Melanie Walsh | Mapping the Librotraficante Movement
Channel: MSU Digital Humanities
Date: 2019-05-28

Melanie Walsh | Washington University in Saint Louis

This lightning talk will discuss a work-in-progress digital mapping project of the underground library system and protest movement known as the Librotraficante Movement. In 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed House Bill 2281 into law, which banned public school curriculum that “advocates ethnic solidarity instead of being individuals” or “are designed for a certain ethnicity,” effectively preventing over 80 books—many of them by or about Latinx people—from being taught in the Tucson Unified School District. In response, the author and Houston Community College professor Tony Diaz launched a protest movement called Librotraficante, Spanish for book smuggler, which created underground libraries throughout the Southwest U.S. that circulated the 80 effectively banned books. In 2012 and 2017, many activists and authors—some of whose books were banned by House Bill 2281, such as Sandra Cisneros—also participated in caravans that traveled to the underground libraries in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, where they performed readings, raised awareness, and drummed up support. By using the digital mapping tools QGIS and Leaflet, I visualize the alternative, dissent-inspired literary circulation patterns of these 80 Latinx books as well as the readers, writers, and activists who set these texts into motion and traveled alongside them. During this talk, I will share snapshots of the interactive map and reflect upon the potential that digital tools hold for archiving, visualizing, and raising awareness about twenty-first-century literary reception, social justice movements, and their relationship to one another.

For more information about the 2019 Global DH Symposium visit msuglobaldh.org.