Bilingual Bookstore Seeks A Permanent Home In East Harlem
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West Coast transplant Aurora Anaya-Cerda found a community in East Harlem and now she wants to open a bookstore there to nurture the area's passion for literature. NY1's Shazia Khan filed the following report. Aurora Anaya-Cerda wants to start a new chapter in East Harlem.
"My idea is to open a bookstore, a small independent community bookstore in East Harlem," she says.
It would be the only one of its kind in El Barrio, a neighborhood that is home to a large Hispanic community, with a rapidly growing Mexican population. It is a neighborhood where buying a book is mostly limited to a few street vendors.
Anaya-Cerda, who once lived in East Harlem and now works there, launched an online bookstore in 2008 and has organized a number of literary events in the neighborhood, including a children's book festival.
Though community support, she has just raised enough money — more than $35,000 to be matched by an investor — and is now looking for a space to open her bookstore "La Casa Azul" ("The Blue House"), named after artist Frida Kahlo's family home in Mexico.
"The bookstore will be specialized, in that it focuses primarily on literature by Latinos. But also for children we'll have bilingual books, so parents who are interested in having their kinds learn Spanish or preserve the language, it's a great opportunity," she says.
It's something that hits close to home for this second-generation Mexican-American.
"I read anything and everything but it wasn't until I was in middle school that I began to read stories that reflected my history," says Anaya-Cerda. "And when I saw books that had words like abuela [grandmother] in them, I was like, wow. I was really taken aback by stories about my history and my culture. That just gave me so much more validation as a child."
Anaya-Cerda, who is well aware of bookstore closings and the era of e-books, remains undeterred to open her dream.
"There is still that demand for physical books. There's also used books that could be sold. So there are definitely different ways that I can use this to promote literature," she says.
Anaya-Cerda hopes to secure a location for her bookstore by early next year and anticipates a summer opening.