NEW
Library Project
Volume 3, Number 1 - Fall 2004
Range of
Readers Touched by Stories
by Lenora Kandiner
People and Stories—Gente y Cuentos is reaching readers from Connecticut to Texas, readers of all ages, ethnicities and skill levels. Here are some stories from the field:
Baytown, a petrochemical industry town east of Houston, is home to a large Hispanic population. The local library provides small group English literacy instruction, and librarians launched People and Stories with one of the advanced ESL groups—all female, native Spanish speakers—as way of challenging these students to discuss powerful themes in English, their second language.
Jamie Eustace, the library’s literacy coordinator, said that “not only did they demonstrate considerable development in their English conversation skills, they also expressed that the experience of hearing and sharing ideas about the stories was personally enriching.”
For instance, Alice Walker’s “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self” sparked a lively discussion of differences between Mexico and the United States in workplace discrimination based on appearance.
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Jaime Prothro, in Wichita, Kansas, worked with a group of teenaged boys: all had struggled with at-risk behavior, gang influence, drugs and theft. She wrote, “Above all, the participants showed a fierce desire to break free from this and achieve something with their lives…The greatest outcome of this program, though, it is a definitive recognition among the students that what they say, no matter if it is viewed right or wrong, is valuable.”
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Conroe, Texas, about an hour north of Houston, is an example of a successful cooperative project with a local partner. Outreach librarian Barbara Miller is working with the Newcomers’ Center, a community development organization for recent immigrants. Miller wrote, “The comment that was made again and again by participants …was that they had learned more because of the discussions than they could have gotten by reading the stories alone…Many of the participants said that they had come to trust the group and that it felt like family.” And word has spread: Library Director Jerilynn Williams said more Hispanic patrons are using the library now.
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Naples, Florida librarian Roberta Reiss is doing an outreach program at a shelter for homeless males who have physical disabilities, severe health problems or past substance addictions. An on-site social worker said the men hardly spoke to each other before, even though they were living in close proximity; during People and Stories sessions, they engaged in intense discussions, especially triggered by Peter Cameron’s “Homework,” Louise Erdrich’s “The Shawl” and Chinua Achebe’s “Marriage is a Private Affair.”
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And, as always, People and Stories—Gente y Cuentos fostered unexpected connections. In discussing Isabel Allende’s “Dos Palabras,” San Francisco librarian Martha Arroyo-Neves told how she used to travel with her grandmother through small towns near their home to sell old clothes and fabrics; often she was the messenger between families or friends. A new member of the group said that the story sounded familiar; they discovered that she was from Arroyo-Neves’s grandmother’s hometown, and that the librarian knew her family.