As mentioned above, the Latino population makes up a substantial proportion of Arizona’s population, and is growing rapidly. In 2000, Arizona’s total population was 5,130,632, with 25.3 percent Latino.⁷ In 2010, the population was 6,392,017, and 29.6 percent were Hispanic or Latino.⁸Table 1 presents the growth of the Latino population by county. Only Pinal County’s Latino population percentage decreased, and even in that case, the county’s Latino population almost doubled between those years—as did the non-Latino population. Growth is also apparent in the school system. The Arizona Department of Education reports that in 2002, 35.5 percent of Arizona’s 922,280 students were Hispanic, growing to 41.4 percent in 2009.⁹ The Latino population growth has two main drivers: a higher birth rate in Latino families already resident in Arizona and immigration, authorized or unauthorized.

While Latinos generally transition from their native languages (Spanish and/or indigenous languages) to English over generations, the growth of the Latino population through immigration ensures that the Spanish language is reinforced and retained. The 2000 Census found that 927,395 of Arizona’s 4.7 million residents (19.5 percent) spoke Spanish.¹⁰ Of the Latino population in Arizona in 2000, 74 percent used Spanish as a home language.¹¹ Of those, 51 percent spoke English “very well,” but 12 percent did not speak English at all. Comparing these results to the 2006–10 American Community Survey shows the absolute number of Spanish speakers has increased to 1,199,689, and the percentage of people who speak Spanish has increased to 20.7.¹² Looking exclusively at the Latino population in 2010, 37 percent are foreign-born and 70 percent speak Spanish at home. Of those, 54 percent speak English “very well,” and 12 percent do not speak English at all.¹³ In 2010, Arizona had 877,260 foreign-born residents, of whom 572,915 speak Spanish.¹⁴ The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 360,000 undocumented immigrants were living in Arizona as of 2011.¹⁵ Nationally, Hispanic women have a higher fertility rate than non-Hispanic white or black women, 98.8 versus 59.4 and 71.1 respectively.¹⁶ This holds true in Arizona, where in 2010, Hispanic mothers accounted for 39.4 percent of all births in the state, although the Hispanic/Latino population was only 28.6 percent of the total Arizona population. By contrast, the white non-Hispanic mothers accounted for 44.5 percent of births, while the white non-Hispanic population was 57.8 percent.¹⁷

At the same time as Arizona’s Latino population has grown, Arizona’s laws and attitudes toward Latin American immigrants and Spanish-speakers seemed to grow less tolerant. From 1999 to 2009, 110 bills were introduced into the Arizona Legislature that dealt with immigration, with a rapid surge of bills coming from 2006–10.¹⁸ From 1999 to 2004, 19 bills were introduced and four were ratified, including one resolution to the US Congress encouraging them to consider legislation for a legal worker program for immigrants. In 2005, 15 immigration-related bills were introduced, followed by 24 in 2006, 21 in 2007, 24 in 2008, and 17 in 2009. Of these 91 bills, 12 were submitted to and signed by the Governor, and three resolutions were transmitted to the Secretary of State. Resolutions signed into law included legislation allowing judges to consider illegal immigration an aggravating factor in sentencing, denying bail to illegal immigrants accused of “serious felony offenses” or drunk driving, requiring applicants for public programs to submit proof of immigration status, requiring law enforcement agents to determine a detainee’s immigrant status within 24 hours of arrest and transmit that status to the person’s country of origin, and requiring the Attorney General to investigate businesses accused of knowingly employing illegal immigrants and to notify US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.¹⁹ The year 2007 also saw the passage of a resolution from the Arizona House to the President of the United States, urging him to deploy National Guard troops to defend the US border.²⁰

Between 1999 and 2009, five propositions were placed on the state ballot by citizen initiative. The 2000 passage of Proposition 203 eliminated bilingual education in lieu of one year of English immersion for Spanish-speaking children, and in 2006, Proposition 103 declared English the official language of the State.²¹ In 2004, Proposition 200 restricted public services to citizens and required service providers to check for citizenship before providing services.²² There was fear in the library community that this law would apply to librarians serving patrons, including school librarians helping children. The Arizona Attorney General later clarified that this law applied only to public welfare, but a clear precedent was laid down that immigrants were not desired. Proposition 300 in 2006 stated that undocumented immigrants were not eligible for state-provided child care assistance, were not eligible to participate in adult education programs, and could not receive in-state tuition or state-funded financial aid at Arizona colleges.²³ In 2008, Proposition 202—which was intended to stop hiring undocumented immigrants by fining and punishing employers—was overturned by the voters.²⁴

