Kristina and Megdi’s Editorial Introduction
We’d like to begin by thanking up//root founding editors Joyce, Sofia and Jorge as well as We Here admin Jenny, Nicolette, Jen, Crystal and Charlotte for their leadership and intention placed in the work of founding and maintaining this community. We are honored and hella grateful to be invited by them to contribute to the development of up//root as 2021 MLIS graduate student editors. We’ll work as editors for one (1) year to support and develop this publication.
Identity (de)construction is a lifelong process. We believe the practice of naming identities allows us to publicly hold ourselves accountable and interrogate our relationships to power. We are both cis, heterosexual and non-disabled women. Megdi comes from a working-class, Black immigrant family; Kristina comes from an Afro-Puerto Rican working-class family. Our identities shape our politics, both of which are intrinsic in our roles at up//root and in libraries. As editors, we acknowledge and commit to the vigorous requirement to challenge ourselves and our work.
Kristina is living and working in the state currently recognized as Arizona and acknowledges the twenty-two Native Nations that have inhabited Arizona land for centuries, including the Akimel O’odham and Pee Posh communities. Megdi is living and working in lands belonging to Lisjan (Ohlone) tribes - Lisjan (Ohlone), Karkin (Ohlone), Bay Miwok, Plains Miwok, Wappo, Delta Yokut and Napian (Patwin) - also known as the Bay Area, California. We stand in solidarity with our local Indigenous communities through the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust by contributing monthly to the Shuumi Land Tax and sharing our time, labor and funds to support Indigenous mutual aid. We offer this land acknowledgement as a step toward reparation and justice for Indigenous peoples.
As students, up//root’s mission and ethos connected to us both deeply. It’s been made abundantly clear - especially during austerity, climate catastrophes and a global pandemic - that BIPOC library and archive workers are dangerously being asked to do more with little recourse. We Here, up//root and other BIPOC-focused LIS collectives are essential because they provide necessary spaces of care, healing and action - a truth consistently affirmed by library workers in our lives and beyond.
Our intent as editors is to contribute to this community of BIPOC writers and creators by helping craft expressive outlets that are safe, welcoming and open for critique. Since joining up//root in January, we have been working so far on efforts including a newly-formed writing support Slack channel, creating resources for future submitters, engaging with community on social media, and growing up//root’s outreach in the LIS and education field.
We are wholly invested in extending the impact of We Here and up//root to our student communities. By sharing events and resources with our classmates and university colleagues, and continuing critical dialogue in our class settings we’ll further the disruptive impact of We Here. It’s our intention to co-construct up//root in conversation with our writers and readers to reflect the interests of everyone invested in this work. Following the end of our term, we’ll mentor the next cohort of student editors in continuation of community and necessary disruption at up//root.
ENDNOTES
[1] Cover photo taken by Kristina Santiago, 2021.
