Sharing the Stories: West Side meets East Side and the World at the East Side Freedom Library

Many of you know I grew up on St. Paul's West Side, within a mile of both sets of grandparents and near all my cousins. Fewer of you have heard my West Side/East Side rivalry stories. It is therefore with some surprise I ask you to support the East Side Freedom Library! (I am sure my working-class forebears would approve: read on.)

The ESFL building is a "de-commissioned" Andrew Carnegie-funded library on St. Paul's East Side (formerly Arlington Heights library). It will be turned into a community center (one key part of the mission) and a repository for the stories of immigrants and laborers/workers, those of the past AND those of today: in effect this fosters a dialogue between past and present (part two of the mission). The site and center will be on St. Paul's East Side; the stories can come from all over the city, all of the state, and all over the world. 

Besides my personal history of workers and immigrants, my work as a history instructor at Normandale Community College keeps me constantly aware of the importance of our stories. Many of my students are immigrants themselves or members of families of recent immigrants; their stories matter to them, to me, and to our country. United States history itself is, in a core way, a history of immigrants to this continent: those stories matter greatly for understanding our (shared) history. East Side Freedom Library will do important work to keep and share these stories.

I use the future tense there because it takes a lot of work and, frankly, a lot of money to turn a (fantastic) historic building into a technically stable, multi-use community center and archive. It takes a lot of money, too, to create the archival conditions to store, and the programmatic conditions to collect and share, personal stories. I have enormous confidence in the creators and managers of this effort to connect our architectural and personal past with a dynamic future.

Those who give $100 will have the opportunity to commemorate your own stories. Your story can be of a friend, a relative, an institution, or even just a story about your past or the area. Whatever makes history for you can be part of the permanent collection of this important work. The names of those people or stories will be rendered in art for the library in addition to being added to the collection.

But do not be held up by that $100 "offer": all donations, at any amount, help move this important project forward: I thank you for considering a donation, and thank you in advance if you make one.

And, as those who know me also know, I am text-based and not particularly visual. Thanks for sticking with this long story!