One of NYC’s Last Spanish-Language Bookstores Says Their Community Needs Them More Than Ever
The Librería Barco de Papel has offered books and cultural events in Elmhurst, Queens since 2013.
According to Paula Ortíz, the owner of Librería Barco de Papel in Elmhurst, Queens, life in New York is, appropriately enough, like a book.
“Each chapter, every page even, affects you biographically and offers you a different lesson,” said Ortíz. “Obviously you’re hit with a few punches, but you learn a lot.”
Since 2003, the Librería Barco de Papel has offered cultural events and activities in its tiny storefront, its every wall and surface teeming with books. It is now one of New York City’s last remaining Spanish-language bookstores. Even in the face of encroaching gentrification, the advent of e-books, and a pandemic, its owners and loyal supporters aren’t going anywhere. Now more than ever, they say, their community needs the sense of joy and healing the space provides.
“People still look to books as a form of escape — a way to distract themselves and to reconnect with people and say, well, I’m alive. I’m here,” said Ortíz. “It was a difficult process in a neighborhood so absolutely affected [by the pandemic].”
The community that surrounds the bookstore precedes its physical space. The founder Ramón Caraballo spent years selling books in the street before obtaining the shop, which initially only sold Spanish-language children’s books.
“Ramón made a lot of connections. He knew everyone,” said Ortíz, who is a biology teacher by day, working at the bookstore on weekends, many evenings, and days off. Caraballo works during the week and the bookstore has no permanent employees, relying on a network of volunteers.
The first cultural event held by the library was a Spanish-language story hour for children. With time, they expanded their inventory to include books for adults, and their cultural events to include talks, open mics, workshops, and theater.
They’ve even added a few English-language books to their collection, although the vast majority remain in Spanish, a rarity that isn’t lost on members of the surrounding communities, more than half of whom are Latino and 65% of whom are foreign-born.
“When we immigrate, we leave a lot of our cultural luggage behind,” said Ortíz, who is originally from Colombia. “We can’t bring our books. We can’t bring many of the things that we associate with our childhood, with our idiosyncrasies.”
According to Ortíz, who is originally from Colombia, the bookstore provokes a sense of nostalgia for her clients — for the books with which they learned to reach and the books that they want their children to read.
“I come here to decompress from the bustle of the city,” said Jose Hugo Varillas, a volunteer at the bookstore. “It’s a few hours a week that I can forget that we live in the Big Apple and I can enjoy my culture with people who are like myself.”
Once called the ‘epicenter of the epicenter’ of the COVID-19 pandemic, few communities were hit as hard as Elmhurst, Corona, and Jackson Heights, Queens. Ortíz, who has lived in Jackson Heights for 20 years, remembers “a sadness that invaded these neighborhoods” when the streets emptied and many of her neighbors fell ill with the virus in March 2020.
“What happens to the community is what will happen to us, because if the community doesn’t have work, we won’t have people,” said Ortíz. “There was a lot of uncertainty.
The bookstore received no government aid — they were unable to access support through the Payment Protection Program, because they lacked permanent employees. Instead, she and Caraballo turned to a variety of sources, including their savings. She created a GoFundMe that raised $3,000. After the liquor brand Hennessey offered the bookstore a grant as a part of its Unfinished Business initiative, Ortíz appeared in a commercial for the brand, where she narrates the shop’s resilience over dark-lit footage of her sorting books.
The bookstore also received an outpouring of support from the community that has been visiting them over the past 17 years. One friend helped them to paint; another who was an electrician fixed their lighting.
Many neighbors donated books to sell, which are offered on the sidewalk outside of the shop for $2 each. Ortíz prefers to call them “read books” instead of “used books,” as a way of recognizing the literal and metaphorical marks each reader leaves.
While cultural events have been on pause for over a year — the bookstore offers little room for social distancing — even in the pandemic’s darkest moments, the space has continued to offer a sense of solace for the community.
“[The bookstore] is an emotional escape, because here I’ve died laughing and here I’ve also cried until I was tired,” said Kathia Segura, one of ten volunteers who play a critical role in the bookstore’s operation.
Diego Rivelino, a local poet, has been sharing his work at the Librería Barco de Papel for years and considers himself to be part of the bookstore’s ‘family’ of supporters. When the pandemic hit, he turned to reading and writing for comfort.
“In books, we might not be speaking with our neighbors,” Rivelino said. “But we can speak with Borges, with Proust, and with Hemingway.”
As the weather warms, the bookstore hopes to return to organizing events outside. After a difficult year, Ortíz hopes that the bookstore (and its books) can provide a form of relief and enrichment for the community, noting that “people need this space, because there are no other spaces [like this].”
“It’s more than just a place that offers books,” Rivelino said. “It’s a place where people can come together to share their culture.”
