Things to know up front:
You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Click the back arrow key to return to the post.
Every chapter in My Life Story includes information about me, my work, my family and my friends. It also includes information about events that took place locally and nationally, etc. that I thought important enough to include. You’ll also find that I’ve included films, musicians and recordings/videos, in addition to books that were released in a given year.
While I have included many personal photos, most of the graphic content included below is borrowed from the Internet. I do not claim to own this material. I am just adding it for educational purposes. If the owners of any of the content in the “My Life Story” series want their stuff removed, I am happy to oblige. My email address is jrdiaz@arizona.edu. Thanks!
I was still in Tucson enjoying my holiday vacation, visiting with family and friends when the new year began. Before I left to go back to Michigan, I contacted Carla Stoffle to say hello. She was the former Assistant Dean at the University of Michigan Libraries and she played an instrumental role in hiring me there in 1987. She was very committed to promoting diversity and did all she could to hire librarians of color and to combat racism in the workplace. In 1991, she became the Dean of Libraries at the University of Arizona. When I contacted her to say hello, she invited me to one of her holiday gatherings at her home, where I met some of the Library’s department heads and library administrators. I brought my friend Richard Elias with me and we both had a blast drinking beer and other assorted alcoholic beverages, eating a bunch of food and meeting new people.
Carla encouraged me to apply for a position as a reference librarian that had just opened up. The area of specialization was psychology, and this just happened to be a subject I knew well because of my background (I have a bachelor of arts degree in psychology) and experience at Michigan conducting countless instruction sessions for students taking courses on this topic. I was very excited about the prospect of being able to finally come back home after being away for over five years, and was filled with hope and anticipation.
I returned to Ann Arbor the first week of January, and jumped right back in to doing my job, providing reference service, teaching basic library skills to students in Psychology, English and other areas, and supervising and training reference assistants. I also continued serving on the Library Diversity Council. MLK Day was right around the corner, and this particular year we were bringing the author Alex Haley to campus. It was an exciting time.
It was also around this time that I hit a high note with my teaching, and received a resounding round of applause after an instruction session I conducted for students in an upper division political science class. I was ecstatic, as something like that had never happened before. All those hours I spent in the classroom teaching while at Michigan had finally paid off, and this was proof that I was getting pretty good at it.
Toward the end of January, I attended the ALA Midwinter conference in San Antonio. I had never been there before, and there was a lot to see and explore. I had fun shopping, and even bought a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. I had immersed myself in country music around this time, and enjoyed dressing up in Western wear. I also found some great record stores and antiques stores, as well as some interesting historic landmarks, such as the Old Spanish Governor’s mansion and a neighborhood called La Villita, which was home to many historic houses. I also got a taste of the gay scene and visited a few bars in the downtown area. The food in San Antonio was pretty good too. At one restaurant, called Mi Tierra, I purchased a t-shirt with Emiliano Zapata’s portrait on it, and underneath it, painted in bright red, were the words “Mi Tierra”. I thought it was the coolest thing, and I kept that t-shirt until it finally fell apart.
At some point, the Arizona job was advertised, and I put my resume and a cover letter together and sent them in. Once this was done and out of the way, it was just a matter of time. I waited and waited and waited.
I was not involved romantically with anyone at this time, and spent a lot of nights watching movies that I had rented from local video stores. These included a number of old Bette Davis and Joan Crawford movies, such as Jezebel, Mr. Skeffington, The Women, and Mildred Pierce. It was a lot of fun, inexpensive, and it kept me home at night! My car wasn’t very reliable at the time, so staying at home was really the best thing for me to do. Besides, I needed to start saving money for the move back home.
By March, I had been notified that I was a leading candidate for the reference position at Arizona. I was interviewed over the phone, and later invited out to Tucson for an interview. I didn’t know it at the time, but Carla had another position open, that of Staff Development librarian, and while I was in the middle of the interview for the reference position, she asked me to consider applying for that job also. I didn’t really feel ready to take on a job like this, as I felt I didn’t have the appropriate experience, but Carla was persistent and asked me to interview, so I did. She argued that I had done library programming and instruction, and that I had what she called “transferable skills”, and could easily pick up along the way whatever else I needed to learn. There would be more pay, and I would be part of the Library administration. I thought about it for a few days, and finally decided that I would give it a try and apply for the job, and lo and behold, the job of Staff development librarian was soon offered to me. I would report directly to the Dean of the Library, Carla Stoffle.
