Bilingual bookstore in central Phoenix celebrates 4 years
A bilingual bookstore in central Phoenix celebrated its 4-year anniversary Saturday by doing what it does best: bringing the community together.
Since opening in 2015, Palabras Bilingual Bookstore has welcomed various local social justice organizations and artists to use its space for workshops and other events, explained owner Chawa Magaña.
More than 40 of those groups and individuals gathered at the bookstore Saturday to celebrate its anniversary by highlighting the work they do in the community.
“The bookstore isn’t about me being here for four years, it’s about the connections that are made here and the community that’s created here,” said Magaña. “So that’s why I wanted the focus of the anniversary event to be not just about a celebration of us being here selling books ... but about it being a special and unique space for the community.”
The event, dubbed “Do Work That Matters,” began around 11 a.m. with a roundtable that introduced the public to each of the participating organizations. Throughout the day there were performances by local artists, a discussion led by Indigenous Peoples Day Arizona and it concluded with the bookstore’s monthly “POC It To Me” open mic night at 9 p.m.
Viri Hernandez said the event allows organizations to spread their message and inform others about the resources they may offer. Poder in Action, the organization Hernandez is a part of, aims to bring awareness to police violence in the Phoenix area, she said.
“Our work has been to highlight the abuse, to work with families who are being abused or shot and killed and to create safe spaces for them,” said Hernandez.
Souta Calling Last, executive director of Indigenous Vision, said Palabras provides a community meeting space where culture and heritage can thrive year-round.
“Most of the time, services are brought to us (people of color) in kind of like savior mode and so I think Palabras and the community that’s been established here really help bring that mode to one of services created for us and by us,” she said.
Indigenous Vision aims to bring awareness to a variety of social justice issues that affect Indigenous communities. Because of the high rate of violence against Indigenous woman and girls, the organization has hosted a number of self-defense classes at the bookstore throughout the year, said Calling Last.
Palabras Bilingual Bookstore at 1738 E. McDowell Road is the first of its kind in Arizona, according to Magaña. She originally set up shop on Grand Avenue, inspired by Librerı́a Donceles, a traveling Spanish bookstore created by New York City-based artist Pablo Helguera.
“I started with five books on the shelf and this idea of creating a communitycentered space that was a bookstore and also had books in both Spanish and English,” she said. “Very humble beginnings ... through word of mouth people started donating books, I started ordering books and little by little it became what it is today.”
Now the store carries thousands of fiction, non-fiction and children’s books in English and Spanish.
“I’m walking around and looking at these different children’s books and I’m like where was this during my childhood; I would’ve felt so much better if I had something like this when I was a child,” said Mesa resident Deya Garcia, who visited the bookstore for the first time Saturday. “It makes me really happy to think about my future and my family’s future, I love that they get to grow up around something like this.”
Diana Morelos Villalovos, a first-time visitor Saturday, said her parents would appreciate the bookstore because the only language they speak is Spanish.
“That’s another part of what inspired me to do this . ... I’m first-generation Mexican-American and I thought about the hardships that they went through and about how nice it would have been for them to have a space like that — where they can feel comfortable speaking in their own language, where they don’t feel like they’re being judged and they feel accepted,” said Magaña.
Magaña’s boyfriend, Jeff Slim, who helps her operate the bookstore, said he’s proud to see how far it’s come.
“I saw what she (Magaña) saw in terms of her own personal vision and I really dug that and wanted to be supportive of that,” he said. “It’s cool to see what it’s become and to actually get to experience and witness the growth of it.”