So we’ve been discussing this at length this morning and our resident smart ass Amy Jones has questions…these questions are here for you to ponder, with a foreword by Jenina.
The Bodega isn’t just a store to sell you coffee and the morning paper.
A Bodega is the heart and soul of its, roughly, 3-6 block radius (more or less).
A Bodega is a smile and a cup of your cafécito made just the way you like it, it’s a hot buttered roll and a roll of toilet paper at 3am cos you been out all day and night so, fuhget it, you had no time to stop any place else.
A Bodega is fresh oranges and mangoes on a Sunday morning.
It’s the spot, the joint, the place to meet on a Friday night to grab your Dutch Masters and head into the city. It is where the neighborhood cat gets a meal and your dog gets a bone and your cousin’s son got his first job.
You can’t recreate this and why Amy asks….
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Where are the loosies?
Whose mother is making the arroz con gandules?
WHAT button do I push for a beef patty with cheese and coco bread?
WHO is going to approve my line of credit in the little notebook until the first?
I don’t see the cooler that houses the Four Locos, 40 oz. Old English or $0.50 sodas.
🗣YOU COULD NEVER!!!!!
WHO is going to weigh me out $1.00 worth of yellow cheese?
WHERE is the Fabuloso?
HOW do I send my seven year old to this “Bodega” with a list of things to pick up and WHO is she going to hand that list to?
WHAT button do I push to ask this machine for $200 to bail my brother out?
IS this machine going to tell me it’s proud of me when it realizes that I’ve paid cash for my purchases consecutively for two months instead of using food stamps and credit, therefore I must have landed a job?
White people are fascinated by how we survive. They want to wear our lives like a costume.
Build vending machines to replace the culture they can’t build for themselves..
Market them how you please.
They’ll NEVER be Bodegas.
Ever.
Amy Jones is an advocate and brilliant Brown Girl out loud. She is loved beyond measure and we are sure this will not be the last you hear from her!
Brown Girls Out Loud 