California Man Richard Soto Keeps A Library Of Latino History In His Own Basement

Richard Soto, a 64-year-old teacher of Chicano art, psychology, culture and literature, describes himself as always having been a “voracious” reader, especially when it came to reading on historical figures. He was, however, disappointed in the lack of available information of historical Latino figures and decided to remedy this by building his own library dealing specifically with Mexican American history:

“There was this whole question: What are we? We are Mexicans, but we speak Spanish and Spanish comes from Spain. I’m sure kids from Mexico knew, but we weren’t from Mexico.”

His collection, nestled in his own basement, currently contains about 4,000 books ranging from biographies of political figures like Pancho Villa, activists like Cesar Chavez and artists like Frida Kahlo. His library also contains multimedia sources, like Jennifer Lopez’s Bordertown, for which we’ll eventually forgive him.

An activist himself, Soto was a member of the Brown Berets in the late 60s. Today, he busies himself with teaching and feeding his growing collection. His favorite work, he says, is Let Their Spirits Dance by Stella Pope Duarte - about a mother, Chicana, who promises to touch her son’s name at the Vietnam Memorial.

Whatever, show-off. We have like a newspaper clipping and a pamphlet and a mousetrap in our basement and it’s only going to grow from there.

Man’s basement library a trove of Latino history [Recordnet]