Sandra Ríos Balderrama Oral History Interview

Amanda Belantara: Today, I'm speaking with Sandra Rios Balderrama, lifelong supporter of library workers and library services, former director of the Office for Diversity of the American Library Association, and former president of Reforma. The interview was conducted for Bibliopolitica, a digital history of the Chicano Studies Library. The interview was conducted online on December 22nd, 2023. Sandra was recorded locally at Brick Road Studio in Scottsdale, Arizona. Richard Chabran, former coordinator of the Chicano Studies Library, is also with us for the interview.

Amanda Belantara: Sandra, thank you so much for joining us today. Could you start off by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit of background about yourself and your work?

Sandra Rios Balderrama: Yes, my name is Sandra Rios Balderrama, and I'm currently living in Arizona, in central Arizona. It's a state where I'm very much in love with the land and the flora, the fauna here. My background is in libraries, and I'll talk a little bit more about that, the beginnings of it, because the Chicano Studies Library has a lot to do with the trajectory of my interest in libraries. But I worked in public libraries for many years and worked for the American Library Association and then did a lot of consulting work and recently, volunteer work and community work in the central valley of California, which is so dear to my heart. That was really working with the community out in the community, so I still have that passion about access and getting books and information to people, whatever it takes, however it takes. I'm also married to Ricardo. We've been married 40 years this last month, and we have three fur kids, two cats and one dog.

Amanda Belantara: And so you started studying at Berkeley in 1976, I believe. Is that correct?

Sandra Rios Balderrama: Yes, that's correct.

Amanda Belantara: So in 1976, how did you first come upon the Chicano Studies Library? Do you remember how you learned about it?

Sandra Rios Balderrama: Yes, what I remember is it was when I was 17 years old and I walked on campus and I was so thrilled and so happy to be at Cal Berkeley because it was big and it was political and I was just a small dot. And you know, in this huge campus. But I was walking along one of my first days of school and I bumped into a girl at the time we were girls, another girl named Linda Mariscal. And I was from San Francisco. She was from Oakland, but we had met during a field trip that both of our schools had done. And it was just coincidence, you know, and now I know it was fate that I bumped into her. And she said to me, "Hey, girl, how you doing?" And da, da, da, da, da, da. So glad to see you again. And she goes, "Well, you know what? You got to go to the Chicano Studies Library." And I go, "Oh, where's that?" You know, so she told me where it was and she said it was important. That was like number one on my orientation of the campus was to know about the Chicano Studies Library and that it was a place where the Chicanos gather. So that's how I found out about it and later on went to visit it. Later on, I had an opportunity. I had some work study hours, work on campus part time. And by that time I had been in the library, so I got to work there actually. I don't remember exactly how many hours a week. It was probably something like 15 hours a week. But I want to get back to the impression I had when I walked into the library or what I remember. What I remember was that, well, let me back up even further. I was a public library user since I was a child in the Mission District of San Francisco. My mother would always, my mother loved. I was raised by a single mother and she loved the library. And so we would always go together. As I grew up to be a teenager, a young teenager, I used to go on my own frequently. It was just a place that I loved. I graduated myself from the children's section, went on to the adult areas early on. And it was just a place of respite for me. There were some stresses at home with the family. So