Benjamin Franklin Library

Benjamin Franklin Library

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The Benjamin Franklin Library was opened to the people for the first time on April 13th of 1942 with the purpose of promote friendship and understanding between Mexico and the United States. The Library is situated at Number 31 on Liverpool Street, Colonia Juarez, Mexico City.

The Library has a lot of security, so if you want to get in you must take with you an ID card or school card to show to the security staff in there and register yourself with the entrance hour. Also you will be force to pass through a metal detector. It is a library supported by the United States Embassy so it is obviously they will have too much care with the people who they let get in there.

"From the People of the United States to the People of Mexico" is the cute quote that we can appreciate on a plate at the entrance of the library with some old photographs in black and white in which appears some people that seems to be the first users of the library. Just in front of that tribute is a little “cinema” if we can call it in that way, it have seats and a big screen to project videos.

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Then you can see a little desk in which the librarian have the control and take care about the books, he or she will always greets nicely to everyone who get in there. The library is quite large and illuminated, on the right side you can see a lot of single and double couches with little tables with a plug where you can take sit and read while you are charging your phone. In the left side was the rest of the library, in the center were tables with computers that you can use by free and a table with the silhouette of United States and all the states of it (it is very funny, nice and useful because you can memorize the states and their capitals), at the bottom were the offices where you can take the activities and workshops. Till the very end of the left side were the bookshelves with a lot of books of all kind of them and comfortable puffs where you can take sit. All over the walls were also huge bookshelves.

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The Library is well filled of books of all the kinds, even those funny ones like Sex for Dummies by the female Doctor Ruth K. Westheimer in which the doctor provides you advices on everything from procreation and puberty to courtship and commitment. If you like watching movies more than reading then this place is also for you, they have a big collection of DVD’s and Blue Ray’s that you can pick. Something great in here is that they can lend you tablets, that is awesome because at least I do not know another library where you can borrow tablets. The surprises never end here, because there are newspapers from the day, yes, they change them daily, and you have a variety to choose.

I did not want to waste the time there, so I made it worth it and I chose a book to read called Not Working written by Alejandro Marchevsky and Jeanne Theoharis. The book chronicles the devastating effects of a welfare reform legislation. Through vivid story-telling and pointed analysis of the authors, the book profiles the day-to-day struggles of Mexican immigrant women in Los Angeles area showing the increased vulnerability they face in welfare office and labor market. The authors argue that the new politics of welfare enable greater infringements of rights and liberty for many of Americans must vulnerable and constitute a crucial component of the broader assault on American citizenship, in short the new welfare is NOT WORKING. The book initially talk about