[Publib] African American and Latino family hardship

[jgehner at hhptf.org]

As a postscript to the dialogue(s) following the 2006 Joint Conference of
Librarians of Color, I wanted to share two potentially relevant items:

1. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has an informative report on
the hardships African American and Latino families face.

http://www.cbpp.org/11-21-06pov.htm

Among other findings, "Poverty rates are two to four times higher among
black families (29 percent) and Latino citizen families (17 percent) than
among non-Latino white families (8 percent)."

2. According to the same Web page, the federal "hardship data" on which
the report is based may no longer be collected by the government due to
"low funding levels from Congress for the Census Bureau overall."

No big surprises on either front, I suppose ... but how can librarians
respond?

John Gehner, Coordinator
Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force (HHPTF)
Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT)
of the American Library Association (ALA)

jgehner at hhptf.org
http://www.hhptf.org
http://www.libr.org/srrt