More recently, Arizona has been in the news for SB1070, which required law enforcement officials to determine a person’s immigration status if the officer suspected the person was undocumented.²⁵ This opens the door to racial profiling, and essentially requires anyone who might be suspected to be an undocumented immigrant to carry certain specific forms of identification at all times. Indeed, a federal judge recently ruled that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office had engaged in racial profiling of Latinos.²⁶ Additionally, SB1070 made it a felony to transport or harbor illegal aliens. After numerous challenges, the Supreme Court in 2012 maintained that federal law preempted state law on three of the law’s provisions: making failure to register as an alien a state offense, criminalizing an unauthorized alien for seeking work, and arresting a person on suspicion that the person has committed an offense that would make him removable from the United States. They did not invalidate the part of the law that would allow detention of a suspected alien until his or her immigration status was determined, on the grounds that state courts had not yet shown that enforcement of this provision would conflict with federal law.²⁷

The rise of anti-immigrant sentiment stems from several factors. “In periods of high unemployment and global dislocation, immigrants easily become the targets of political leaders who accuse them of criminality, lack of morals, making excessive demands on public services, and creating undue competition for scarce employment.”²⁸ There is a belief that undocumented immigrants are associated with increased drug trafficking and crime rates. As Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer claimed there was a link between illegal immigration and drug cartels. Economic instability may also play a factor. Some argue that low-skilled native workers bear the negative effects of undocumented workers depressing average wages, though others argue that immigrants have had a net positive fiscal effect on the state’s economy.²⁹

Libraries have long had a tradition of providing information services to their entire communities, and the library profession has increasingly recognized the needs of immigrants and non-English speaking people. ALA’s mission includes the goal of “access to information for all” and considers “Equitable Access to Information and Library Services” as a key action area.³⁰ Since 2000, ALA and its divisions have passed two resolutions in support of immigrants’ rights,³¹ and produced several documents regarding library services provided to non-English speakers. ALA’s Services to Non-English Speakers in U.S. Public Libraries study used national demographic data to identify libraries near linguistically isolated populations and surveyed those libraries to learn about the services they offered.³² Results indicated that Spanish was the language most frequently spoken by library communities, and the language most frequently provided for by libraries. Librarians indicate that “special language collections” and outreach were the most frequently used services and that ESL activities were the most successful. RUSA’s Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Multilingual Collections and Services advised librarians specifically on developing their collections, suggesting considerations of format and topic areas of interest to the library’s targeted groups, providing ready and convenient access to those materials through appropriate cataloging and shelf displays, and appropriate promotion of the collections.³³ Additional recommendations were made about marketing, outreach, and staffing to meet the needs of linguistically and ethnically diverse patrons. Another document, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ “Library Services for Immigrants: A Report on Current Practices” was developed by a working group of librarians and immigrant/cultural aid societies.³⁴ The report provided ideas and recommendations for libraries seeking to improve their services to immigrants, as well as highlighting some successful library practices. This report suggested developing partnerships with other community organizations, getting the immigrant community involved in the library through collections and planning, and engaging in programs and outreach to attract new immigrants.

Tool kits were developed, including the Librarian’s Toolkit for Responding Effectively to Anti-Immigrant Sentiment, How to Serve the World @ your library, and The American Dream Starts @ your library.³⁵ Tool kits generally provide some general background and provide tips, ideas, and resources to help libraries solve problems for their own communities. ALA’s How to Serve the World and American Dream tool kits both focused on providing services for non-English speakers and new immigrants. REFORMA’s Anti-Immigrant Sentiment toolkit provided ideas for librarians to use for helping new immigrants obtain library cards and library services.

The University of Arizona’s School of Information Resources and Library Science developed the Knowledge River program, specifically designed to get Latino and Native American students involved in the profession.³⁶ The program offers scholarships to Latino and Native American students, but also incorporates diversity and cultural perspectives into the study of information and communication behaviors. In addition to financial aid and curricular reform, the program focuses on ensuring students form supportive cohorts, take advantage of mentoring, and participate in work experience. The Institute of Museum and Library Services and other local stakeholders have provided significant funding for the Knowledge River program, making its existence a visible marker of professional support for Latino librarianship in Arizona.

Between 1999 and 2009, 11 books were published to advise librarians on serving their Spanish-speaking or Latino populations (see appendix). Of these, three were focused on services to Latino youth, four were guides to serving Latinos and/or Spanish speakers, two were collections of research on services to Latinos, one focused on historic periodicals, and one provided Spanish language subject headings. In 2011, library holdings were examined in OCLC’s WorldCat to determine whether Arizona public libraries held these works. Libraries that purchased these volumes likely had a Latino or Spanish-speaking population to be served and a commitment to learn more about serving that population. However, if a library did not hold one of these titles, it doesn’t necessarily signify that they did not have a Spanish-speaking population nor that they weren’t interested in serving that population. For instance, small libraries with small budgets would prioritize materials for patrons over materials about library services. Two of the titles were not held by any public library in Arizona. Distribution of the remaining titles can be seen in table 2.

