Sonoma County Library program highlights hot-button issues

In the wake of the 2016 election, the Sonoma County Library noticed a significant uptick in the community’s interest in research materials on some of the hot-button topics that divided the nation.

Items related to climate change, immigration, income inequality and women’s rights all saw increased demand, said Angelina Cacioppo Hernandez, the library’s community engagement coordinator. In response, the library applied for a federal grant to fund a new program addressing those issues and how Sonoma County organizations are working on them, she said.

The program, which begins in December and will feature six different themes throughout the course of 2018, is called “Together at the Table,” a reference to the line in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” King said in his famed 1963 address from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

The line, Cacioppo Hernandez said, seemed to perfectly encapsulate the goal of the series.

With each new topic, the library will host a panel of experts to engage in a conversation. At the same time, each of the branches will also set aside a dedicated space featuring books, documentaries and lists of online resources the public can reference to learn more.

“We have the capacity to just really have the library be a center of information for people to come in and educate themselves and do the research and maybe learn something new or become engaged in their local community,” Cacioppo Hernandez said.

The six topics the library selected are immigration, climate change, blackness in America, women’s rights, LGBTQI issues and income inequality. The first topic, immigration, will be featured at forums Dec. 11 at the Cloverdale Regional Library and Dec. 18 at the Central Santa Rosa Library. Participating in the 6:30 p.m. forums will be representatives from Catholic Charities, the Sonoma County Immigration Initiative, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, My American Dreams and Sonoma State’s Chicano and Latino Studies Department.

Alegría De La Cruz, chief deputy county counsel, will be representing the Sonoma County Immigration Initiative. Among other topics, she plans to talk about the experiences of the local immigrant population during the fires, including their reluctance to seek government aid for fear of deportation.

“Two weeks prior to the fires, we were still in our efforts to protect people, and make sure they understood how to enforce their constitutional rights in the face of increasing enforcement,” she said. “And then after the fires happen, and we’re like, ‘You’re safe here. Come to where the Department of Homeland Security is.’ So I think it was really illuminating of the significant public safety concerns … the real fears of the immigrant community in accessing and engaging with the government.”

In addition to the education factor, Cacioppo Hernandez said, the program will feature an engagement component as well. Postcards - stamps provided - will be available for the public to write their representatives, along with lists of addresses for everyone from local city council members to the president.

“We hope that people with different views and different opinions can come together and either agree to disagree or be able to agree to chat about these things,” she said. “We want people to understand different viewpoints and seek to understand the different spectrum of these topics.”

For more information, go to sonomalibrary.org/togetheratthetable.

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205.