Camarena Memorial Library (Calexico, California)

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850 Encinas Avenue
Calexico, CA 92231
(760) 768-2170

calexicolibrary.org/

Kiki Camarena Library represents one of Imperial Valley’s heroes Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, Enrique was a Mexican-American who devoted his life to keep his community and family safe from the world of drugs. Kiki was a special agent for the D.E.A and was well known for putting drug traffickers in custody. However, in 1985 Enrique has lost the fight of drugs. The library is devoted to Enrique’s efforts, every day they provide programs to help everyone in the community. Kiki Camarena library's original symbolic meaning was to provide education, information, creativity and prolong knowledge.

Enrique wanted to keep drugs off the street and away from families and especially away from the kids, he demonstrated what one as a parent must do to keep the safety of their kids protected. Kiki Camarena Library does the same, providing safety programs for parents who work late and cannot pick up their children right after school is over. It ensures that your children have the proper educational help that is need and it inspires kids to read books rather than out on the streets getting into trouble with the law. Enrique Camarena Library is a valuable structure for the town of Calexico because it provides us with our roots.

I wrote about The Camarena Memorial Library on why it should be a monument to represent the people of this valley and to honor and remember Enrique’s life. I got to interview Norma Gerardo, who’s the supervisor of the library. One of the questions that I asked her was why we should honor and remember Camarena. According to her opinion, we should honor him because he was a local and died while doing something good, which was fighting to stop drug trafficking and to protect us from those life destroying drugs. We should also remember his actions in the DEA that brought us awareness to drugs and tried to create a safe environment for us all to live. Due to his heroic sacrifice in doing so, we should make the library into a monument to honor and remember one of our own who died doing what he loved.

The library is located in Calexico, CA and was built in the 1980’s and named after Enrique Camarena. The people who were in charge in naming the library, chosen to name it after Enrique Camarena who just had died during that time and happened to be one of our one that was from Calexico. The library today, now has programs for all ages and is a safe place to hang out and be educated with the Library’s thousands of books. The library is always full of children and teens during afterhours of school time. Library is conveniently placed for young students to go to after school to get their studies done. Adults have an opportunity to join the library’s book club and potluck and to learn about the wonders of reading a book and comprehending it.

The library is very valuable to the whole community by offering programs for all ages and offering a safe environment for everyone to use and enjoy. The library encourages all ages to be knowledgeable by reading books and to enjoy them also. It is a great place to go to after work and school hours to gain knowledge and enjoy your time their.

Camerena Memorial Library was inaugurated in 1987 and it covers 12,845 square feet. This main building has a children’s reading room, an adult reading room, separate shelving for each of these groups, two offices, a storytelling nook, a work room, staff lounge, an equipment room for storage, a conference room, a large multi-purpose room, and finally restrooms for staff and visitors. This building has a modern international architecture look by Coup & Smith Architects and constructed by Sunbelt Building INC. This building is located across the street from an elementary school on one side, a junior high school on another side and a high school on still another side.

This library provides educational materials, recreational activities, and cultural events for the community. It also provides the tools needed to seek for jobs, considering that Calexico has the highest unemployment rate in California. They have dedicated great effort in providing bilingual materials in English and Spanish to narrow the language gap in this boarder town community. They also have activities such as basic internet classes for children and adults, daily homework help, story time for children with fun activities, game nights with puzzles and bingo, crafty Tuesdays, conversation classes for adults, baby time to help parents on how to introduce reading to their babies, veterans benefit workshops, and teen movie nights where they provide healthy snacks and a friendly environment for teens to socialize.

The library has helped many families to take in consideration the importance of reading and the importance of having children involved in local educational activities. It eliminates barriers between people by having many family activities. Resources like the ones offered at Enrique S. “Kiki” Camarena Memorial Library are necessary for being a bilingual town and for having the highest unemployment rate. This kind of activities stimulate the community to learn because they are free and educational.

