As I grew up some of my fondest memories were trips to the library with my parents and my two brothers. We were big readers, so big that we had to bring a large plastic tub to carry back all the books we borrowed to my house. A few times the librarians had to make exceptions for us because we had over 100 books out at a time.
We plowed through the books, returned them, and were back for more.
My experiences at the Rockford Road library were very formational as I fell in love with reading, majored in English and plan on pursuing a teaching degree when I return to the United States.
My students in Guatemala are less lucky. In the second largest city, Quetzaltenango, there are no books.
There are books in ENGLISH for foreigners like myself. There are boring textbooks in Spanish. And if you are able to plunk down over 100Q (roughly $15 US) then you might be able to afford ONE book in Spanish.
For my students, whose families make roughly $40-50 a month, they cannot afford one book.
Public libraries? You better forget about it.
Therefore, in my city there are no books.
More on the book crisis after the flip.
WHY IS THIS SO? The first answer is a tax on books. This makes books prohibitively expensive for most folks.
The second answer is that there isn’t a culture of reading that exists in Guatemala. I grew up adoring books because my parents adore books and there were a lot of things that supported this (library trips, school reading programs, limited TV time, etc). Within Guatemala this exists to a very limited extent. One of the ways that we are trying to create a culture of reading is through our 6th grade book club. In 6th grade our students start reading novels like Hatchet, Charlotte’s Web and other classics and become accustomed to finishing books of more than 100 pages.
The third answer is that it’s expensive to ship books to Guatemala (they get taxed) and there are no printing houses here.
And the final answer has to do with regressive attitudes of libraries. We have 3 in the city. Two private ones (open to university students with ID only) and one government-supported one where if you don’t know EXACTLY what book you want you can’t borrow.
You can’t even go into the library. It’s locked out of fear that folks will steal books. And good luck checking out more than three at a time (much less the hundred that my family checked out at a time).
Our solution: build a library, one that would be truly public for our low-income neighborhood and our students. Where we’d be able to put all our books together in one room (currently they’re scattered about the school) and have study space for our students. It’s an amazing dream.
Bad news: The price of steel has sky rocketed and we were denied a grant that we thought we had locked down. So we need $35,000 to build and furnish the library.
It’s coming though. We will find some way to find the money because we need a library.
Because Quetzaltenango needs books.
Because Quetzaltenango’s children need to develop a love of reading.
Like always, I welcome your questions in the comments section.
PS: Jorge Chojolan, Dora Domingues, myself and the rest of the leadership team will be in the US from November 13-19 on a speaking tour. We will be in New York, DC, Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Rochester, MN. If you are interested in hearing us let me know. If you are interested in sponsoring part of the tour click here
The Miguel Angel Asturias Academyis a non-profit school in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala that breaks cycles of poverty, racism and sexism through popular education. These are stories from the ground. Although a school in Guatemala isn't directly related to US politics, our stories touch on themes of immigration, education and economic justice.