CURRENT POSITION Acting District Manager, San Francisco Public Library DEGREE MLIS, Syracuse University, 2013 FAST FACT Cabrera keeps her six-foot-tall Batman cutout in every library she’s worked at. At the moment it lives in the computer lab at her current branch. FOLLOW @jaenarae; Instagram @jaena.rae Photo by Andrew Ho

Filipinx Agenda

Jaena Rae Cabrera has a “not-so-secret agenda,” according to Alan Wong, learning and instruction librarian at San Francisco Public Library (SFPL). “She wants to increase Filipino American visibility and representation at [SFPL],” he says. “The Bay Area is home to one of the largest Filipino populations in the country, but their presence was largely lacking in SFPL’s programming efforts before she started.”

Cabrera’s efforts include joining forces with Pilipinx American Library, a mobile, noncirculating collection and programming platform, on two events at the Public Knowledge project, a collaboration with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in 2018 and 2019. Both featured Filipinx-American authors reading from their works for an audience of about 300.

Cabrera’s commitment to the larger library community is not limited to SFPL. She is the vice president and president-elect of the American Library Association’s Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association; editor-in-chief of WOC+Lib, a digital platform for women of color working in librarianship; and on the editorial board of In the Library with the Lead Pipe, an open access journal. She also joined the planning committee for the 6th Annual Filipino American International Book Festival, the largest of its kind in the United States.

“Seeing how well attended my Filipinx programs were was a real indicator of how this type of programming was needed,” Cabrera says. “Patrons were eager to learn and be in community with others.” She has also reached out to other organizations to plan programming on mental health and naturalization.