Operation Book Bomb Tuscon

Open letter from the People’s Library regarding Operation Book Bomb Tuscon. 

Dear Friends and Allies of The People’s Library,

I am writing to update you on our most recent campaign and to ask for your assistance. As hopefully you have already heard The People’s Library in solidarity with Occupy Tucson recently launched an action called Operation Book Bomb Tucson. www.peopleslibrary.wordpress.com In response to the disgraceful decision of the Tucson Unified School District to end the Mexican-American Studies program and to ban books from the school curriculum The People’s Library is holding a series of book drives to support the students and teachers of Tucson.

  • The third book donation event is TBA but will be held in Sunset Park, Brooklyn in conjunction with the Sunset Park General Assembly (Sunset GA contact me atfranceslikespeace@gmail.com)

For these events we are asking people to bring any Spanish language books, books on Mexican history, or books on Latino culture to donate to Tucson. In addition to this we would like to have teach-ins and readings on topics such as educational oppression, immigrant rights, and Mexican-American history. We are reaching out to you our friends and allies to support us in the following areas. Here is some of what we need:

  • Speakers/Teachers willing to share their time on Sunday, February 26 in Tompkins Sq and or on Thursday, March 1 in Washington Heights. Chris Hedges is already scheduled to speak on March 1, but we are looking for additional people to help educate us and the visiting public on issues regarding Immigrant rights and education in our society. If you are knowledgeable or know someone who is knowledgeable on these issues, and would be willing to hold a teach-in please contact us ASAP atowspeopleslibrary@gmail.com
  • Outreach and Press We want to spread the word to the Latino community throughout New York City. I have written to Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez regarding this event but I have not yet heard back from his office. If anyone has a contact within his office please let us know. Additionally we would like to have announcements made on WBAI 99.5FM as well as the Spanish language radio station MEGA 97.9FM. If anyone has contacts for these stations please pass them onto us. Also we would like to let our friends at Democracy Now know about this campaign. Please let us know if you are willing to contact your colleagues there on our behalf. If you are in the press or on the media team and would like to highlight our campaign please do so!
  • Transportation & Storage We could really use a friend with a van. We need to transport our donated books from Tompkins Sq Park on Sunday, Feb 26and from Washington Heights on Thursday, March 1 and get them into storage. Anyone who wants to volunteer to help us with that wins huge hugs from very grateful librarians!
  • Translation Since our goal here is to outreach with the Spanish speaking community we need translation. We would like our flyers to be printed in English and Spanish and we would like to have our teach-ins conducted in both languages as well. If you are willing to translate copy for our flyers, or to translate on site on either Feb 26, or March 1, or both please let us know.
  • Design We need flyers printed up for the March 1 event in Washington Heights. We would like to get them to Word Up Bookshop ASAP so that they can begin letting people in the neighborhood know about the event. Again we want them to be in English on one side and Spanish on the other. If anyone from our design and printing teams wants to get on that we would be very appreciative.

We have already received donations of books from:

  • Richard Delgado the author of the bookCritical Race Theory
  • The SouthWest Organizing Project which publishes 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures by Elizabeth Martinez
  • And Arte Publico Press which sent usZoot Suit: A Bilingual Edition by Luis Valdez, Y no se lo tragó la tierra”¦ / And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomás Rivera,  Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz by Mona Ruiz and Geoff Boucher, Â Message to Aztlán by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, andChicano! The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement by F. Arturo Rosales. Additionally Arte Publico is offering us a 50% discount on any books that we order from their catalog for the campaign.

We are very excited about this action and we are thrilled to be able to help the students and teachers of Tucson and to defend the Mexican-American community from this continued injustice. We hope that you will join us in our fight. Please contact us to help with any of these areas atowspeopleslibrary@gmail.com and thank you so much for your continued support.

Warmest Regards,
Frances Mercanti-Anthony
The People’s Library

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