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Join us for a conversation about community, resilience, and activism in the Latinx community with Gladys Vega, the Executive Director of La Collaborativa in Chelsea. Gladys Vega is a groundbreaking community organizer and advocate, working relentlessly and fearlessly to ensure the Latinx immigrant community has a voice in determining how it’s needs and concerns are addressed. She believes that empowerment of the individual leads to empowerment of the community and that social action is the vehicle an empowered community can use to achieve its goals. Gladys is the architect of nearly all of La Colaborativa’s programs, initiatives, and community organizing campaigns. Her leadership has resulted in expanded rights for immigrants, low-income families, tenants, workers, youths, and people of color across Massachusetts.

Join the Cambridge Public Library in welcoming Rachel Slade, author of Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (And How It Got That Way)—as well as the national bestseller, Into the Raging Sea—for the latest installment of the Our Path Forward Lecture Series. Slade's book, which follows a young couple in Maine trying to kickstart a lost industry, was named a Publishers Weekly "Top 10 Pick in Business and Economics." Cosmopolitan called Making It in America an "enlightening look at the history of manufacturing in America and how we got to where we are today." After the lecture, Slade will sit in conversation with Janelle Nanos, a business enterprise reporter at The Boston Globe and a finalist for a 2023 Pulitzer Prize, after which she will answer questions from the audience. Registration is required.

The past year featured the launch of several strategic initiatives, the unveiling of critical new resources, and the achievement of many critical milestones across the City. In this newsletter, we look back at some of the highlights and milestones that may have gone under-the-radar in 2024. Highlights include the launch of a new alternative 9-11 response team, a new outreach van for individuals who are unhoused, new programming for older adults and expanded offerings for families, the most checked out library books over the past year, and much more. Finally, meet some of the people behind the scenes leading this important work.

To mark the 250th anniversaries of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, a coalition of local non-profits and government agencies will present Washington in American Memory, a seven-part speaker series. Explore how Americans have remembered and forgotten Washington’s involvement with slavery over the past 250 years. Three historians who work at the intersection of scholarship and public history will shed new light on our founding contradictions: Kelli Racine Barnes, ACE Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow and historian of 18th- and 19th-century U.S. history John Garrison Marks, author of Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (forthcoming April 7, 2026) and Vice President of Research and Engagement at the American Association for State and Local History Kyera Singleton, Executive Director of the Royall House & Slave Quarters and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Tufts University Center for the Humanities This event will conclude with a book signing by John Garrison Marks. Copies of Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory will be available to purchase.

Using 30 languages represented in Cambridge, the new Welcome poster states, “You are welcome here,” and was woven together in a quilt-like design to represent the City’s rich cultural diversity. It also contains text to remind community members of their right to receive services and information in their preferred language, regardless of their immigration status. We encourage you to display this poster in a public-facing area of your department, like a reception desk. The poster is intended to convey solidarity with our immigrant community members visually. It can also be used as a tool for visitors to indicate the language they prefer to communicate in, which will help City staff coordinate appropriate interpretation or translation follow up.

Learn how to spot, evaluate and manage online misinformation for a safe online online navigation To view and register for other Basic Tech Classes at the Library, please go to tinyurl.com/basictechclass. This is a virtual event. A Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants 1 hour before the event. Registration is encouraged, but not required.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Hetty Lui McKinnon—James Beard Award-winning food writer and cook—for a discussion of her new cookbook Linger: Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor. She will be joined in conversation by Irene Li—founder of Mei Mei Dumpling Company in South Boston and author of the cookbook Perfectly Good Food. Registration is required.

CPD's Secret Santa for Seniors Gift Drive is Back for Its 19th Year. This program relies solely on generous donations from Cambridge businesses, residents, community members, and CPD employees. Gift bags are organized and distributed to seniors throughout the city on the days leading up to Christmas to remind them that they are not forgotten. The program is a great way to support Local Businesses and Seniors This Holiday Season. Gifts can be dropped off 24/7 at drop boxes in the first-floor main lobby of the Robert W. Healy Public Safety Facility at 125 Sixth Street in Cambridge through Monday, December 19th. For more information, please contact Kessen Green at (617) 349-6009 or email kgreen@cambridgepolice.org.

Join us for an insightful conversation about community, bookselling, and publishing moderated by Perpetua Cannistraro, Publicist at Beacon Press, and Boston Publishing Chair of the National Women's Book Association. Panelists include Christina Pascucci-Ciampa, the owner of All She Wrote Books; Franchesca Viaud, the store Manager at JustBook-ish; Kayla Januchowski, the General Manager at Lovestruck Books; and Caroline Brink, the Director of Operations at Beacon Hill Books. Registration is required. Cosponsored by Cambridge Public Library.

Please join the Cambridge Public Library in welcoming Cristanne Miller, the co-editor of The Letters of Emily Dickinson, for a reading and conversation moderated by the Library's Program and Events Coordinator, Zachary Bond. Named one of the Top 10 "Books We Love" by Fresh Air. In her review, Maureen Corrigan called this edition, a major expansion on previous editions, "probably the closest thing we’ll ever have to an intimate autobiography of Emily Dickinson."