When I got back to Ann Arbor, I needed to wrap things up at work and also needed to figure out how to get back home. My record collection and book collection presented the biggest challenges. There was no way I was going to get rid of anything this time around, so I decided to ask my oldest brother Charles if he would be willing to fly to Michigan and help me drive a U-Haul back to Tucson. He agreed, thank goodness.
I stayed in my job in Ann Arbor until early May. The head of the Undergraduate Library, Barbara MacAdam, threw me a going away party the day before I left, and my good friend Barbara Hoppe, (now Kolekamp) took photos of the occasion. I felt bad about leaving my good friends LeAnne, Mike, Karen, Barb, Linda, Judy and Rhett behind, but nothing would get in the way of going back home.
In hindsight, I’m glad I took the risk of moving away from Tucson back in 1987, but my mom’s death the following year has always made me feel guilty about it at the same time. I realize that she still would have passed on if I were in Tucson, however. I have to remind myself all the time that her death wasn’t my fault. It was her time to go, and that was that. She was ill and had reached the end of her road.
If I set aside the guilt trip that won’t go away, I must admit that living in Nogales and then in Ann Arbor were indeed worthwhile experiences. Living right on the U.S. Mexican border was eye opening in many ways, and I enjoyed crossing the line whenever possible. There’s nothing like the birria they sell on Elias St in Nogales, Sonora! I also got to see a lot of the state of Michigan while I lived there, and I really enjoyed it. I also liked living in Ann Arbor. There was always something going on, and I took advantage of that and saw concerts, attended lectures and plays and art fairs, and bought scores of record albums and books. I also had fun going out dancing, listening to live music, and partying with my friends. My relationship with Brent fizzled out at the end of 1990, unfortunately, but we did a lot of fun stuff together while we were a couple.
By the end of the first week of May, Charles and I were on the road heading back to Tucson. Unfortunately, he had to drive the whole way, because my eyesight is bad, and I just couldn’t handle driving such a big truck. It would have been a dangerous proposition! We had a good trip, nevertheless, and made it back home within a few days. I was so happy to finally be back home!
Finding a place to live was at the top of my to-do list when I arrived. At first I thought I would find an apartment on the south side of town, close to my brother Carlos and sister Irene. However, I quickly began to have second thoughts about it. I wanted to feel safe, and as a gay man, I knew I would not be so safe on the south side of town. That’s just the way I felt about it, and while some folks may not understand, I just knew there would be problems. I searched elsewhere, and quickly found an apartment near Ft. Lowell and Country Club. It was a two-bedroom townhouse and the rent was just a little more than what I was paying in Ann Arbor. My family helped me move in, and I was pretty well settled by the time I started my new job on June 1.
I was hired as an assistant librarian, even though I had been promoted to associate librarian while at Michigan. This meant that I would have about five years to “prove myself” in three areas: my primary job, scholarship and service, and either be awarded continuing status (similar to tenure) or released from my job for not “cutting it”. I was told that even though I had been promoted at Michigan, I hadn’t published enough, although I had submitted a book chapter manuscript that was slated for publication in 1993 and had co-written another book chapter with my colleague Karen Downing that was also published in 1993.
During the first few weeks of my new job, I learned that in addition to having responsibilities in the area of staff development, I would also be responsible for professional recruitment and the promotion of diversity within the organization, and that my job title would be “Assistant to the Dean for Staff Development, Recruitment and Diversity”. I would also be a member of the Library administration and would attend meetings of the Administrative Group, Library Cabinet, Planning Council and Library Council, all leadership groups within the organization. I would also work with the Library Diversity Council and the Diversity Training Committee and would allocate staff development funds in consultation with the Staff Development Committee.
I also learned that Carla was very, very busy, and had little time to devote to helping me learn the ins and outs of the job. I spent more time learning from Shelley Phipps, one of the assistant deans. She and Carla were spearheading an “organizational review” of the Library, something I had no knowledge of until I got there. This was a huge deal, and it meant that I would have to hit the ground running in my new job.
