This week, I witnessed the power of story on the steps of UNR’s Knowledge Center when our Black Student Organization led a protest against racism. This week, my students reflected on the power of belonging in queer spaces when they discussed a poem by Danez Smith. This week, Drag Queen Story Hour appeared — again — on a library board agenda. 

When I joined the Zoom meeting to make a public comment, I wasn’t alone. Minutes before the meeting started at 5:30 p.m., members of my women of color book club dropped what they were doing to share their own comments. One of them was in the middle of their social work class, and the instructor supported their decision to participate. When the time for public comments came, we raised our hands on Zoom and eagerly awaited our turn to speak. What we witnessed for the next hour broke our hearts, and at 6:38 p.m. we logged off.

I saw, firsthand, what Ilya Arbatman described in his recent opinion piece as “an open mic for bigotry and vitriol.” However, I also witnessed the power of story when members of our community spoke up for the importance of diverse representation. This week, my students reminded me that peace and solidarity are within reach when we listen and open ourselves up to story. And this week, I am taking my students’ lead. 

I have been a member of the Reno/Sparks community since 2008. I grew up in the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District and, thanks to public programming, I grew to love spoken word. I still remember the first time I participated at a library open mic night in seventh grade. That night, I embraced writing as my voice to the world. Today, I am a professor at UNR, where I teach courses in first-year composition and creative writing.

Librarians were some of my earliest literacy sponsors and, more than that, they connected me with books that have given me language to describe my experiences. I know I’m not alone when I say that growing up has its joys and pains. My parents and teachers did the best they could to nurture and support me, but I didn’t have the precise words to articulate my exact experience.

You see, for 16 years of my life, I thought I was broken because I didn’t experience attraction like my peers. When I finally tiptoed into the dating world as a college student, it was painful and confusing. Then, in 2023, I read a young adult novel by Alice Oseman: Loveless, which centers the voice of a teenager who identifies as aromantic and asexual. There I was at 33 years old, and this young adult book rescued me. For the first time in my life, I found language to describe a huge part of my identity, and I finally realized that I am not broken. 

One book led to another and two months ago, I found Angela Chen’s book Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex on the internet:. When I visited Sparks Library, I saw this book on display like an answer to my prayers. Within its pages I found answers to questions I’d been asking about my identity: Who I am and how I love.

Had I been given access to books like these as a young adult, I would’ve known much sooner that who I am is not deviant, is not broken. And the truth is I have a lot to offer this world as an asexual woman of color. I now know that my strength is found in the ways I honor my platonic relationships. Keeping the vocabulary of LGBTQ+ identities away from me would not erase my experiences; it would only keep me in the dark, confused and feeling broken. 

I share my story, because I believe in the power of recognizing and naming our experiences. As I witnessed the board of trustees meeting, I observed that supporters of Drag Queen Story Hour shared personal stories, while those who challenged this event made sweeping generalizations. I would ask these people: Have they actually listened to a person of color? Have they met a human being who identifies as LGBTQ+? 

I urge our community to keep LGBTQ+ representation in our libraries. Stories create a sense of belonging, and belonging saves lives.

Joanne Mallari is a Reno-based poet and a teaching assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. She is the author of Daughter Tongue, a chapbook of poems.

The Nevada Independent welcomes informed, cogent rebuttals to opinion pieces such as this. Send them to [email protected].