the library really became an escape for me and also a peaceful place to be. So fast forward to going on campus, walking into the Chicano Studies Library, I remember that it was a large, what seemed to be a large room. And I remember the big windows. And then I saw all the bookcases and I learned either, I think it was probably from Richard giving me a tour, that all the books inside the library were by or about Chicanos or Mexican Americans or Mexicans in the United States. And I was in awe. I couldn't believe it. I just thought, in fact, my face is lighting up right now, just remembering it, that this was the most awesome, incredible thing in the world. Even me being a library user, really not reading anything by Mexican writers or Chicano writers or not seeing myself in the children's books. I knew my story from my family, but to walk in and understand this, I mean, it was significant. It was powerful. I remember later, probably, I started shelving, but I remember literally putting my hands over the books, looking at a lot of the books, just being amazed that there were that many about the experience of Aztlan, of Mexicanos in the United States, of Chicanos and what Chicano meant. I remember also there were a few books on the Puerto Rican experience, and I really, really liked that personally, because growing up in San Francisco, I was really at that time, there were so many Central Americans there and so many Caribbean people. Actually, Chicanos were kind of a minority at that time, so I really related to other Latinos. It was just really something. Then later on, to learn about all the art collected, the posters collected. For me, as a library user, that was brand new, because I never really thought about art being collected. During that time, all the art activism that was happening, dissertations being collected. For me, personally, it broadened my understanding of what a library could be at that time. Wow, it's not just books. There's all of these things, all of these items, all of these forms that tell the story of the Chicano experience. Oh, it was just wonderful. One thing I'd like to mention, I thought it was so funny. There was a big sign on one of the end of the shelves, and it was a poster. I don't know if Richard remembers, but it was a bandit. He had a big vigote, a mustache. He had two big pistolas, (guns) and he's pointing them out. It said, "Silencio Cabrones." I remember that just struck me, because it was kind of like it was our language. In other libraries, you say, "In those days, not anymore, but in those days, please keep your voices down. Please be silent." When I saw that, I felt like it was another collection. That's a language, that's a graphic that speaks to us that we can understand. Because the library was also a place for people to study. As Linda Mariscal had told me when I first went on campus, yeah, that's where so many of the Chicano students, that's where we went to study, to do our homework, to see one another, to visit if we got too loud. We went outside. That's where we also learned about what was going on with different people. It was primarily a library, very focused, but it was also a place that we could gather, that we knew that was safe. It was a place that affirmed us. This was a huge influence on me. The fact that a library that was devoted and committed to the story, to preserving and disseminating the story of Chicanos, the fact that this type of library existed was so different, was so unusual. It was a place where we, through the books, through the displays, we were seen. As I had said earlier, I kind of liked being a dot when I first went to the huge campus of UC Berkeley, but there I really felt recognized because later on, as a young student, 17, 18, 19, at times it did get very lonely on campus, very lonely in the classes. You were there to study and achieve a degree, but there were so many factors that often became obstacles, emotional obstacles, financial obstacles. The Chicano Studies Library was affirming in so many ways. We could really see ourselves there and feel safe there.

