When I was a child, I devoured books. To me, the library was a launchpad to worlds far larger than my own. It was a home away from home; I would walk into the library, breathe in the air, and feel safe. When I was still a toddler, this was the place where my mother brought me and my siblings for storytime, a tradition that launched all three of her children into a lifetime of literacy.
When I was three, I colored on library books because I learned that, if you did so, you got to keep the books forever. When I was ten, I walked to the library for the first time and spent my summers sweating as I walked the hot sidewalks and relaxing in the cool AC of our neighborhood branch as I devoured book after book.
When I was twelve, my siblings and I discovered the Series of Unfortunate Events and raced to see who could finish the series first. When I was 14, I used the library to research babysitting because I was going on my first babysitting job. When I was a high school student, libraries were my study haven and dream generator. Libraries were the place where I could explore places far away from my small town and where I could imagine myself in new situations, where I found I could be anything β a detective, a girl living in World War II America, a princess, a traveler in a fantasy land, a time traveler β as long as I was white.
I am not white. I am brown. I am the product of a biracial marriage, with a white father and a Mexican mother, a child of immigrantes. I lived a diverse life, yet libraries, my safe space, my haven, did not tell me about these stories. Librarians did not recommend to me these books that I now know exist. I did not find Hispanic voices in displays. I say this because I am not the only LatinX child who enters libraries to find a safe space.
It was a way to escape the unhappiness of my home, actually. And it was a safe space. Yet, are we doing all that we can do to make a safe space for all children?