I spent the next six months on the fast track, attending countless meetings and learning about how the UA Library operated from the top down. I also started organizing workshops and events for the staff. There was a whirlwind of activity around the library restructuring project, as it was soon called. Plans were in the works to completely change how everything in the Library was organized and managed. The restructuring had to take place, we were told, because the University had been cutting the Library budget for several years in a row, and something had to give. Increased costs for magazines and journals and the implementation of a new integrated library system also contributed to the idea that the Library needed to make some deep structural changes. The goal of the restructuring was to save money while continuing to provide critical user services and access to information. It called for the number of departments to be reduced from 15 to 9, in addition to calling for a change in how work was done and decisions were made. The library would become a “team-based” organization, with shared decision-making as one of its central tenets and improved work processes. This was a multi-year endeavor. My role was to help people get on the bandwagon to learn to work in teams and to make shared decisions, among many other things.
Unfortunately, nothing I did seemed adequate or good enough. From the beginning, in all honesty, I didn’t feel much support from Carla or others in the administration, and was soon blamed for many things that went wrong that were simply beyond my control. I was very surprised that there was so much “politics” at play, particularly around the issues of diversity and recruitment. The Library had two diversity committees, and the leaders of these both competed with one another for resources and attention. I got stuck in the middle of all of this and had to figure out where I fit in. It was difficult. Carla also had me doing things that should have been taken on by others. For example, she asked me to coordinate the development of a proposal for the creation of Mexican American Borderlands archive in Special Collections. I spent countless hours meeting with various Latino leaders in the community, gathering information and gauging their interest in such an idea. Meanwhile, the staff in Special Collections were livid that they were not asked to do this work. Eventually, they did get involved, but they were not happy that I got the ball rolling. As far as recruitment of minorities went, some of the department heads pretended they supported minority recruitment and affirmative action, but in reality, they did not. I worked hard to recruit minority candidates to apply for our jobs, but they wouldn’t in many cases even be granted an interview.
In hindsight I realize that the Library needed a seasoned professional to coordinate the training and development necessary for the move from a top down organization to a team-based organization. It needed someone who had experience in administration and leadership, with expertise in human resources issues, organizational design and change. Actually, nobody on the staff had this kind of experience. We were all winging it. I could be wrong, but as far as I know, our ARL consultant had never led this type of process anywhere else. She, the Dean and the Assistant Dean were all learning as they went along, as were the members of the Operational Adjustment Team (OAT), who came up with the idea that we should have teams run the organization. The problem was that nobody on the staff had experience with team-based organizations. The members of OAT read some books and figured they could take a cookbook approach to the whole thing and tweak things as they went along. They ignored some basic tenets about teams that the professional literature espoused, and decided that instead of having small project teams, as the literature promoted, we were going to have large functional teams, with everyone having a “voice” in decisions and workflow processes. Boy, what a mistake that was, on so many levels. Unfortunately, we dove right in and went for it, and within a year upended the whole structure of the organization. It would take just a short while to realize that we had made some major mistakes. Within a year, at least four of the members of operational adjustment team had left the Library. I have to wonder why. Perhaps they didn’t want to be around to take the heat for what was to come. Who knows?
I traveled three more times between June and December, attending conferences and training events. I went to ALA Annual in San Francisco, to the first conference of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association in Columbus, and to a training skills workshop in Raleigh, North Carolina.
I’ve always enjoyed traveling, and I took the time to explore each city as much as I could. I got to see my Michigan friends in San Francisco, and even ran as a member of their team in the ALA Fun Run, rather than with the UA team. I was already missing Michigan. In Columbus, Ohio, where the BCALA conference was held, I spent time with my friend Karen Downing. We had a bit of a falling out before I left Ann Arbor in May, but by August, things were better between us and we spent a lot of time together at this conference. It was an historic event, and I’m very glad I was able to be there. The training event I went to in Raleigh was a good session, but I quickly learned that the format of the workshop relied heavily on the participants teaching each other, by sharing their own knowledge and experiences with one another. The workshop facilitators merely provided the structural framework for the workshop and filled in a few gaps. We were also given lots of reading material. This was an approach to training that I saw used again and again by certain consultants and trainers.
The first six months back home had other surprises in store for me as well. Things weren’t the same with the family. My dad had met a much younger woman from Mexico and they lived together at my dad’s house. I never felt comfortable going over to visit. It was different. My sister Becky lived there with my dad and Lupe too. Things sure had changed. I missed my mom.
