In 2010, Hartford Public Library received a three-year National Leadership Grant to respond to the acute need nationwide for deeper immigrant civic integration. Certainly the immigrants’ socio-economic status is a key determining factor in their ability to integrate, but it also depends on how institutions and organizations enable conditions that allow immigrants to achieve meaningful citizenship and feel a like an active participant in the broader community. Connectedness to the broader community is an important indicator of a person’s level of integration in society. What the IMLS Project has allowed us to accomplish is to go beyond only directing services to immigrants but also involve the receiving community in support of immigrants at levels where they feel better connected to the broader community.

Under this initiative, the library plays two roles: as a connector for immigrants to resources, services and programs that can help them thrive in America and become involved in their communities, and as a catalyst for relationship building between people of like and unlike backgrounds.

Key strategies have included:

• The recruitment and training of volunteers to serve as Cultural Navigators. These mentors are integral to easing the transition of newly arrived immigrants into their home city Hartford. Building coalitions among key stakeholders as a vehicle for stakeholders to communicate concerns, best practices, and opportunities.
• Engaging both the immigrant and the receiving communities in dialogue on topics of mutual interest and concern which organically leads to plans of action.
• Fostering the value that regardless of where you come from, Hartford welcomes you – We Belong Here Hartford.

This initiative has been named We Belong Here. Serving also as a rally cry, these words suggest inclusion and connection and reinforces two ideas: first, that immigrants are encouraged to leverage the library’s resources to become acclimated to their surroundings and engaged in their communities and, second – on a larger scale – that both receiving and immigrant community members belong in America and are welcome in our cities and towns.

We Belong Here has resulted in significant outcomes: The establishment of a City Commission on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs; the establishment of a Neighborhood Welcoming Committee that is now being replicated in other neighborhoods; and, for the first in Hartford’s history, immigrants joined the hometown Hooker Day Parade and long-term residents participated actively in the Karen and Bhutanese New Year celebrations.

The highlight of the campaign to date was the Library’s publishing of an Art Book showcasing local immigrant artist’s talents and quotes on what it meant to them to belong. The book entitled Freedom Dreams We Belong Here is now used as a fundraising gift. With the Library as the catalyst, the We Belong Here integration model transcends the bureaucratic process of obtaining U.S. Citizenship by imparting a sense of belonging to immigrants and refugees and facilitating their transition becoming active community members. The We Belong Here toolkit provides a step-by-step guidebook for bringing the We Belong Here initiative to life in any community.

The four key areas include:

1. Positioning
2. Messaging
3. Strategies & Tactics
4. Communications.

We Belong Here received 3rd prize at ALA’s Diversity Fair 2013; and in 2014 it received, the Myra Oliver Award from the Connecticut State Immigrant and Refugee Coalition. This award is given to programs for “work done beyond the call of duty to help refugees and immigrants”.