CG: We’re here with Kealie Mardell, director and board president of Underdog Books in Monrovia. You may remember Underdog Books a few years ago had a different owner named Nathan Allen, and what changed Keeley?
KM: so little over two years ago now, Thomas and Nathan, the original owners of Underdog shared that they were actually going to have to close their space, and I stepped in at that point and formed the nonprofit corporation that now runs the store.
CG: Why?
KM: they were closing largely due to the amount of hate and harassment that they were facing, both in the store, and then it was beginning to affect them personally, so for their own well-being they needed to take that step back. I saw that news and was really devastated. I didn’t want to see this space close. I loved what they had created and thought that there was so much opportunity to see it keep growing, so when nobody else kind of stepped forward to keep it open. I was like, okay, I guess this is what I’m going to do now.
CG: And what I meant was, why transition to a nonprofit? What was the vision?
KM: So they had started very much with this mission of uplifting marginalized voices, which I really loved, and then I just saw this extra potential to really lean into this being a community space, and about being so much more than a bookstore, and being able to do more for the community using this through the store. So that was how the nonprofit vision came to it, is that this isn’t about being a for-profit business and making money from selling books. There’s so much more that we can do with it, that becoming a nonprofit opened up that potential.
CG: Does it take some of the pressure off to sell books?
KM: I mean, it does a little bit. The book selling is the amazing part. I love doing the book selling part of things, so, but it definitely does help in that, you know, we do get the support of, you know, donors and sponsors and volunteers who all believe in that mission and want to see us succeed in a way that couldn’t exist if it wasn’t for being a nonprofit.
CG: so what are your operations now?
KM: So our main mission as a nonprofit is to provide this safe space for the community where we can uplift marginalized voices, so we use the space to run between about 20 to 30 events a month for the community, all very free, low cost, and including things like mutual aid, grocery distribution, and really anything that the community might need, so it, you know, it kind of has changed and grown as we’ve gone, but we’re always just looking for what can we, what are the, what does the community need, what do people need from us, and how can we use this space to provide it?
CG: Yeah, I’ve looked at your very busy calendar, there’s seemingly constant book talks, crafting circles, new age and occult programming, sketching, and swaps. How is it going now as this nonprofit safe space that’s doing a buttload of programming. Do you find that it’s happening at a sustainable level, where enough people are coming, or you’re at least serving a consistent set of people?
KM: We definitely have. I think it’s grown so much in the.. it’s almost two years now that I’ve been doing this, and we’ve, you know, in the beginning it was just a couple events, and everything kind of grown, and we’re at this point now where so much of what we do is driven by people that were coming to those early events. There’s a big core group of people who started attending things and then now want to run their own events and want to use the space for themselves. So watching that grow, and that’s what’s helping with that sustainability, is that it’s not all just on one person to do all of it. It’s people are realizing that we’re here and that they can make this space what they need it to be and be a part of it.
CG: But with that strong flow of support, are you also feeling some of the hate like Nathan and his partner were?
KM: Definitely. I will say I don’t think we’ve experienced it to the extent that Thomas and Nathan did, and especially not in the kind of personal targeting that it felt like they were receiving, but just the store in itself, in general, does receive its fair share of nasty comments and things from people. We had an incident last year where someone had started leaving notes outside the store that were originally on paper, and then it was written on rocks saying no homos, so there were incidents like that that would happen, but when these things happen, I kind of try and bring it back to the community to how can we respond, so during that incident, for example, we responded by painting positive rocks and words of affirmations and very affirming messages that are now displayed in the store window, so I just kind of put it out to everybody that, like, look, somebody is leaving these, these hurtful things, what can we do to respond? and people came together and we turned it into art and tried to make something beautiful, and in response to it, so those voices of support are so much louder and more prevalent than the. Very small minority who direct hate our way,
CG: and I’m going to take a semi-educated guess here that the Monrovia City Council has been supportive.
KM: We have been invited by them for the last two years now to receive their Pride Month proclamation, so they are supportive of us being here, and this year we are hosting the first ever Pride event here in Monrovia, over in Library Park.
CG: which entails…?
KM: so on June 20, the Monrovia Pride Book Festival, we are hosting over 50 queer authors and vendors and nonprofit community groups, there’s going to be books and barks in the park, so it is all ages, family friendly, dog friendly, enjoy meeting some authors, there’s going to be author panels happening, drag story hours, and just a big celebration of queer storytelling,
CG: we were talking a little bit before the tape started rolling about ourselves and backgrounds, and more astute listeners might pick up on a few shreds of your remaining English accent, and you said you’ve been here a little while, and just for reference, her accent has been brutally beaten out of her because she was, you were teaching what exactly, you were teaching reading?
KM: eah, when I first moved here, which was just over 10 years ago, my first job working here was in private education, teaching kids to read, and the place I was working didn’t really appreciate those children learning to read with a British accent, so you, you know, you change things around enough day in, day out, and it gets crushed out of you pretty quickly.
CG: Could have given them a weird little edge… but anyway, what I was nibbling around at was that you know Southern California as a second home, and I don’t know if San Gabriel Valley has always been where you’re based, but now that you’ve been here a while doing stuff at Underdog, do you find a particular flavor of LGBTQ culture here in San Gabriel Valley?
KM: Great question. So, yeah, when I first did move here, my first home was here in Monrovia, so I did say that this city was my home away from home. When I first moved here, I’m now nearby in the san, still in the San Gabriel Valley, but not right here in Monrovia, but this was home for six years, and during those first many years that I lived here, and really all the way up until Underdog was here, I wasn’t aware of any queer community in the San Gabriel Valley. It really isn’t prevalent, and there really wasn’t a space for that. So it wasn’t until I met Thomas and Nathan, and they opened Underdog and I started seeing this, that okay, there is a space, and that was very much part of why I was like, we can’t lose this space to keep it open, because it really does kind of feel like a desert sometimes for the queer community. Since I’ve been here, I’ve now made wonderful connections with, like, the San Gabriel Valley LGBTQ center, and I’m like finding that these these networks of people do exist, and there are these communities, but definitely here in Monrovia, there really wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for Underdog.
CG: So, between that observation and the amount of unfortunate rising loud hate, not only directed towards queer people in the San Gabriel Valley, but all over the US and the world, what does Pride mean to you this year? I mean, perhaps it’s the same thing it means to you every year, but for those of us who don’t think we need Pride or know we need Pride, what, what is the point?
KM: I think for me Pride is having that freedom to be unapologetically yourself, and to for there to be a space for that, and to not have to hide any parts of yourself, and especially in, you know, my my world of book selling, so much of what I love to do is when people get to find themselves represented in a story for the first time, and see somebody else that has their same orientation or identity, and realizing that they’re not alone. So, for me, pride really much is that that freedom to be who you are, and to know that you are not alone in who you are, and whether you find that through books or a Pride parade, or whatever that looks like for you, I think it’s just gives people that opportunity to see others like themselves and know that that community is there for them.
CG: And on the way out, is there a book you want to recommend, perhaps on yourself?
KM: I couldn’t possibly, because asking me right now, now before our Pride book festival would be like choosing between my children out of all the amazing authors that we have attending, so there are there are too many to choose from for just one, but definitely always encourage people just to come by and visit the store, or come to some of our events, because you are always going to find a lot of really wonderful books that are going to speak to a part of who you are.
CG: Keely Mardell, thanks so much for coming on SGV Connect. And happy Pride.
KM: Thank you so much for having me, and happy Pride.