In almost all categories of service to the Spanish-speaking, Arizona libraries have experienced positive but incremental changes. Tables 3 and 4 show the changes in service to the Spanish-speaking over ten years.

Table 3 provides the percentage of libraries offering a service, but does not tell us the degree to which the service is offered. In this table, the library that has one Spanish-language book is included on equal terms with the library that has 1000 Spanish-language books. Results from table 3 indicate that more Arizona libraries provided services to the Spanish-speaking in 2009 than did in 1999. Moreover, more libraries have Spanish-speaking staff available for all their open hours and more libraries are providing cultural and language instruction to their staff. However, this has not translated into a noticeable increase in libraries providing outreach targeted toward Spanish speakers.

The results indicate that more libraries hold Spanish-language children’s and adult materials. Several survey recipients provided no information about collection size, or provided information only about their Spanish-language collection without providing information about the rest of the collection. For the 2009 survey, 54 libraries reported their total children’s collection size and 59 reported the size of their Spanish-language children’s collection. Of those 59, no libraries reported a collection size of 0, meaning 100 percent of those who answered this question had Spanish-language children’s materials. While 58 libraries reported their general adult collection size, 60 libraries reported their Spanish-language adult book collection size, and four of those libraries reported zero Spanish-language adult holdings, for a total of 93 percent of libraries holding Spanish-language adult books.

Information on collection size for other media was not collected, but results indicated that more libraries had videos, audio recordings, and periodicals in 2009 than in 1999. More libraries had Spanish-language forms, flyers, and signage, and many more had a Spanish-language interface to their library catalogs. Information was not collected in 1999 about Spanish-language electronic resources and Spanish-language library websites, but it seems reasonable to assume that both these categories have increased.

Table 4 looks at the degree of services offered across the whole state using averages and medians. Averages speak more to the performance of the entire state on these measures than it does to any one library. For instance, libraries in 2009 reported that they had 346 librarians, of whom 60 were fluent in Spanish. These librarians were not distributed equally across libraries; some libraries had as many as five Spanish-speaking librarians, and most had none. Services to Spanish speakers seem to have increased between 1999 and 2009, though slowly. While the percentage of Spanish-speaking clerks and youth services staff has changed considerably, the percentage of Spanish-speaking librarians is increasing very slowly. Spanish-language material collection sizes are growing slowly, while children’s programming is increasing more rapidly.

Averages may be appropriate to measure general state performance, but median statistics are more appropriate to gauge the performance of individual libraries within the whole. The median is the value that falls in the middle of the cases—for 2009, the median would be the forty-third out of 85 values, arranged smallest to largest. Looking at medians demonstrates a real change in number of Spanish-speaking clerks employed, while there is essentially no difference in number of librarians or youth services staff. However, there has been a real increase in the number of Spanish-language adult and children’s books held by libraries.

The surveys were sent to most public libraries in the State of Arizona, but not all public libraries answered. Comparing results from different libraries in 1999 and 2009 might miss service changes in particular libraries. Tables 5 and 6 present results from the 41 libraries that completed both surveys.

Among libraries that answered both surveys, there is some indication of slowed growth of library services. While there is an increase in the number of libraries employing Spanish-speaking clerks and youth services staff, the number of libraries employing Spanish-speaking librarians remains stagnant. Fewer libraries provide Spanish language classes for their employees, though more provide cultural education.

Libraries seem to be most effective at providing Spanish-language adult and children’s books. In 2009, 34 libraries reported their Spanish-language adult collection size, and of those, only three indicated a collection size of zero, meaning 91 percent of reporting libraries held Spanish-language adult books. Of the 33 libraries that indicated their Spanish-language children’s collection size, none had a collection size of zero, for 100 percent of reporting libraries holding Spanish-language children’s books.

A greater percentage of libraries are providing videos, audio recordings, and periodicals in Spanish, but the increase is relatively small in real numbers. More libraries are providing language classes and bilingual children’s programs, bilingual catalog interfaces and library forms. However, fewer are providing outreach to the Spanish-speaking community, and the percentage of libraries providing Spanish-speaking staff for all open hours and Spanish-language signage has remained stagnant.

The number of Spanish-speaking clerks has increased markedly and the number of Spanish-speaking librarians has increased slightly, but the number of Spanish-speaking youth services staff has not increased at all. Spanish-language children’s and adult collection sizes have increased, and more Spanish-language children’s programs are being offered. However, the total number of librarians, youth services staff, and children’s programs have decreased.