For decades, the neighborhood bodega has served as an invaluable anchor for Latine communities across the United States, particularly within the bustling boroughs of New York City. Stocking everything from staples like plantains, casabe, and familiar over-the-counter medicines to everyday household goods, these modest corner stores have long bridged the gap between everyday American life and the ancestral homelands of immigrant families. For countless parents and grandparents, or abuelos, stepping into a bodega meant finding more than just groceries. Being able to secure traditional goods and converse in Spanish with the person behind the counter offered a profound sense of comfort, belonging, and community, operating entirely irrespective of socioeconomic background or legal citizenship status.
This rich cultural bridge serves as the inspiration behind Bodega Stories, an upcoming memoir by journalist and debut author Amaris Castillo. Set for release on September 8, 2026, by the University Press of Florida, the book weaves together written narratives and original photographs captured by Castillo herself. Through these intimate portraits, the memoir captures the daily lives, enduring struggles, and ambitious dreams of her Dominican immigrant parents, as well as the diverse community served by their family business, Orlando Latin Market, located in St. Petersburg, Florida. The book explores not only Castillo’s personal experiences growing up inside the aisles of the store, but also how those formative years taught her to observe people with deep curiosity, embrace her vibrant Dominican heritage, and understand how the physical places where we grow up ultimately shape who we become.
Reflecting on her foundational years, Castillo notes that her career path was heavily influenced by her upbringing. “I think I’ve always had a curiosity about other people, and that dates back to my very Dominican Caribbean childhood in Brooklyn,” she says. She spent the first decade of her life growing up in Crown Heights before her family relocated to Woodhaven, Queens, and eventually settled down in Florida during her high school years. Looking back, she firmly believes that her unique upbringing naturally nurtured the storyteller within her.
That early creative spark manifested in surprising ways during her childhood. “In first grade I even won a storytelling contest. It was me, and I think two other kids who won the contest, and I remember making a book that ended up in an exhibit somewhere in a museum in New York City,” Castillo recalls. “So, I think working at the bodega, being up close to all the unique characters… I got to see the best in humans, and I got to see the worst in humans.”
When Castillo eventually began the rigorous reporting process for Bodega Stories, she realized she was doing much more than simply documenting the historical footprint of her parents’ retail store. She was actively chronicling the intricate, deeply human lives of the workers who kept the business running and the loyal customers who walked through its doors day after day.
One such instance involved a Haitian customer named Yanick, who visited the market around New Year’s Day to purchase specific ingredients for soup joumou, a traditional Haitian soup deeply associated with the nation’s hard-fought independence. Castillo watched as Yanick carefully selected pieces of calabaza squash and searched through the meat freezer for beef. At first, the young journalist didn’t fully comprehend the cultural significance of what she was witnessing.
“I started searching Haitian soup, and I realized, oh my god, I’m pretty sure what she was doing was gathering ingredients for this soup that means so much to her and other Haitians,” Castillo explains. Yanick later confirmed that she was indeed preparing soup joumou for her family to celebrate the New Year on January 1. For Castillo, the moment served as a profound revelation, clarifying something she had been observing inside her parents’ bodega all along: customers were rarely shopping merely for basic groceries. Instead, they were actively searching for tangible pieces of home.
“I felt like I was watching in real time people coming to the store with a reason, with a purpose,” she says. “And it was oftentimes to find the foods that they love, that they’re comfortable with, that they’re familiar with, and that is a bridge to their culture. Food is identity.”
For residents of New York City, the word bodega can feel almost synonymous with the urban landscape itself. It evokes the image of a tiny neighborhood storefront where one can purchase anything from a hot bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich to fresh plantains, avocados, Vicks VapoRub, and laundry detergent—usually accompanied by a sleepy bodega cat patrolling nearby.
Although bodegas are frequently viewed exclusively through the lens of New York’s Puerto Rican and Dominican communities, Castillo places these institutions into a much broader, historical lineage of neighborhood shops established by earlier generations of Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants. She points out that Puerto Rican communities played a vital role in establishing the foundational bodega culture that subsequent waves of Dominican immigrants would later inherit and expand upon.
“In the 1920s, especially Puerto Ricans, they opened a bunch of bodegas, restaurants, botanicas, and boarding houses,” she notes. “So they really helped pave the way for Dominicans, I would say, with bodegas.”
As Dominican immigration to New York accelerated throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and particularly the 1980s, a significant number of Dominican immigrants began purchasing established bodegas from aging Puerto Rican owners, continuing a proud tradition of immigrant entrepreneurship. Castillo’s own family eventually joined this enduring lineage, successfully transplanting bodega culture down to the sunnier climate of Florida. Their Dominican-owned business, the Orlando Latin Market, has since adapted over the years to serve an even broader multicultural demographic, which notably includes a substantial community of Cuban residents.
“My parents, they still call it a bodega. We call it a bodega,” Castillo states proudly.
Growing up inside the store and later conducting formal reporting for her book introduced Castillo to everyday customers whose ordinary shopping routines revealed much larger, compelling narratives about culture, displacement, and family ties. One regular customer is a Cuban man who frequently visits specifically to buy plantains because his wife loves preparing chicharitas, which are thinly sliced and fried Cuban plantains. Another memorable figure is Deisy, a Cuban woman and former cashier who still drops by the market simply to catch up with Castillo’s parents and her former co-workers. Deisy carries a striking physical reminder of her homeland: a tattoo featuring a map of Cuba divided into its fifteen distinct provinces, with Cienfuegos, her specific birthplace, prominently standing out. Set directly behind the map is the Cuban flag, designed so that its bright blue stripes resemble the ocean waves where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean all meet. Deisy fled Cuba alongside her boyfriend in 2019 and chose to get the permanent ink knowing full well that she would likely never be able to visit her native island again.
