Households sat on the polka-dotted carpet at Los Amigos Books on a Saturday morning in November, listening to the month-to-month Spanish storytime. Youngsters’s librarian and storyteller Rosie Camargo, often known as Miss Rosie, learn “Gracias” by Jarvis, a ebook a couple of boy giving thanks for every thing he likes.
“¡Gracias gorro por no dejar que mis pensamientos se escapen volando!” Camargo recited. “Gracias lluvia por los charcos”.
Youngsters laughed, and oldsters listened carefully whereas proprietor and former twin language trainer Laura Rodríguez-Romaní took footage and movies for the bookstore’s social media accounts. The story instances at Los Amigos Books are among the many occasions the Spanish language bookstore affords to Chicago households searching for entry to Spanish books.
Los Amigos Books’ mission
Rodríguez-Romaní launched Los Amigos Books as a web based bookstore in 2021. What started as simply a web based catalog has developed into a store on Western Avenue in Chicago. She seems to be to advertise language studying via her bookstore, with cabinets stocked up with Spanish and bilingual books for kids and younger adults, promising correct and respectful representations of the cultures being portrayed.
Cabinets and tables stocked with image books, fiction novels and biographies. (Images by Mariana Bermudez.)
“If you realize your self and your tradition and the place you come from, you’re extra sound of thoughts and comfy with your self and your individual id,” Rodríguez-Romaní mentioned. “You’re additionally in a position to communicate to your grandparents and the older generations.”
Raised in Chicago, Rodríguez-Romaní majored in Spanish on the College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. When she began taking evening lessons to be a librarian, she took a visit to Guadalajara, Mexico, for a world ebook truthful, the place she discovered about worldwide publishers. This gave her the thought for Los Amigos Books. All this information helps her choose the books to show on-line and within the retailer. She additionally sells to libraries and twin language colleges, on the lookout for instructional supplies that American publishers don’t supply.
“I really feel nice duty to guarantee that what we stock and promote to these shoppers are going for use as instructional instruments and language fashions for the youngsters who’re studying books, and to help their bilingual programming,” Rodríguez-Romaní mentioned.
Success via their strategy
Rosie Camargo is a buyer and collaborator of Los Amigos Books. She is the cultural literacy specialist at South Holland Public Library.
“After I began ordering from her, my library admin was like, ‘Effectively, you may order these from Baker and Taylor,’” Camargo mentioned. “I’m like, ‘No, I can’t. These publishers don’t promote to these large distributors, so with a view to get these in my library, I’ve to order via her.’”
Camargo collaborates with Los Amigos Books to guide month-to-month Spanish story instances, which embrace music and humanities and crafts. In November, households adorned Christmas timber and made star-shaped frames to take dwelling.
(Photograph by Mariana Bermudez.)
In accordance with a 2023 Pew Analysis Heart report on the significance of Spanish utilization amongst future U.S. Latino generations, over 65% of greater than 3,000 Latinos surveyed agreed it will be important.
Rodríguez-Romaní, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, desires her son, Noah, to remain related with the language and tradition.
“My son was one in every of my largest motivations,” Rodríguez-Romaní mentioned. “Him and kids of his age, and having them have an area the place you stroll in they usually see their language all around the cabinets, they usually see characters that appear like them.”
Los Amigos Books additionally holds ebook signings with Latino authors.
In October, they welcomed Mexican creator Isis Macedo Suárez, who lives in Chicago, to current her just lately launched bilingual ebook “Strelin y su viaje al planeta azul” (Strelin and Her Journey to the Blue Planet).
Suárez says Los Amigos Books “is a novel setting. It offers that familiarity while you enter, as in the event you had been in a lounge, with out the rigidity of massive bookstores,” she mentioned in Spanish. “With Los Amigos Books, you actually really feel that affection and love for literature.”
Trying forward
Prospects like Claudia Alemán, a babysitter who shopped on the bookstore a Wednesday in November, mentioned bookstores like this one assist Hispanic youngsters not lose curiosity of their cultures. Throughout a stroll at Holstein Park, only some minutes east of the bookstore, she determined to pay a go to. Whereas the little women she cares for under learn English, the native Mexican believes she will educate them about her language and tradition via books.
“They don’t perceive, but when we educate them a bit of, they develop up with curiosity,” Alemán mentioned in Spanish.
Rodríguez-Romaní says they get a mixture of households who register for storytime. The variety of her clients exhibits Los Amigos Books’ success in reaching individuals who additionally worth multiculturalism.
Samuel Rodríguez, Rodríguez-Romaní’s husband, says these crowds are encouraging.
“It type of exhibits us that we’re doing one thing proper, and there are different folks on the market that need to elevate their youngsters bilingual, even when they aren’t from Latino cultures,” Rodríguez mentioned.
Because the story time in November ended, households completed adorning their Christmas frames and even bought books on their manner out, carrying paper baggage with the Los Amigos Books brand.
Rodríguez-Romaní hopes Los Amigos Books continues to develop, as she is open to increasing to different areas.
“You would possibly see large chain shops put up about some Spanish language books by Latino authors solely in Hispanic Heritage Month, however that’s what we do year-round on a regular basis,” Rodríguez-Romaní mentioned.
Cowl Photograph: Proprietor Laura Rodríguez-Romaní at Los Amigos Books, positioned at 2207 N. Western Ave. (Photograph by Mariana Bermudez.)