The Camarena Memorial Library was named after Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, who was a DEA agent that spend almost the majority of his life helping his community and fighting for make Calexico city a safe place to live in. He was born in Mexicali, Mexico, but moved to Calexico California at age 10. He graduated from Calexico High School and joined the Marine Corps for two years, and went back to Calexico to work as a fireman and then became Police officer and the Imperial Valley Deputy Sheriff. Then he joined the DEA and his first assignment was in his hometown. Camarena Memorial Library was named after him because he represents the image of a man who came from Mexico and prepared academically to achieve an important poet in one of the most important agencies in the United States. He represents the image of a man who came from Mexico and prepared academically until he achieved an important place in one of the most important agencies of the United States as the DEA. The library has served many students not only from the city of Calexico but also from the entire Imperial Valley, including people from Mexico, because being in a border city, it facilitates that students of the neighboring city, Mexicali, also benefit from the Library and its services.
Camarena Memorial Library is a monument not only in the city of Calexico, but for all the Imperial Valley because it is a symbolic and historical building that represents a pride and depict history and development of this city since it has served and helped thousands of people as students, teachers and the general population around the imperial valley and the neighboring border city Mexicali. According to people who knows exactly the services the library offers such a workers and volunteers, the library is like “The heart of the city” since it is linked to all activities and events that happens or going to happen in the city and surrounding cities. The library offers activities and services for all people for all ages from babies to old people with a variety of programs like reading clubs, sports among others and the information and recommendations about important dates or places to go as well.
As a monument, Camarena Memorial library has an enormous value. Almost all students in Calexico, especially in High school have gone to the library to do researches about certain subjects in order to do a good job, because as soon as you enter into the place the firs impression that you have is a place clean, ordered and the most important, as you walk for the corridors with shelves full of books, you feel satisfied and you can picture that you will find the information you are looking for. Almost all people around the Imperial Valley at least those who are or who has students at home, have heard about the library. Therefore of being a place in addition to being a suitable place to study and do homework, the library offers a place where any citizen can go to seek advice in many areas and not only academically, but also about programs that help people with any health issue or an economic problem as well as a guide of the programs that are offered in the city and a detailed calendar with the next festivities and events to be offered. In general, Camarena Memorial Library is a precious monument and a pride for the Imperial Valley, but especially for the inhabitants of the city of Calexico.

In 1985 Enrique Camarena was dead and in the city of Calexico they made a monument in honor of him. People build a memorial library with his name. Enrique Camarena was important because drug dealers killed him because he worked for the DE. which is a department of the government in which they combat the drugs inside and outside the united states. So in conclusion of what they did to Enrique Camarena they created a library on his name just to remember him.
The monument is used as a study place and a place free of drugs. You can go and meet up with friends or go to make projects in there. You can go just to relax and get away from the heat. It is a place in which all the city can go and have a card that will let you take out books and use their computers. It is a really nice place to make any homework or project that you have.
The value of the monument is that we got a quite place in which everyone can go and have a great time. Their workers try to make the library as good as possible so we can make our things better and with quality. I think they made a great choice when they decided to make a memorial library with the name of Enrique Camarena.

Enrique S. “Kiki” Camarena Memorial Library monument was created in February 1985. Its name was given in honor to Enrique Salazar Camarena “Kiki” who was a Mexican-American man who worked for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA.) He was abducted on February 7, 1985, and then tortured and murdered while on assignment in Mexico. For his courage he was honored giving his name to the monument. The Camarena Library represents to Imperial Valley a huge source of information. It provides resources to meet the educational, recreational, informational, and cultural needs of the community to encourage lifelong learning and the pursuit of knowledge.
This monument provides a variety of programs designed to provide abilities, learning, and a better quality of life. These programs are created for children, teens, and adults. The library is used not only for school research or tutoring; it also, is used to carry out the activities offered by these programs. People go to the library to take their children to any of these activities. The activities that the library provides are all different, for children they have these programs 1,000 books before kindergarten, baby time, crafty Tuesdays, family nights homework help, storytime, children services, afterschool activities, and summer family reading. For teens they have the following activities computer services, internet classes, interlibrary loan, and free lunches. For adults they have adult book club, adult literacy services, ESL-English as a Second Language, Services for teachers, and a huge of informative papers to provide. All these programs meet in the library.
In spite of this monument is very important and it has a great value for the people of Imperial Valley and its surroundings. I can say that it has two problems. One of them is that to be able to get into all educational programs that it offers; it is mandatory to have a library and internet card to have access to these programs. The requirements are to complete a library card application and to present a picture ID with a current address. You can provide this information by showing a utility bill with your name written on it or your parents’ name if you are under 18 years old. The problem is if you don’t have these requirements you are not able to get these benefits. The second one is that it is very common to avoid going to the library because people are busy using their cell phone or doing another activity instead of going to the library to read a book or learn something different. People lose interest of going to the library because they have something different to do.