Profile picture
American Libraries @amlibraries
, 21 tweets, 7 min read Read on Twitter
Good morning, #alamw18! Grab a seat for Junot Díaz. We'll be tweeting his talk in just a few minutes.
"Books help us make a way when there is no way. Those of us who have been historically excluded from books... the pain of that is something that, as a society, we have not accounted for." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"Each of us has our library story. We wouldn't be here if we didn't." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"I hate to think what might have happened to me had my elementary school librarian not taken the time to give me a tour of our tiny library." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"The rest of the country was telling me that I didn't belong and nothing belonged to me, and here was this smiling librarian telling me this place of books was mine." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"A librarian gave me the gift of libraries and, to this day, I consider it one of the greatest gifts I've received. ... Libraries were the golden compass that kept my immigrant self from being completely lost." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"The harder the times were, the more library-rific I got." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"That's right. My ass cut school so that I could spent time at the library. Who in the world does that?" - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
Junot Díaz walked 4 miles to and from his library as a kid. "I know that this sounds like some crazy Depression-era tall-tale bullshit, but I am telling the truth." #alamw18
"In those days, I could read like an Olympic athlete, and reading was my event." Junot Díaz devoured doomsday lit. "Fortunately those were the Reagan years, and doomsday was everywhere." #alamw18
"Libraries are always under attack. Decades of underfunding and disinvestment and straight-up disrespect means less libraries and less librarians at a time when we need both." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"Libraries are the beating heart of a free democratic society." Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"In this phase of rampant anti-immigrant racism and populist demogogy, the public library has become the symbol of resistance." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"Librarians aren't perfect, not by a long shot. But I'd put my money on librarians over any of our politicians, any day of the week." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"I truly believe libraries will be central to our redemption." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"Y'all are doing an enormous amount of community and emotional and psychological labor. ... One cannot do any of this stuff alone. We need a team." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"Hypermasculinity is alive and well. Trying to figure out how to communicate to everyone that this is an actual acquired culture... that's always been a challenge." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"What you've described is how often the silence of parents are broken by the needs of their children to understand that silence." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
"People need to see the usage of resources. They need to see how welcome they are, dramatized." - Junot Díaz on encouraging people to find their identities in the library #alamw18
"I wish that libraries would finally have a reckoning and know that [staffs that are] 88% white means 5000% agony for people of color. ... It's agony no matter how liberal and enlightened you think. ... We have to decolonize [libraries]." - Junot Díaz, #alamw18
unroll
Missing some Tweet in this thread?
You can try to force a refresh.

Like this thread? Get email updates or save it to PDF!

Subscribe to American Libraries
Profile picture

Get real-time email alerts when new unrolls are available from this author!

This content may be removed anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member and get exclusive features!

Premium member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year)

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!