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April 06, 2005

In God We Trust

I love traveling in the U.S. As an American woman, I am chatty. Swedes have many virtues but chatting with strangers is not one of them. New York is an oasis of friendliness and I fell into conversation with strangers there like a thirsty woman diving into a pool. Here in Grand Junction I notice another cultural difference. I had forgotten how insistent Americans are about our faith and patriotism. Across from the library is a church with a huge “God Bless America” banner. I see “Proud to be American” signs and similar stuff all over town. This kind of thing doesn’t come up in Sweden unless you’re a member of one of those skinhead groups. Swedes love their country but there’s no need to declare it. So after nearly three years in Europe all this red-white-and-blue stuff looks weirdly defensive and adolescent instead of normal.

I am typing this on a PC with a blinky, annoying monitor in the fabulous main library. What makes it fabulous, in part, is the hours: 9 AM to 9 PM Monday through Thursday, 9 AM to 5 PM Friday and Saturday and 1 PM to 5 PM on Sundays (September through May). Those are better hours than in Stockholm and certainly better hours than in Salinas, where city budget problems may shutter all three libraries in town. A variety of literary luminaries are trying to keep the libraries open, including Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, author of "The Dirty Girls Social Club." According to the NY Times (in a piece written by the lovely Carolyn Marshall), the author’s father "learned English at the public library in Albuquerque. 'We didn't come from money,' she said. 'Words were our only capital.' "

My mother, Robbie Branscum, was also an author but before that she was a single mom struggling to raise a daughter on welfare and using books from the public library to improve her seventh-grade education. For me, public libraries were a sanctuary from poverty and loneliness from an early age. It’s clear that this Grand Junction library plays a similar role for many homeless here and certain that the libraries in Salinas do the same. Poverty sucks; shutting libraries doesn’t just make it worse, it actually compromises the future for those like me and like my mom.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at April 6, 2005 09:54 AM

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