About the HSI mini grant series
Each year, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion awards a variety of high-impact mini grants to campus projects that support Latino students through targeted initiatives. Last year, the office distributed $35,000 across 17 projects. Mustang News wrote 11 features highlighting where and how those grants made an impact.
Two project leads worked together on a “Latinx/e” book collection that can now be seen on the third floor of Kennedy Library. The pair came together to discuss how they could co-create a project to increase representation of Latino experiences in the library collections.
“There have been a lot of historical barriers to publication of those [Latino] stories, in the publishing world and then our ability to develop those on the library site,” Tanaka said. “So, we wanted to use this as an opportunity to develop some of our collections.”
Kyle Tanaka, the Kennedy Library project lead and the Student’s Success and Outcomes librarian, said the one goal he had in mind for this project was to expand people’s minds.
“A big part of it, for us, is exposing people to different kinds of stories … and for our students who are international, whose families have immigrant stories of whatever generation they’re in, a chance to think about community and find themselves represented in our collections.”
Victoria Tonascia, the second project lead and an Acquisitions and Electronic Resources Specialist in the Technical Services Department, said her goal was to increase representation.
“As students and the public are entering this new space, this is something physical that they can see when they walk through the library,” Tonascia said. “They can see themselves in and share these stories and experiences together.”
It is additionally important to both of them that this collection features titles that are less academic.
“We figure people generally get enough of that in classes,” Tanaka said.
In order to create the assortment of books, the pair chose to appoint a student fellow. This ensured that student voices were integral to the selection process.
The collection includes 213 books, including poetry, romance and more academic writing. There are books written in Brazilian, Portuguese, as well as indigenous languages. Tanaka and Tonascia hope to continue to expand this collection and possibly refresh it in a few years time.
With Kennedy Library officially open, Tonascia looks forward to reviewing checkout history to assess what material is most popular. Tanaka is hoping to develop “the collection in other directions, with different foci, depending on the year, and depending on what kind of students [they are] able to work with.”
“Part of becoming an HSI is deciding what it means to build an inclusive campus community where the entire campus feels supported and recognized and that they can be the best students that they can be,” Tanaka said.
While future federal funding may be uncertain, Tanaka said, this program is “part of an overall picture of what it means for us as a [Cal State University] and as a [Cal State University] system to support Californians and to support people coming to these schools.”