When I’m not in the comfort of my own home, the bodega feels like the next best thing. All my life, I’ve recognized bodegas – these small owner-operated convenience stores – as community anchors. They always provide the essentials, and something more. In here, stories are abundant, its customers a carousel of characters.
My debut book, Bodega Stories, follows the people who orbit my parents’ bodega in St. Petersburg, Florida, with interwoven stories from my parents’ beginning as bodega workers in Brooklyn, New York. Over the course of a year, I made countless visits to the store to see what I could gather about this place, what I could observe. And what I found was a portrait of seeking home.
Whether you call them something different where you live, bodegas have long proven to be integral parts of the communities they serve. And they’ve been the source of inspiration behind many books and other works of art. Here are five books that I have enjoyed that are related to the bodega.
The Last Bodega in Jersey Vol. I by Abel Veloz
I chuckled and, at times, cackled while reading this collection of interconnected stories set in rapidly gentrifying Jersey City. At its center is a young bodega owner named Stroberi, who is faced with a big decision: sell his family business for $250,000, or maintain his post at this corner store. With great wit and humor, Veloz paints vivid characters who enter the store with their stories, chisme (gossip), and wild tales.
Winner of the 2020 Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, Bodega is a deeply lyrical and cinematic collection centered around a Korean girl coming of age in her parents’ bodega in New York City’s Queensbridge projects during the LA Riots. Hwang brings readers a work steeped in questions of culture and identity. One of my favorite poems is “Hopscotch,” about girl friendship and its playfulness and innocence before the coarseness of life grabs hold. Hwang beautifully and heartbreakingly captures so much of the immigrant experience in this collection.
I loved this poignant debut collection of linked stories rooted in the Arab diaspora, with themes of displacement and identity, as well as threads of melancholy and humor. Carryout introduces us to Ziad Idilbi, a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, and his wife Salma, a Lebanese refugee who escaped the war in Beirut. Together they opened a carryout, a corner store, in Toledo, Ohio. It’s from this business that they carve out a living while raising three children. I appreciated Dudar’s ability to write a vivid portrait of immigrants and refugees who have no other choice but to create a new community for themselves in the United States. I had the pleasure of speaking with the author for Debutiful earlier this year. You can read our conversation about Dudar’s relationship to the store.
Growing up, Velez’s happy place was a bodega across from her middle school in the Bronx. In her cookbook, Bodega Bakes, the James Beard Award-winning pastry chef wrote that she loved its floor plan and its “super mellow and kind cat.” For Velez and many others, the bodega was where you’d find everything from the sweet to savory. Bodega Bakes draws partial inspiration from the bodega and is filled with enticing and delightful recipes for brownies, pies, flans, and more. What I love about this cookbook is how Velez unites Dominican and American flavors, and the photos are delicious enough to make your sweet tooth ache with craving.
The Bodega: A Cornerstone of Puerto Rican Barrios (the Justo Martí Collection) by Carlos Sanabria
This is a taut historical photo-essay book that I read while working on Bodega Stories. It contains pieces of history around New York City bodegas, specifically those started by members of the Puerto Rican diaspora. From Sanabria I learned just how critical bodegas were for the Puerto Rican community. This book includes fascinating photos shot by Justo Martí, a late Cuban photographer who spent years documenting the everyday lives of NYC’s Puerto Rican and Latino communities. This is the kind of book you cherish. I’m grateful to Martí and to Sanabria for their work in documenting the legacy of bodegas.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Amaris Castillo is a Brooklyn native and daughter of Dominican immigrants. A former newspaper reporter, her work has appeared in the New York Times, Lowell Sun, Bradenton Herald, and elsewhere. She currently works at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and lives in Tampa Bay with her family. Bodega Stories is her debut.