Media

ODENTON, Md. — Susan Trial stood in the library lobby, flipping through a binder of other people’s life stories. Each page held an account, a true one, of a life lived on the margins. 

“I’m a Black, Spanish-speaking, American Muslim,” one read. “I’ve learned to move about in a society that labels me incorrectly nearly every time.”

Another account read, “I lived in an integrated neighborhood and attended segregated schools from first grade until I graduated high school.”

“I’ve been living with chronic illnesses for over half my life,” read yet another. “Because my chronic illness and mental illness are invisible, I have had difficulty being understood.”

As Trial browsed the pages, the librarians explained: Saturday’s event at the Anne Arundel County Public Library was an offshoot of the Human Library, a worldwide nonprofit group where people from the community serve as “books,” sharing their real-life stories and struggles. Today’s titles were wide-ranging: an incest survivor; a woman suffering post-traumatic stress disorder; a gay, transgender Saudi Arabian man; a first-generation Guatemalan immigrant. Posters invited participants to “unjudge someone.”

After a few minutes of browsing, Trial, 42, shut the binder.

“I’ll just take whatever the next open slot is,” Trial told the librarian. She found all the stories compelling. She thought it was important to be open.

For the past few years, the story of America has been the story of choosing sides. Headlines often speak of our divided nation, where the nuts and bolts of identity — gender, homeland, sexual orientation — feel somehow distinctly political. News and social media reveal the exhaustive cycle of spats about labels and lines that we’ve devised. These things are supposed to help us grapple with who we are and where we stand; arguably, they leave us isolated, alienated.

All this makes the Human Library’s exercise both simple and radical. For 15 minutes, people sit across the table from a stranger, freed from social constraints, and connect. Ask any question. Share any story. Listen. Look the other person in the eye. Just try.