Librotraficante’s Tony Díaz Sets Up Literary Shop in the Southwest

Following the media success behind the Librotraficante caravan, mobilizer and author Tony Díaz is taking the movement from the streets and into southwestern communities by way of pop-up Underground Libraries.

Four cities highlighted on the caravan’s original trail (Houston, Albuquerque, Tucson, and San Antonio) will host the Underground Libraries shelved with contraband literature. The libraries, “based around social justice,” will function as community reference and lending centers. Díaz promises that each location will be stocked with at least four copies of every book removed from Arizona classrooms since the passing of HB2281 last October.

Opening today in San Antonio, the first of these Underground Libraries is located at The Southwest Workers Union, an organization "of low-income workers and families, community residents, and youth, united in one organizational struggle for worker rights, environmental justice and community empowerment.” Díaz sees the union between SWU and Librotraficante as an opportunity to benefit from the organizational

"We do want to broaden the audience for books. It is not rare to find writers and academics collaborating,” says Díaz. “However, especially in the case of San Antonio, it is rare to see those same groups collaborating with a union organizer. Now, we do."