Libraries help Desis settle in New Jersey

Class is in session at the Edison Public Library. Go to the main branch on a Monday or Wednesday and walk past any number of fussy toddlers and weary parents waiting for family storytime to begin.

In a glass-encased conference room towards the back of the building, you will find a small group of students listening raptly to their teacher. If you pay closer attention, you can spot some familiar classroom personalities: jocks, bookworms, sweethearts and class comedians. You can watch the dynamics of this classroom unfold — not dissimilar to what you would see in any high school in this country. 

But these students aren’t in high school. The group is composed almost entirely of adult immigrants whose second language is English. And their class is the Language Lounge program hosted by the Edison Public Library, where they meet regularly to practice speaking and listening skills under the guidance of a certified teacher. 

ESL programs like this are among the many resources libraries are providing immigrant communities during a time of growing xenophobia and anti-immigration rhetoric — much of which targets Desis. 

Debate over the H-1B visa has fueled increased hate speech against South Asian immigrants. Between November 2024 and January 2025, the use of anti-South Asian slurs online increased by 75 percent. South Asians have also reported receiving an increased number of violent threats, up from 471 to 884 in the three months following the election. 

This issue is especially salient in New Jersey, where 24.2 percent of residents are foreign-born and 12.2 percent of those residents come from India. In 2024, the state reported 133 anti-Asian bias incidents. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, there have been 40. 

Despite these shifts in political climate, libraries in New Jersey’s Desi enclaves remain focused on their mission to support and reflect their communities.  

As “an independent entity of local government,” the Edison Public Library continues to be a neutral space for residents to access resources, according to Library Director Allan Kleiman and Coordinator of Literacy Services Dana Galassa.

“About 50 percent of the Edison Township population are immigrants — either first or second generation,” they told Central Desi in a joint statement. “We are and always have been focused on meeting the needs of all of our community members.” 

Meeting community needs through ESL programming

ESL classes remain the most direct way New Jersey libraries connect with immigrant populations. At the helm of these programs are ESL teachers like Lorna Villiers, who recently began teaching at the Edison Public Library.

Villiers, who also teaches at the Plainfield Public Library, told Central Desi that many of her adult students are learning English to communicate more easily in areas outside the home and workplace, such as doctor’s offices or restaurants. 

“A lot of my students who are mothers say, ‘I want to be able to talk to the teacher and understand what she's telling me about my children,’” she said. 

Villiers has been teaching ESL to adults in the U.S. since last year. Prior to that, she taught English to elementary school students in Costa Rica for 17 years. Teaching ESL to adults and children are vastly different processes, Villiers said.

“When you're teaching children, they're likely responders. They absorb the language really quickly,” she said. “To get the adults to start speaking, it takes a while and it's a different process. They will listen. They will learn. But to start speaking, it takes a little longer.”

In addition to social stigma and the tricky nature of English phonetics, adult learners may have difficulty grasping the language simply because they don’t have time to practice it, Villiers said.

Between going to work and taking care of their children, students may not have room in their schedule to regularly attend full-length ESL courses. Programs like the Edison Public Library’s Language Lounge are meant to address this issue. 

“Everyone is welcome in these drop-in sessions and the goal is to practice speaking and listening skills in a low-stress environment,” Galassa said. “We know that a formal class is not for everyone, or some people may not be able to commit to a 12-week course.”

In addition to the Language Lounge, the library offers two levels of ESL courses, access to English-language learning materials and digital resources like Pronunciator, an online learning database. 

Despite the breadth of its offerings, the Edison Public Library only launched its literacy services department in September 2024. Prior to that, the library outsourced its ESL services from an outside organization. 

“While we were grateful to have (external ESL services), we wanted to have people on staff to provide literacy services and classes,” Kleiman said. “It was important to us that these students felt a connection to the library and the staff.”

Providing resources beyond ESL

Like his Edison counterpart, Plainsboro Public Library director Darren Miguez believes ESL classes play a crucial role in building someone’s connection to their larger community, especially for immigrants new to an area. 