Amanda Belantara: You mentioned that you were working there as a work study student. Could you tell us a little bit more about how you wound up working at the library and what kind of work that you did?

Sandra Rios Balderrama: Well, you know, again in those days, at least I'm trying to remember now, there were more grants to go to school. There was the BEOG grant that was available that was very helpful to me to go to Cal. And also, if you were a financial aid student, you would get work study hours as well. So you would get a certain amount a year or a semester to work off, I don't know, take the number, you know, 60 hours or 80 hours. And you have to have a place within the university that would want you to work off those hours that the university financial aid would pay. Chicano Studies Library wouldn't have to pay. But you know, Richard would have to agree to say, yes, I'll take a work study student 15 hours or 20 hours, that would be very helpful. So I was very blessed at that time to make it on many grants and work study to get through school. I was raised by a single mother, my single mom was very low income. So at that time, I didn't have to take out any loans. I do remember doing some shelving, doing projects. But what I remember most as a young woman working there when Richard was there was I really learned so much from Richard. It wasn't like he was teaching me, but it was like learning by watching, you know, learning by listening to him. And one story I have that is super significant, you know, in my own life, and is really a tribute to Richard and the Chicano Studies Library is that one day he invited me to go with him to take these cards. They were long cards with punch. They were punch cards. I'm going to guess approximately maybe three inches wide by seven to eight inches long. And they were full of holes and punch cards. And he was taking them up to Evans building on campus was where all the math and statistical classes were. And probably then they called him the computer classes. I went with him. Yeah, sure. And I was wondering, you know, what were all these cards about? So we went into Evans. What I remember is we went into a room with huge wall to wall computers. It was just from the, it seemed like it was from the floor to the ceiling and all these lights blinking and flickering. And I thought I was in a movie of the future. And Richard explained to me that each one of those punch cards was going to be fed into the computer. Each card was a citation. So each card represented a piece of information of the library, the contents of the Chicano Studies Library. And I didn't quite understand it, but all I, what I did understand is again, a library is much more than you know. Collection development and access to collection is much more than I knew. And that this librarian here in front of me, that was Richard, you know, he had a vision. He had a knowledge. He was talking about. I felt like I was really in the future. Just at that moment, he was talking about 10, 15, 20, 30 years beyond that building that we called Chicano Studies Library. I mean, he had ideas. He had plans. He had a vision. I don't know that I created that image or did it justice, but it had a profound impact on me that, wow. There's this relatively small little library on campus. And first it touches your heart and your soul, you know, by seeing everything within those walls that tell the story of your grandparents, your great grandparents, of the indigenous peoples, you know, in our own words. And then it's also this gathering place where, you know, social interaction and community is happening. But then you have somebody like Richard there who's like way beyond. He was like walking these parallel paths, you know, and there was one path that was the daily, you know, the operations, the looking out for the students in the collection. But there was this other path where Richard was way beyond. I didn't feel he left me behind, but I felt very behind. But no, he didn't sit down and tell me this and this and that. He says, "Hey, you know, why don't you come with me to Evans? You know, I want to show you something." Once again, it increased the breadth and depth of my own growing understanding of what a library is, what a library could be, what access means, because access, what I understand now all these years later, I'm 65 years old now, a lot older than 17, 18. But his vision and that, you know, wall to wall, buzzing, blinking, big, huge, great computers and these punch cards, all about access, access. Because we have the stories, we have the information, but if you can't access it, if you can't find it, that's a big problem for our people and for the world. When these items are classified and they're there, they exist. So you're a student at Berkeley, you're doing work study, helping out in various ways around the library. You've mentioned that the library had a tremendous impact on you, just walking into that space and being surrounded by materials that help share the stories about Chicanos. Can you talk a little bit next about how you felt actually doing that work and contributing to those efforts that the library was pursuing? I felt very proud. I felt very purposeful. I really thought probably more subconsciously than consciously at the time. I knew, you know, I don't know that young Sandra on the surface, I recognized and I saw, but I think inside, I really viewed it as sacred work to be able to help work there, help organize, help people find materials, interacting with someone I remember like Purita Mesa, she was in charge of periodicals. I really felt it was a contribution to something very, very important and sacred. I think spiritually I felt that it was very honorable work and I think I have more memories and was influenced more by being in that library, using it, working there, being proud of it, now being a person that was telling other people about it than the other classes I took at Cal. My contributions I think were small in some ways. I feel that I received, you know, so much more than I gave, but I do realize that every task or every project helped in sustaining the library and keeping it alive. I knew, I knew that it was something special and important and particularly when there were so few, so few brown and black students. I'm not sure if I was that aware at the time, I became aware later. I think when I went to library school to get my master's, it was an independent library in the sense that it wasn't part of Moffitt, the undergraduate library or Doe Library, was started by, from what I understood, I was not involved in the starting of it, but it was started by students and people that really felt there needed to be a place for our history and our story and our voice. For all these reasons, I felt very proud and it felt good to have purpose. I didn't know that I was going to be a librarian at the time. I had never thought about it before, but my work there and my relationships with others there definitely influenced me. I say it's sacred work because, you know, it's our stories and it's, it's, when I say it's our stories, those books, those materials, those posters, you know, they reflect the spirit of our ancestors. They reflect the spirit of people in the sixties and seventies that were expressing their outrage or expressing their pain or expressing their pride. I never see libraries just as a place. It's so much more. And if it wasn't for Richard and those that came before him, what a loss. What a loss. Very, very important to the global story. They helped put us on the map of the globe of global libraries.

Amanda Belantara: And Sandra, I just wanted to follow up with a quick question. Do you remember what years you worked at the Chicano Studies Library and then you've mentioned Purita and you've mentioned Richard? Do you remember anyone else that you may have worked with during your time there?