Similarly, a Dominican customer named José visited the market to purchase the specific ingredients required to make sancocho. Because his wife was suffering from poor health, he was stepping in to help his sister-in-law prepare the traditional stew. For Castillo, the storefront functioned as an organic, informal classroom where she continuously expanded her own cultural education—learning firsthand about Haitian culinary traditions, Cuban comfort foods, and the diverse regional variations of sancocho found across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Yet, Castillo is quick to emphasize that Bodega Stories is not intended to be a romanticized, rose-colored portrait of immigrant-owned small businesses. She is exceptionally careful to maintain that distinction throughout her writing. “I don’t also want to romanticize bodegas because that would diminish the realities that bodegueros face,” she asserts.
Those harsh everyday realities include mounting operational costs and the increasingly volatile economics of running a small retail enterprise, particularly in metropolitan hubs like New York City and rapidly developing areas of Florida where commercial and residential rents have soared dramatically. Furthermore, these businesses exist against the backdrop of an ongoing immigration crisis affecting their customer bases. Castillo shares that her parents have frequently heard from distressed customers whose spouses or close loved ones have suddenly been detained or deported. Some patrons have walked into the store visibly shaken, crying, or overwhelmed by a profound sense of defeat.
“It’s difficult for my parents to know what to do in that situation, but I think that they’ve always just tried to comfort their customers,” she observes.
Providing this quiet comfort is yet another essential, albeit unwritten, function of the bodega: it remains a steadfast place where people can show up even when their personal lives appear to be falling apart. Castillo recalls one particular customer whose husband was suddenly picked up for deportation. Despite the crushing emotional weight of the situation, the daily obligations of life persisted. “She still has to go to the store, and she still has to get dinner ready,” Castillo notes.
Harsh immigration policies and shifting political landscapes do not erase the fundamental human need for basic sustenance. Children still need to eat, families still require dinner, and amidst it all, the neighborhood bodega keeps its doors open.
However, sustaining this vital community role is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly in New York City, where skyrocketing operating expenses and aggressive gentrification continue to threaten the neighborhood bodegas that have served immigrant populations for generations. For the business owners who keep these lights burning, this struggle is entirely devoid of nostalgia; it is simply about survival and a hard-earned livelihood.
Castillo’s own parents have weathered their fair share of financially challenging years. There are times when she calls her mother to check in on the business, only to hear that foot traffic and sales have been “very slow.” While Florida may have once provided distinct economic advantages over New York—including a historically lower cost of living—that landscape is rapidly evolving. “There’s a lot of development in Florida,” she explains, pointing out that an influx of new residents has dramatically altered the local economy. “Because everybody’s moving here.”
Ironically, the same patterns of internal migration that initially helped cultivate vibrant new Latine communities—and subsequently gave rise to new bodegas—are now directly contributing to the rising costs threatening their continued existence.
Ultimately, Bodega Stories stands as an emotional love letter to Castillo’s parents, who are now in their sixties and continue to work grueling hours behind the counter. Unsure of when they might realistically be able to afford retirement, she wanted to properly honor and document everything they have successfully built. When she reflects deeply on the true meaning of the American dream, she sees something that her parents have already achieved in many tangible ways.
“They have achieved their own version of it,” she says. “They are their own bosses. They’ve built this business into this beloved community cornerstone space that people continually go to and that they watched kids grow up into young adulthood in the store.”
As a testament to their lifelong labor, her parents even managed to construct a retirement home in Salinas, a quiet fishing village located in the Dominican Republic, where Castillo and her own children already have designated rooms waiting for them. For the author, the bustling Florida bodega represents years of profound sacrifice made physically and enduringly real.
When asked what ultimately motivated her to write extensively about her parents, their arduous journey, and the diverse cast of characters she met inside the store, her answer remains grounded and direct: “I want to validate their work. That’s something I’ve taken on,” she says. Even though the published book is fundamentally about them and dedicated entirely to their legacy, it still does not feel like quite enough to express her gratitude.
“I still feel like, what else can I do to show them that all their sacrifices are worth it?” she reflects. “I want them to feel like I see them.”
Although Castillo initially embarked on the literary project simply to document her family’s personal history and the intertwined lives of their neighbors, the broader cultural meaning of the book has naturally shifted in response to the current political climate. At a time when immigrants are frequently reduced to polarizing political talking points, she passionately wants readers to see them for who they truly are: multifaceted human beings.
“I want this to be something that people can sit with and immerse themselves in the lives of everyday people, especially Latino immigrants,” she says. “I think especially in this time when immigrants are vilified left and right, I think it’s important to try to counter that with true stories. This is who we really are.”
Above all else, Castillo hopes readers will come to understand that the immigrant experience is never defined by a single, monolithic narrative. Instead, thousands of ordinary, compelling stories unfold silently every single day—inside homes, restaurants, beauty salons, churches, community centers, and, invariably, behind the crowded aisles of corner bodegas. “Most of the people in this book… are just trying to make it,” she notes. “They’re just trying to live the best life they can live.”
Even as neighborhood bodegas face an uncertain and turbulent economic future, Castillo wants readers to recognize them as vibrant spaces rooted in genuine joy—an invaluable cultural experience well worth fighting to preserve.
“I would love for them to gain a greater appreciation for third spaces and a greater appreciation for bodegas and the livelihood that they provide for owners and bodega workers,” she concludes. “And also the community and sense of belonging that they foster for many of their customers. That to me is a gift, and I think it’s something that we should try to protect and try to preserve.”
