From the Committee on Work with the Foreign Born to the Serving Refugees, Immigrants, and Displaced Persons Committee: Chronicling US Race Relations, Immigration Policy, and Library Engagement with Immigrants of Color

This article adds to library discussions on immigrant outreach by arguing that US library practice simultaneously reflects the nation’s racial stratification and immigration legislation. A chronicle of US race relations, immigration policy, and library engagement with immigrants of color is told through three periods: (1) the founding of the Committee on Work with the Foreign Born (CWFB) in the early twentieth century; (2) the prominence of the ALA Social Responsibilities Roundtable, Ethnic, ALA Multicultural, Information Exchange Roundtable, and National Librarians of Color Organizations (NALCOs) in the late twentieth century; and (3) the recent establishment of the Serving Refugees, Immigrants, and Displaced Persons (SRIDP) subcommittee. The LIS field can work toward more meaningful and contextualized efforts by cultivating awareness of, first, how race factors into both library development and immigration policy and, in addition, the harms posed by racist anti-immigrant sentiment.