Sandra Rios Balderrama: I worked a little bit with Francisco Garcia. When Richard left, I was very, very, very sad because I thought so much of him. I did go back later and worked somewhat with Francisco Garcia. One thing I neglected to mention earlier is that another impact I felt of working at the library with Richard was that Richard was very clear that women's voices were missing. There weren't enough women's voices. And I know Martha Rodriguez, who has since passed away, Graciela Rios, and there's a third woman, I think had started some work on researching Chicana authors, Chicana research. But the reason why I mentioned that is that was very exciting to me too. And another reason why I really respected Richard because he had so much respect for women. We were peers, we were equals, and he was very honest about this is an area we need to strengthen. So that was right up my alley. Being a feminist all my life, that was right up my alley. But I bring it up because that work continued. One reason I went back to the library with Francisco Garcia, he wrote a grant and that was the beginning of work on Chicana bibliography. That was incredible work, very detailed work, really researching everything having to do with Chicana and the Chicana experience. Once again buying about Chicanas. It was a Pell grant. That's what it was called. Francisco had applied for one. But Richard remained very much connected to that work because later when Richard went on to UCLA, there was a symposium on La Chicana, La Mexicana in Santa Monica. It was a great symposium to talk about the experience of La Mujeres. And so Richard contacted me, I remember, and I flew. I flew to Santa Monica and gave that presentation. I was so young. Richard always had faith in me, more faith than I had in myself and really felt that I could do it. He wanted me to talk about all the work related to the bibliography. And that was really, really important that that bibliography and libraries, you know, be represented. That was a big project. I found the bibliography recently because my father, Justino Balderama, passed away a year and a half ago. And among his things was a copy of the bibliography. I had sent it to my father. There were some notes that I had written with it and I had expressed in my letters to my father that I was proud of it. I was glad it was over. I felt a little bit of doubt, you know, because I was with all these big Chicano scholars, you know. It was interesting to read my own words to my father about that, thinking back on how, you know, Richard really, as he did with all of his students, just continued to have faith in me. He promoted that self-trust and confidence that we need. I also remember in my note to my father that I had said, "Mr. Garcia was not very happy that I had not included in that bibliography. It's divided into sections. Covers Chicana lesbianism, Chicana labor, all these things, but it doesn't include the family." I remember he made a big deal that, you know, the La Familia. I remember back then thinking that, you know, in my approach to it as a very young woman, and I felt very supported by Richard's, so, you know, his trust was that, you know, this was really the story, I mean, the collection of story of women, you know, women. Yes, we are part of the family, but what are other experiences? So it was interesting that I had not seen that bibliography since, probably since 1980. To find it among his things was really timely. Later on in my career in public libraries, I'd be asked to go speak to teenagers a lot, youth in the Bay Area, and then I did some here in Arizona one year. I would use the Chicano Studies Library as a story, and what I was trying to relate to the youth were, you know, asking them what they thought about libraries and what they knew about them, and then I would go into my storytelling, because storytelling was often an effective tool, but this was based on truth, you know, and I would tell the youth, there's all different kinds of libraries, you know, there's the library that's, you know, down the way from you, and then there's the library at the university, you know, the big library. But I said, there's also special libraries. Can you imagine walking in to a big room and all the books, all the materials are by Chicanos? And they would look at me like, what? And I'd take some samples and stuff, and go, yeah. You know, and it was, I mean, so the story of the Chicano Studies Library and its impact on me has, you know, it's traveled with me, and that story has continued, it's been magnified, you know, in terms of you don't know who you touch when you're speaking, and so, but that what I could just see, you know, especially when I was speaking with Latino Chicano youth, you know, the eyes get big, like, okay, this is something I can relate to, or this is something I'm curious about. The experience has traveled with me.

Amanda Belantara: So you've talked quite a lot about how the library has impacted you as a person, and its importance to different communities that you've worked with over the years, just even as an idea, as a story. I was just wondering, could you share a few more of your thoughts about why you think the Chicano Studies Library was needed?

Sandra Rios Balderrama: The Chicano Studies Library stated that I exist. We exist. You can tell me, you know, all about the pilgrims. You can tell me, you know, all about 1776. You can tell me all of these things, but in those narratives and those stories, we did not exist. In a campus with thousands of students, we weren't seen. We really didn't exist. I think the placement, the work, it's kind of like somehow when people, you know, they go to a top of a mountain and they put a flag, you know, they climb a mountain and they put the flag of their country. It was kind of like it was the flag of Aztlan that was there at Wheeler. Education is incomplete. The quote unquote American story is incomplete without the library. The world story is incomplete without all these stories. So it was very much needed. It was for all of us, it was needed for anyone that was curious and interested in the full story of this land, you know, this land that we call the United States that once was Mexico, that was once with indigenous land. It was very important. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, you know, Cal Berkeley is one of the greatest universities, you know, in the country. Without that Chicano Studies library, it wouldn't be so great. As I look back at my 17 year old self, I think the initial impact was that my eyes were opened wide. It was a beautiful discovery to contribute to, you know, placing that missing puzzle piece in the overall puzzle, you know, the piece that is so important. I'm proud of that. I've always, always been interested in who is missing, you know, whose voice is not here. Working at the Chicano Studies library sort of awakened that in me. It was there, but it made it tangible. It made inclusion, the ideas of inclusion, tangible. It can happen. It can happen, you know, with blood, sweat and tears, determination, purpose, and a fearlessness, you know, that those people that were behind the effort of building it, everything that they put together. Oh, I was always proud to say, you know, that I worked at the Chicano Studies library. That's where I started my career. It influenced me very greatly in terms of access and information. What I mean by that is later on, I went to work out on a bookmobile and I learned of a different kind of access where a library goes to people where they live out in rural areas and migrant camps. That was very similar to what the Chicano Studies library was doing, creating access to the story. You know, there's that bridge, it's a bridge of light. So the story of Chicano Studies library, it's still going on. The story of affirmation, inclusion, cultural affirmation, validation, purpose, and sacred work.