When Leadership Falls Short: The Crisis of Care in Library Work
Posted on in Blog Posts
Mentorship and Belonging: Thinking about Cultural Assets and Paying It Forward to Uplift Others
Posted on June 26, 2024 in Blog Posts
Authors:
Ray Pun
On May 7, I was invited to deliver a keynote presentation at the BIPOC Become Librarians program (BBL). Funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, this collaboration was the initiative of three groups: San José State University’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library (SJSU King Library), San José State University’s School of Information (SJSU iSchool), and San José Public Library (SJPL). BBL is “a pilot mentorship and internship program that introduces undergraduate students who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) to careers in Library and Information Science (LIS).”
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I was inspired to witness how this program brought many stakeholders from different library organizations together to create an enriching experience for undergraduate students and their mentors who are library workers in the field. In this post, I share some of my keynote remarks that focused on how we are all mentors regardless of our positionality or job titles.
Our work in librarianship is not siloed but highly collaborative. We learn a lot from each other across different functions and roles and we truly cannot do our work without collaboration. Mentorship is often perceived as a form of relationship building that may be enacted in a formal or informal program. However, mentorship is necessary for BIPOC library workers and students in the field. In their chapter, “What’s It Going to Take? Unpacking the Promise of Inclusion,” published in the first volume of Academic Library Mentoring, Ciara Healy and Ula Gaha reflect that “the success of informal mentoring and intentional communities can help BIPOC receive validation from their in-group, prevent librarians on the margins from experiencing burnout, and contribute to the retention of professionals who are Othered within LIS.”1
BIPOC library workers and students may experience unique challenges to different degrees in this profession, such as imposter syndrome; feelings that one is a fraud, out of place, or undeserving; or cultural taxation, a burden placed on racial or ethnic minority workers in carrying out their responsibility to service their institution or workplace.2 BIPOC library workers and students certainly do not need to be in formal mentorship programs but to be part of a community that uplifts their experiences and enables them to support one another, especially during difficult times in the workplace, can be particularly gratifying and validating.
I highlight two quotes from my mentors who have been instrumental in my own journey in the field: Miriam Tuliao, LIS Instructor and Penguin Random House Library Marketing Manager and Sandra Ríos Balderrama, a library community advocate and a past president of REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking. Back in 2020, when I interviewed both mentors for WOC+Lib, a digital platform for women of color (WOC) within librarianship, I asked each of them, “what motivates you to be such an advocate for [so many library workers and students]” over the years?
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Miriam reflected, “I have benefited from having some amazing mentors—community-minded advisers, mission-driven role models, and trusted confidantes. In many ways, the library served as a classroom for me personally and professionally and I continue to draw on my mentors’ collective knowledge—and their joy. And I feel a deep responsibility to share with others what I can.”3
And Sandra responded, “It’s an honor I don’t take lightly. I never intended to be a ‘mentor’ in any formal sense of the word but what drives me to listen and uplift is ‘I’ve been there.’ The most difficult challenge is the work ‘inside’ any library organization and institution. There we find new names for former strategies/methods/trends of flattening hierarchical and patriarchal systems amidst old and static ways of thinking and doing.”4
We are all mentors and can guide others with our lived experiences and perspectives. Both remarked how they are inspired to support others based on their experiences and to pay it forward as well. To this end, one reflective question worth considering is, what are your cultural assets? Cultural assets can be stories, histories, and traditions that make up a community’s identity and customs. We bring our identity-based beliefs, values, meanings, and lived experiences into our workspaces and our interactions with colleagues. It helps to reflect on what these are.
At the BBL program meeting I encouraged attendees to reflect on how these assets contribute to and benefit our organizations and the field at large. Sometimes it is hard to see in the moment, but we need to acknowledge this and share our assets with others. At a workplace retreat in April, which I attended with colleagues in an AAPI affinity group to reflect our identity-based assets, we also posed this reflective exercise to the group and found that some of our cultural assets included celebrating other people’s successes, cooking for friends and family, and using one’s bilingual language skills or multicultural background to navigate different environments. Recognizing one’s culture as an asset positions us as mentors in this field. Perhaps you may be a mentor/mentee now. Consider asking your mentee/mentor what cultural assets they bring to the workplace; their answers may inspire you to ponder your own assets more deeply.
I emphasized to BBL participants that they will and can continue supporting each other in this journey: find collaborative partners on future projects, become peer mentors to each other, and continue building experiences as you take on a career journey in librarianship. These activities create and cultivate a sense of belonging, meaning, and engagement.
References:
1. Ciara Healy and Ula Gaha, “What’s It Going to Take: Unpacking the Promise of Inclusion,” in Academic Library Mentoring: Fostering Growth and Renewal, vol. 1, ed. by Leila June Rod-Welch and Barbara E. Weeg, (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2022), 122.
2. Amado M. Padilla, “Research News and Comment: Ethnic Minority Scholars; Research, and Mentoring: Current and Future Issues,” Educational Researcher 23, no. 4 (1994): 24-27. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X023004024
3. Miriam Tuliao, “Ray Pun: Interview with Library Marketing Manager & LIS Instructor Miriam Tuliao,” interview by Ray Pun. WOC+Lib. June 19, 2020. https://www.wocandlib.org/features/2020/6/19/ray-pun-interview-with-library-marketing-manager-amp-lis-instructor-miriam-tuliao
4. Sandra Ríos Balderrama, “Ray Pun: Interview with Sandra Ríos Balderrama,” interview by Ray Pun. WOC+Lib. March 27, 2020. https://www.wocandlib.org/features/2020/3/27/ray-pun-interview-with-sandra-rios-balderrama
About the author:
Ray Pun (he/him) is the academic and research librarian at the Alder Graduate School of Education, a teacher’s residency program in California.
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