For decades, bodegas have served as the undisputed anchors of Latine communities across the United States, particularly within the bustling boroughs of New York City. Stocking everything from essential pantry staples like plantains and casabe to familiar over-the-counter medicines, these corner stores have long functioned as vital cultural bridges connecting immigrant lives to the distant homelands of their families. For generations of parents and abuelos, simply stepping into a bodega—finding those sought-after goods and speaking Spanish with the person behind the counter—offered an immediate sense of comfort, belonging, and community, regardless of socioeconomic standing or citizenship status.
That profound cultural lifeline forms the inspiration behind Bodega Stories, a forthcoming memoir by journalist and debut author Amaris Castillo. Scheduled for release by the University Press of Florida on September 8, 2026, the book combines narrative prose with original photography captured by Castillo herself. The memoir chronicles the lives, daily struggles, and enduring dreams of her Dominican immigrant parents and the vibrant community served by their family business, Orlando Latin Market, located in St. Petersburg, Florida. Through her writing, Castillo explores not only her 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 rich Dominican heritage, and understand how the places that raise us ultimately shape who we become.
"I think I’ve always had a curiosity about other people, and that dates back to my very Dominican Caribbean childhood in Brooklyn," Castillo reflects. 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. In many ways, she believes her unique upbringing nurtured the natural storyteller within her from an early age.
"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 says. "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 began the reporting process for Bodega Stories, she quickly realized she was doing much more than merely documenting the history of her parents’ store. She was actively chronicling the intricate, deeply human lives of the workers who kept it running and the diverse customers who walked continuously through its doors.
Among them was a Haitian customer named Yanick, who came into the market around New Year’s Day to purchase ingredients for soup joumou, the traditional Haitian soup deeply associated with the country’s hard-won independence. Castillo watched as Yanick carefully picked out pieces of calabaza squash and searched through the meat freezer for beef. At first, the young writer didn’t fully grasp the 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," she recalls.
Yanick later confirmed that she was indeed preparing soup joumou for her family to celebrate the new year on January 1. For Castillo, that quiet interaction crystallized a phenomenon she had been observing inside her parents’ bodega all along: customers were never simply shopping for routine groceries. Instead, they were 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 notes. "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."
To residents of New York City, the word bodega feels almost synonymous with the urban landscape itself. It evokes the image of the tiny neighborhood storefront where one can purchase everything from a morning bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich to platanos, avocados, Vicks VapoRub, and laundry detergent, usually accompanied by a watchful bodega cat lounging near the register.
Although bodegas are frequently associated with New York’s prominent Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhoods, Castillo places these businesses within 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 were instrumental in helping establish the very bodega culture that Dominican immigrants would later inherit and expand.
"In the 1920s, especially Puerto Ricans, they opened a bunch of bodegas, restaurants, botanicas, and boarding houses," she says. "So they really helped pave the way for Dominicans, I would say, with bodegas."
As wave after wave of Dominican immigration surged into New York City throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and particularly the 1980s, a significant number of Dominican immigrants began purchasing established bodegas from aging Puerto Rican owners. Castillo’s family proudly joined that historic lineage, eventually bringing traditional bodega culture southward to the state of Florida. Their Dominican-owned Orlando Latin Market has since adapted to serve an even broader multicultural demographic, including a substantial population of Cuban residents.
"My parents, they still call it a bodega. We call it a bodega," she emphasizes.
Growing up inside the store and later returning to report on it for her book introduced Castillo to everyday customers whose ordinary grocery runs revealed expansive, poignant stories about culture, resilience, and family. One regular customer is a Cuban man who reliably stops in to purchase plantains because his wife loves to prepare chicharitas, the thinly sliced and fried Cuban plantains. Then there is Deisy, a Cuban woman and former cashier at the market who still frequently drops by to catch up with Castillo’s parents and her old coworkers. Deisy carries a deeply personal reminder of her homeland: a tattoo mapping the island of Cuba divided into its fifteen distinct provinces, with Cienfuegos, her specific birthplace, proudly highlighted. Behind the map flies the Cuban flag, its bright blue stripes masterfully designed to resemble the turbulent ocean waves where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean meet. Deisy fled Cuba alongside her boyfriend in 2019 and chose to get the tattoo with the sobering realization that she would likely never set foot on her native island again.