Christmas was non-eventful. I don’t remember much about it. I looked forward to the new year and hoped that things would improve. So far, I wasn’t all that happy with the way things were turning out. I wasn’t an HR person. Prior to moving back to Arizona, I had been a public services librarian and had done reference and teaching, as well as some collection development work. I was not accomplished as a public speaker, nor had I the confidence to stand up to others and stand my ground. I felt beat up by the end of the year. And I was not taking care of myself. I was doing stupid things like partying a lot and going out at night. I was lonely. It wasn’t a good time for me. Another big change in my life had just occurred—moving back home to Tucson after having been away for over five years– and I had difficulty adjusting to it all. I felt really stuck. My dreams of serving my community, of turning people on to reading and learning and of social change seemed further and further from my grasp. It would take another year or more before I felt more grounded in my personal life and found things to do on the job that were more worthwhile. But at least I was back home.
A NOTE ABOUT THE GRAPHICS: IF YOU CLICK ON THE IMAGE, IT WILL ENLARGE IN A NEW WINDOW. THERE’S A LOT OF TEXT, AND DOING THIS WILL MAKE IT EASIER TO READ THE WRITING. CLICKING THE BACK ARROW KEY WILL TAKE YOU BACK TO THE POST.
Here’s one of my favorite songs from the album:
I wrote the following article about unity among Latinos on campus. It was my farewell message to Michigan.
I got a phone call from the UA Library on March 9 and was invited for an interview for the reference job at the University of Arizona Libraries as well as the staff development position.
In addition to talking about my experiences with collection development and bibliographic instruction, I gave a presentation on the diversity work I participated in doing while at the University of Michigan Library. This was for the staff development position, which was later offered to me and that I accepted. My start date would be June 1. Here is a link to the presentation that I gave.
Couldn’t resist adding this:
Barbara MacAdam, the head of the Undergraduate Library, threw me a going away party at her home on Thursday, May 7, one day before my very last at Michigan. Most of my UGL friends were there, except LeAnne Martin and Mike Robbins, unfortunately. We had a great time. Everyone loved my brother Charles, especially the women. They thought he was quite handsome.
My very last day at work…
By the end of my first week of work in early June, I attended a meeting of the Arizona University Libraries Consortium, and was introduced there as Carla’s new assistant. The consortium membership included administrators and staff from all three Arizona universities. The purpose of these gatherings was to share information and explore areas where the three libraries could collaborate, such as working together to reduce costs by engaging in consortial arrangements with publishers and vendors.
In the Spring I threw my hat into the ring and ran for national secretary of REFORMA. I won the election and by ALA Annual was busy taking notes at all of the formal REFORMA meetings. Fun, fun, fun!
To see a full, detailed summary of the conference, see: “Surviving the Tremors: ALA in San Francisco”, Wilson Library Bulletin, September 1992, Vol. 67, p34-47. (pdf)
Here’s one of the songs from the album “El Quelite”.
I was looking forward to attending La Fiesta de San Agustin on August 30. Here’s a preview of the day’s events.
Earlier the same day, I had a big family gathering at my townhouse. We had a blast. Almost everyone in my immediate family showed up, with the exception of a few nieces and nephews. My dad, his wife Lupe, my cousin Yolanda and my niece’s boyfriend, Martin Green, have all since passed on. Time sure flies. I remember this like it was yesterday.
A few days later, I was traveling again, this time to Columbus, Ohio, for the first ever national conference of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. The conference lasted from September 3 through September 6. It was a historic occasion. I spent a lot of time with Karen Downing, my friend from Michigan. The purpose of my attendance was to recruit African American librarians to Arizona. I had just successfully helped recruit one such librarian, and the Dean of the Library wanted me to let people know that Arizona welcomed librarians of color.
The conference got several write-ups in the national library press. Here are links to a couple such articles.
African American Librarians Meet as “Culture Keepers”, School Library Journal, October 1992.
Papers from this conference are available in the following publication. Culture keepers:enlightening and empowering our communities : proceedings of the First National Conference of African American Librarians, September 4-6, 1992, Columbus, Ohio (catalog record from the University of Arizona Library).
Here’s my favorite version of the song, “I Have Nothing”, which first appeared on the soundtrack to the movie “The Bodyguard”.
Here’s one of the many great tunes that can be found on the above album.
I ended up the year still single, but in the next few months, things in my personal life would change dramatically, and for the better.
