El Corazón de Tejas: Central Chapter of REFORMA
2003-2004 Annual Report

EN MI FAMILIA QUILT PROJECT
Our big work this year was the En Mi Familia: a Family Quilt Project. The quilt, a collaboration between El Corazón de Tejas: Central Texas Chapter of REFORMA, The Austin Public Library, and the Austin Children's Museum was spearheaded by Paola Ferate-Soto with the help of tireless Corazón members, Austin Public Library staff and several volunteers. Local workshops were held at the same time that the Children's Museum hosted their exhibit of the artist/author Carmen Lomas Garza's work titled "En Mi Familia," from September to November coinciding in part with Latino Heritage Month. We held the workshops at seven Austin Public Library Branches, two senior centers and a community park (during 16 de Septiembre festivities). We held additional workshops and enlisted the help of Americorp members and senior activity center participants in "tying" the quilt. In order to fund part of the cost for this project we obtained donations from local craft stores. Some Corazón members also donated materials or money towards the purchase of materials.

The intention of this project was to record an event in the lives of the participating families by having them depict it on fabric. Participants choose a family memory, drew it in the square, and decorated it with fabric paint, sequins, buttons, ribbon, fabric, etc. They could attend one event, or they could come to the whole series and continue working on their squares. The squares from all participating families were then joined together by Corazón members and other volunteers, into several quilts and exhibited in area libraries, the Austin history Center and the Austin's Children's museum.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Our second big endeavor this year was the production of our first suggested book list: Temas Latinos: Suggested Children's Books Grades K-3
Margo Gutierrez spearheaded this project. With the help of several members the list was compiled. Sarah Bradley-Leighton edited the list and completed the annotations. It is now available at our website at: http://www.main.org/reforma/Lists/readinglist.html and it can be downloaded as either a PDF or a Word document. Anyone can use this, provided they credit El Corazón de Tejas.

NEW MEMBERS PACKETS
Jennifer Thomas with the help of Maribel Garza put together our New Member Packets as well as our Recruiting Handout". The New Member Packets include a pen with our logo, a brochure of our chapter, a general information sheet with a list of officers, listserv and distribution list instructions and a list of our regular meetings; a membership list; our chapter's Constitution and Bylaws; a list of chapter accomplishments; a mentor application form (to mentor UT library science students); a REFORMA membership application and an example of a REFORMA newsletter. It also includes "La declaración de los derechos de las bibliotecas", "Why buy Books in Spanish" by Al Milo (reproduced with permission), Library Vocabulary in Spanish, Dewey Decimal in Spanish, Links / Enlaces del Web, and our bibliography: "Temas Latinos". The Recruiting Handout is an abbreviated version of the New Member Folders to be distributed at library conferences and other events.

HOYOS / HOLES
As part of the "Mayor's Book Club, 2003" El Corazón de Tejas purchased 10 Spanish language copies of "Holes" / "Hoyos" and donated them to the Austin Public Library. This was done in order to create a Spanish version of the City's reading campaign. Gustavo Soto, Steve Reich, and Paola Ferate-Soto hosted a discussion group in Spanish on the book at one of the local branches.

SPEAKERS
Several speakers were invited to our regular meetings to keep us abreast of professional work done in our diverse field. Mr. Emilio Zamora came to our November meeting and spoke about Mexican-Americans in Texas, and his work at the Benson Latin American Collection.

Diana Miranda-Murillo from the "Latin American Information Center" (LANIC) www.lanic.utexas.edu spoke about LANIC and what her work there entails. It is a great resource of electronic information on Latin America.

DIA DE LOS NIÑOS / DIA DE LOS LIBROS
This year we celebrated Austin's 6th Annual celebration. El Corazón was once again one of the sponsors of this event by donating $300 and by providing volunteers. This year we had a poetry tent booth with magnetic poetry in English and in Spanish. Our members also aided in collecting a survey of participants of what they would like to see in their public library.

EL CLUB DE CONVERSACION
Jennifer Thomas organized this conversation club. We are starting to meet once a month at a local café to have a conversation session in Spanish about issues related to the library field and anything else that is of current interest. The conversations are facilitated by fluent Spanish speakers and are for the benefit of colleagues that would like to practice their conversational Spanish in a "no pressure" setting.

Respectfully submitted,

Anna Paola Ferate-Soto
June 2004