Another regular, a Dominican customer named José, arrived at the store to purchase ingredients for sancocho. With his wife currently struggling with her health, José was stepping in to help his sister-in-law prepare the traditional comforting dish. For Castillo herself, the store operated as an organic, informal classroom where she continuously learned about Haitian culinary traditions, Cuban recipes, and the endless regional variations of sancocho found across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Yet, Castillo is quick to clarify that Bodega Stories is deliberately not a romanticized portrait of immigrant-owned entrepreneurship. She maintains a sharp focus on the unvarnished realities of the trade.
"I don’t also want to romanticize bodegas because that would diminish the realities that bodegueros face," she explains.
Those harsh realities encompass soaring operating costs, inflation, and the increasingly punishing economics of running a small business, particularly in major metropolitan hubs like New York City and rapidly developing regions of Florida where commercial rents have skyrocketed. They also intersect directly with the human toll of the immigration crisis unfolding daily around them. Castillo shares that her parents have routinely listened to customers grapple with the devastating news that a spouse or loved one has been detained or deported. Some customers have entered the store weeping or completely overwhelmed by a 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 says.
That emotional sanctuary represents another essential, unspoken function of the modern bodega: it remains a steadfast place where people can show up even when their personal lives feel as though they are falling apart. Castillo recalls one customer whose husband had recently been taken away by immigration authorities. Despite the devastating disruption to her household, basic daily necessities remained.
"She still has to go to the store, and she still has to get dinner ready," Castillo points out. Shifting immigration policies do not erase the fundamental human need for groceries. Children still need to eat, families still require dinner, and amidst personal turmoil, the bodega keeps its doors open.
However, sustaining that crucial role is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly in New York City, where relentless gentrification and surging expenses threaten the neighborhood bodegas that have supported immigrant populations for generations. For the business owners who keep them running, this is not a matter of romantic nostalgia, but a matter of economic survival and livelihood.
Castillo’s own parents have weathered notably difficult financial years. There are times when she calls her mother to check in on the business, only to be told that foot traffic has been very slow. While Florida once offered distinct economic advantages over New York, including a historically lower cost of living, that landscape is shifting rapidly.
"There’s a lot of development in Florida," she observes. "Because everybody’s moving here." The very migration waves that helped construct new Latine communities—and new neighborhood bodegas—are simultaneously contributing to the rising costs threatening their existence.
Ultimately, Bodega Stories functions as a heartfelt love letter to Castillo’s parents, who are now in their sixties and continue to work grueling hours. Unsure of when a feasible retirement might finally arrive for them, she set out to honor and document what they have built over a lifetime of labor. When she reflects on the traditional concept of the American dream, she sees something her parents have already successfully materialized in their own right.
"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 sacrifice, her parents even managed to construct a retirement home in Salinas, a quiet fishing village located in the Dominican Republic, complete with dedicated rooms for Castillo and her children. For the author, the physical storefront represents years of immense personal sacrifice made tangible. When asked what originally motivated her to write deeply about her parents, their arduous journey, and the diverse cast of characters she encountered behind the counter, her answer remains grounded: "I want to validate their work. That’s something I’ve taken on."
Even though the book centers on her family and carries a dedicated tribute to them, she admits the gesture still does not feel quite like enough. "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 the book began simply as an effort to document her family’s personal history and the lives of those orbiting their store, its broader social resonance has shifted in tandem with the contemporary political climate. At a time when immigrants are frequently reduced to polarizing political talking points, Castillo hopes readers will look past the rhetoric and see them simply as 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, Castillo wants readers to understand that the immigrant experience is never defined by a single, monolithic narrative. Instead, thousands of ordinary, nuanced stories unfold each day across homes, restaurants, salons, churches, community centers, and neighborhood bodegas.
"Most of the people in this book… are just trying to make it," she says. "They’re just trying to live the best life they can live."
Even as neighborhood bodegas face an uncertain economic future, Castillo hopes readers will ultimately recognize them as vibrant spaces of joy—cultural institutions well worth preserving.
"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."
