Filling a need
New bookstore focuses on Latino art and literature.
The city’s newest bookstore is hard to find. It’s tucked in a side room at Talento Bilingüe de Houston, the Latino cultural arts center just east of downtown.
But Nuestra Palabra Arts & Books is full of books and paintings, framed photographs and colorful gifts. And inside the cozy, windowless space, Tony Diaz and Richard Reyes — two of the brains behind this operation — are already talking about how they’re going to improve it.
Right now, they’re waiting on the city to approve the removal of a wall, which will be replaced with a big display window to make the store more visible.
“Once it’s open, as you can tell, it’ll be awesome,” Diaz says.
Nearly 20 years ago, Diaz founded the literary nonprofit Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, an organization that promotes Latino literature and literacy. Reyes started Talento Bilingüe de Houston in the ’80s and has been a force in the community for decades. Earlier this year, the two teamed up with TBH executive director Javier Perez to create a nonprofit shop to sell Latino books and art.
A room just off the cultural center’s lobby — a space that recently held office cubicles — now has walls covered with art. Builtin shelves and folding tables hold books in Spanish and English, teaching guides and literary journals. The store has only about 500 books — but they’re carefully selected, Diaz says, and he can tell you about any of them.
“We’re not competing with Amazon,” he said. “If you want to buy a cheap book, go to Amazon. We’re not competing with Barnes & Noble. If you want to spend hours going through thousands of books, that’s Barnes & Noble.”
What Nuestra Palabra Arts & Books can be, Diaz says, is a “cultural hub.” Already, the store is hosting events. In just the past week, it’s offered a poetry and music presentation and an origami workshop for kids. Tuesday, Diaz will offer a teachers’ workshop about using Latino literature in class.
That’s the benefit of having a bookstore that specializes, he says: “You can’t go to Barnes & Noble and say, ‘How can I use this book by Sandra Cisneros in my classroom?’ ”
In the early 2000s, Diaz organized the Houston Latino Book and Family Festival, which for a few years brought thousands of people to the George R. Brown Convention Center. “I didn’t realize that was the golden era of Latino publishing, or I would have enjoyed it more,” he said.
Since then, a wobbly economy has caused publishers to wipe out Latino imprints, he said, and made them hesitate to take a risk on Latino writers.
This store is “smaller and leaner” than the big festivals he used to produce, Diaz said. But here in this Second Ward cultural center, it’ll keep Latino writers on the shelves, build community and make books and art accessible to everyone.
“Without us, this is a book desert,” Diaz said. “In an era where there’s not enough sources for Latino literature, here we are in the fourthlargest city, providing it.”
On the shelves now is “Fuego,” a collection of poems by Houston writer Leslie Contreras Schwartz. When her book was published last spring, she had readings at Brazos Bookstore and other places, but she can’t wait to read her work at Nuestra Palabra — the Latino community this store caters to is her “soul audience,” she said. She hopes the store will encourage more Latino kids and young people to think of literature as something available to them.
“I have two daughters, 7 and 4, and they’re already — as a matter of course — talking about how they’re going to be authors,” she said.
Photographer Chuy Benitez will sell prints of his work at the new store — but not to make a profit. “I want to sell them at a price I know people can afford,” he said. “Affordable books and affordable art is really what our aim is.”
Right now, the store’s open only for special events, but in January it will be open 3-7 p.m. every weekday. The plan is to host authors regularly — local ones and national names, Diaz said. Workshops can spill into the spacious TBH lobby, and there’s a 270-seat theater to turn readings into big events, he said. “It’s one of the oldest Latino institutions in Houston, and we want to just keep pumping positive cultural energy into the place with authors and book-signings.”