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Anecdotes
8:15 AM EST 3/1/08
I received a call today from one of our Spanish-speaking patrons. Maria is a native of Mexico, and the concept of library usage was foreign to her until two years ago when she attended our first Latino Family Night. She has been sold on the library since then, and she calls me and visits the library at least once a week with her seven year old daughter in tow.
Maria is an avid reader, and last year when I wrote a grant to begin our library's Spanish-language collection, she was super enthusiastic. She called me regularly to find out if we had received the books. She wanted to be the first one to see the collection and to check out books. She still calls me every week to see if we have any new books in. If we do, she comes in immediately to check them out. Hungry for knowledge, she often requests books. A few months ago she told me she wanted to read the biography of "el moreno," Martin Luther King Jr. Our library didn't own a MLK's biography in Spanish. Did I put in an order for it? You bet I did!
Last summer, Maria signed her daughter up for the summer reading program, and if her work schedule permitted, she made sure to be at the library for any of the special programs. She is truly concerned about her daughter and her education, helping her and ensuring that she does her homework and gets good grades. It's not unusual to get a phone call from her asking about a word or phrase that she does not understand while helping her daughter with her homework. When the school sent a note to parents with information for checking their child's progress online, she made a beeline for the library so that I could teach her how to access the records.
She signed herself and her husband to take our Spanish computer classes. Unfortunately, he never did make it because he works long hours at a bakery (5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.). Sometimes she would come in late to class because the family had only one car, and she had to wait for him to come home from work. One time, she told me that she was impatiently waiting for him to get home, and when he arrived he was too tired and indecisive of whether to go to class or not. She impatiently told him, "Either you drive me, or I am leaving without you, but I am going to the computer class." He retorted, "My friends back home warned me about coming to the U.S. They said that women are too liberated here, and they are right. And what can a man do? Nothing, because then they call the police and the men get hauled to jail." Well, I'm so proud of her, she not only took the classes, but she repeated them twice just to make sure she didn't forget what she had learned. This past "Black Friday" after Thanksgiving, she bought her family an inexpensive computer at Wal-Mart. I was impressed when she called to tell me that she had set up the computer all by herself -- and the instructions were in English! She is online now.
Now that Maria has a computer, she is investing in other electronic devices to use with it. She bought herself an ipod, and not only does she download music, but also ESL podcasts. She bought herself a digital camera to take pictures and send them home to Mexico via email. She came into the library with camera in hand to take pictures of her daughter in the children's library, using the children's computers, by the Spanish language collection, and right before they left, she asked if she could take a picture of me with her daughter. I was humbled.
Maria is such an enthusiastic library user, that I consider her our library's Embajadora (Ambassador). I've had people come in and ask for me specifically and say, "My neighbor told me that if there is a book I want to read, and the library doesn't have it, you can order it. Is that true?" When I ask who their neighbor is, I find out it's Maria! We wrote a grant right before Christmas to buy the English course Ingles Sin Barreras, and I asked Maria to write a letter of support to send in with the grant. She was more than happy to write it. Soon after that, I had people coming in asking if Ingles Sin Barreras was in yet, because Maria had told them that we were getting it.
Probably the most humbling experience for me is to see how appreciative she is of the library's outreach. On several occasions, she has brought me little gifts -- tokens of her thankfulness. One one occasion, she brought me bread from the bakery where her husband works, and this past Valentine's Day, she brought me a chocolate covered apple. Sometimes she just calls in or drops by just to chat. She's a real sweetheart.
I wish that more people in the Spanish-speaking community were as enthusiastic about libraries as Maria is. Sometimes I get discouraged because many do not take advantage of the services we provide, whether it's because fear, or because of their tiring work schedules, or because of lack of child care, or just because of apathy. One of the community leaders that I interviewed for the SLO workshops once told me, " You do what you can, and work with the ones that show up. Work with the ones who do care." My library director once told me, "Even if we have one person show up for any of our Spanish language programming - that's a gain!"
Maria called me today. This time, she was concerned because her purse had been stolen, and she needed to replace her library card. She came in and told me what had happened. Maria works as a maid in a hotel, and she usually keeps her purse in her service cart as she goes from room to room. Last week, some rude hotel guests were heckling her and making fun of her. She ignored them, and went about her business. Only to find out later, that they had taken her purse. She had $150 in cash for groceries for the week, her ID, and her credit card. She notified the bank, and she was informed that charges had already been made on her card -- $60.00 at a gas station, and a charge at Victoria's Secret. The bank canceled her card, and she will not liable for the charges, but she was without grocery money and won't be able to get an appointment with the Consulate for an ID until April.
It is at times like these that I know that I am in the right place, and that I'm doing the right thing. Even if it's only to listen to people's problems and give them encouragement. We all have troubling times, and I can't imagine how much more troubling and difficult it is when one is in a foreign country and cannot communicate adequately. My heart goes out to people like Maria who are truly trying to succeed in life and encounter many challenges that make it quite difficult.
In conclusion, I just want to encourage all of my fellow SLO trainers and participants out there to "keep on keeping on". You are making a difference in someone's life.
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