Get Your PhD in Librotraficante Studies
An Interview with Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante
Tony Diaz is a Houston poet, novelist, activist, leader, professor, visionary and all around badass. He has been an active Houston community member for many years now. Diaz recently set out on a new adventure, Librotraficante, in which he travels the country organizing and creating banned book libraries. In Arizona, where ashes of institutional racism are still smoldering, Tony and his fellow book smugglers took a creative and visionary approach to breaking down those walls and replacing them with hope - hope for a better tomorrow for us and, more importantly, our children. Tony recently sat down with the Free Press Houston to talk about the success and future of Librotraficante.
The 2012 Librotraficante Caravan was a huge success. Your group smuggled thousands of banned books into Arizona and started a national movement. Houston named September 18, 2012 Tony Diaz Day. You were given the Mayor’s Hispanic Heritage Award for Art in the Community as well as the Mexican American Bar Foundation of Texas’s Media Award among other awards. You’ve had a whirlwind year. Now what?
If Arizona legislators were terrified of Mexican Americans reading, we are creating their worst nightmares-legions of readers. We opened four Underground Libraries during the Librotraficante Caravan to Smuggle Banned Books back to Arizona. We’re making banned books go viral the old fashioned way-one Chicano at a time.
What is an Underground Library?
A Librotraficante Underground Library is a denizen of illicit reading. It’s at a dope nonprofit organization that our people in a city believe is legit. Then we stock it with contraband books, starting with the ones banned in Arizona, and then we add the ones banned in that state, and then we add voices from that community that have been overlooked. We will win this test of Democracy, but we must never be in this situation ever again. Our history and culture will always be within the reach of our people-from now on.
Where are they located?
Are you the FBI? Oh, wait, this is Free Press Houston-your FBI file is thicker than ours. Cause we like youse guys, we’ll give the Free Press a Secret Map to the Librotraficante Underground Libraries throughout the country. We are up to six-which would lead to a killer road trip: Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona. In 2013, we will add Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we’ll hit California hard with Underground Libraries in Santa Ana, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. And then Las Vegas. Yeah, it’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.
So will the Librotraficantes become a network of Underground Libraries? What will happen to the Librotraficante Movement?
We are going viral. On September 21, 2012 we organized the Librotraficante 50 for Freedom of Speech with events across the country. There are Librotraficantes all over the nation, active, ready to roll in cities you would expect and not expect. California is all lit up. The Bay Area Librotraficantes held a huge event led by Naomi Quinonez. There’s the City of Angels Librotraficantes with Luis Rodriguez at Tia Chucha Cultural Center in LA. Chicago, of course HOUSTON, El Paso, San Antonio, Denton, but even places you don’t expect: Lincoln, Nebraska; shout out to Salt Lake City, Utah; Iowa City, Iowa; Greensboro, North Carolina, and more!
What is next for you?
I just finished my novel. The movement that started at the party hall of Chapultepec Restaurant 14 years ago as Nuestra Palabra is now a national movement. Some day soon people will be getting PhDs in Librotraficante Studies. And I get to create my own job. What that is, I have no idea. I’m not just good; I’m living the American Dream.
“V” for Victory, Vat@s.
To learn more, please visit: www.librotraficante.com