Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance

by Edgar Villanueva

Access is wealth. Literacy is wealth. Information is wealth, too. All can be used as medicine. For instance, libraries are the primary access to information, and even to the internet, for a lot of low-income people. Libraries function as community centers, safe spaces and counseling offices, and even employment agencies—many people rely on librarians to help them navigate job listings or fill out complicated forms and applications for government benefits such as disability pay or unemployment support. Librarians sometimes even help people create and print out résumés. So librarians have a real opportunity to be healers, and this is one of the reasons why it’s important that they come from the community they’re serving and really understand the needs of people in the community. As it turns out, less than 20 percent of library directors are people of color.