library if there could be some kind of book group that used literature as a touchpoint for a discussion about issues we are experiencing in the neighborhood.

I know literacy levels are not the same throughout members of the neighborhood (one of my neighbors recently admitted to me that he can't read--though he goes to the library all the time to check out movies and CDs!).

So, has anybody had any experience with starting something like this?

Thanks,
Emily