“I'll see somebody come to an ESL class. I'll meet them and welcome them, and they'll go on and take the class,” he told Central Desi. “I'll see them a little bit later, and they seem just more at ease in the library and in the town in general, because often the ESL class is their first exposure to the Plainsboro community.”

Miguez, who has worked at the Plainsboro Public Library for almost 10 years, sees the library as the “connective tissue” of a town.

At Plainsboro, this has meant providing patrons free passes to museums and art galleries and lending out specialized items like cake pans, paper shredders and crochet sets to try out new hobbies. These services offer risk-free access to new experiences for immigrants who are newly arrived, have temporary accommodations and lack funds.

“I think it's a really cool thing for somebody new in town to not have to worry if they're spending their money wisely when they ask ‘should I go to this museum?’ Miguez said. “It's free. Go try it out. See what you think. Experiment and discover and explore.”

Another way the library connects with its immigrant patrons is by offering free passport assistance. Miguez established a passport help desk one year into his role as director and has seen the service grow in popularity. In 2024, the library processed 1,661 passports.

“Seeing people bring in their babies, get a passport and [get] ready to travel and go back to see grandparents is a really nice thing as a librarian — to enable access to the larger world that people come from,” he said. 

Closeby, the Princeton Public Library is also forging connections with its immigrant community, specifically through a partnership with the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund that helps immigrants obtain community ID cards. 

The cards allow “traditionally excluded populations” like immigrants to access local municipal or health services and have identification to use at schools, clinics and post offices. 

Eight miles up at the South Brunswick Public Library, the focus is on career development. The library’s Pathways to Success program offers job training and certification to immigrants seeking to restart their careers in the U.S.

The program was started after patrons registering for ESL classes told library staff about challenges they faced as immigrants entering the American workforce. Many of these patrons were Indian women with advanced degrees who immigrated to the U.S. years ago but paused their career to raise children.

“They are contending with a gap in their work experience in addition to navigating the job market in a place they have not worked before,” Jill D'Amico, the library’s head of information services, told Central Desi. 

Based on this feedback, D'Amico and her team partnered with Upwardly Global, a nonprofit dedicated to helping immigrants and refugees build careers in the U.S., to establish the Pathways to Success program. The initiative offers library patrons upskilling opportunities and certifications to show employers.  

“It’s really fulfilling to help people see that their international experience, language skills, and training is a benefit — and something that employers, especially in our area, appreciate,” D'Amico said. 

Mirroring immigrant communities 

Libraries have long served as an access point for immigrants arriving in the U.S., but not without complications. In the 20th century, many libraries were purveyors of the Americanization Movement, which sought to assimilate immigrants into mainstream American culture without regard for their traditions. 

While libraries did provide patrons educational opportunities, many hesitated to invest in multi-lingual book collections or relevant cultural programming. Today, most libraries aim to meet community needs rather than push them in one direction. 

In South Brunswick, 48.3 percent of residents are Asian, which includes many Desi immigrants and their families. For D'Amico, “being responsive and thoughtful” to the local community when developing library services is essential.

The South Brunswick Public Library provides books in multiple Desi languages, including Gujarati, Hindi, Kananda, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. In Edison, library patrons have free access to ShemarooMe, a streaming platform for South Asian films and TV shows. 

With the immigrant population in Edison increasing in recent years, Kleiman said the library is continuing to expand its slate of resources and exploring partnerships with external organizations such as the South Asian American Digital Archive, a nonprofit focused on preserving materials related to South Asian history in the U.S.

Kleiman hopes to build a network of libraries across the country to generate ideas on how to meet the needs of the Desi community. 

On a more local level, four out of nine members of the Edison Public Library’s board of trustees are South Asian. The library aims to work with them and other community leaders to understand how to best serve the population, Kleiman said.

“Libraries are the epicenter of the community. It is their purpose to understand their community members and support them in any way they can,” Kleiman and Galassa said. “As the world and political climates shift, the library remains a place that offers support and open arms to everyone.”

Astha Lakhankar is a 2024-25 reporting fellow at Central Desi. She is a recent graduate of Rutgers University, where she worked as managing editor of the student-run newspaper, The Daily Targum.

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