At Mission bookstore Medicine for Nightmares, the remedy for struggle is familia - 48 hills - 48 Hills

Not each tiny businesses are created equally.

A national census precocious reported that lone 17.7% of bookstores successful the United States are operated by minorities. Another metric from County Business Patterns reveals that the magnitude of bookstores successful the state has dropped implicit 50% for the past 2 decades, down to a full of 6,045 nationwide successful 2019—and that doesn’t adjacent relationship for closures during COVID.

But for Josiah Luis Aldrete and Tân Khánh Cao, the duo down Medicine for Nightmares/Medicina para Pesadillas—a bookstore and creation assemblage that is dedicated to showcasing and uplifting the Bay Area’s divers voices—those daunting numbers don’t deter them from carving retired a abstraction that reflects their idiosyncratic and communal values.

“The bookstore is simply a portal and a abstraction for connection,” says Aldrete, a writer whose book, Baby Axolotls & Old Pochos, was published by Black Freighter Press successful 2021. “It’s not conscionable a bookstore. We hang, we footwear it, we create, we prolong art, we retrieve cultura. For the Mission, that has been going connected for years. The astir evident happening for a civilization oregon radical oregon question is to thatch the adjacent generation, truthful it continues.”

The store connected 24th Street was antecedently Alley Cat Bookstore & Gallery, which Kate Razo sold to Aldrete and Khánh Cao past year. The brace collectively took implicit and remodeled the abstraction wrong a whirlwind of 2 months (Nomadic Press laminitis J.K. Fowler was besides pivotal successful launching Medicine for Nightmares, but helium is nary longer involved). With backgrounds successful ocular art, poetry, and assemblage advocacy, Khánh Cao and Aldrete person extended acquisition with small, section institutions: Aldrete erstwhile owned a taco store successful the North Bay and was employed astatine City Lights Books, portion Khánh Cao worked anterior astatine City Lights and The Luggage Store creation gallery.

Still, it hasn’t been casual maintaining a commerical spot successful 1 of the nation’s astir costly regions. Despite their associated passions and committedness to preserving an inclusive literate haven for others—like hosting the Speaking Axolotl poesy speechmaking and unfastened mic series—there person been galore real-world obstacles and systemic factors that Khánh Cao and Aldrete proceed to navigate, particularly arsenic members of underrepresented groups successful an economically ruthless San Francisco. 

“The concern portion is the killer,” Aldrete tells 48 Hills. “The arts are thriving successful our space. We ain’t gonna marque wealth selling books. It’s a labour of love, a leap of faith. Being successful the store and coming up abbreviated a batch of times has been a mean thing. Finances? It’s hard to determination them astir for a tiny business, particularly arts-based. At the extremity of the time it’s astir wealth and we don’t ever person that. But we person that religion that we’re doing what we request and that the bills volition get paid. So acold it has worked.”

In the end, however, these poets and artists person proven to beryllium resilient—just similar the residents of the Mission they represent—by leaning profoundly into the fabrics astir them. A commemorative t-shirt is available for anyone funny successful supporting their ngo (no pun intended).

Shop owners, Khánh Cao (left) and Aldrete (right), debuting Medicine for Nightmares’ day shirts, which are for merchantability arsenic portion of the store’s fundraising efforts. Photo courtesy of Medicine for Nightmares.

Their corporate emotion and grassroots efforts were connected afloat show for the store’s one-year day this past Saturday—which included a fundraiser and merchandise of the store’s limited-edition poesy anthology, Portales: A Medicina Para Pesadillas Poetry Anthology. New poems from an array of poets who person been integral to the bookstore’s emergence and continuance are included successful the work—and galore of them were contiguous for a year’s worthy of celebration.

Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Truong Tran, Mimi Tempestt, Yaccaira Salvatierra, Lourdes Figueroa, Hector lad of hector, Angel Dominguez, and Amanda Muñiz were among those who spoke their truths.

San Jarocho euphony radical Colectivo Calle Son provided a unrecorded Veracruzano-style soundtrack to complement an quality by artist-writer El Siete (also known arsenic L7 oregon Chris Cuadrado, the laminitis of For the People Art Collective) arsenic the night’s DJ. It’s young Latinx artists similar El Siete who are often on-hand to assistance retired with the store’s audio and technological needs.

The intergenerational tapestry of poets who performed enactment from the anthology were the stars of the amusement though, sharing words and contented that scope successful topics from self-empowerment, indigenous connectivity, spiritual healing, gentrification and acheronian humor.

“In a clip of privatization of nationalist forums and closures of assemblage spaces, this bookstore is an enactment of communal magic,” Luboviski-Acosta, a Mission-residing writer who is besides Aldrete’s niece, said. “Part info shop, portion literate botanica, portion auntie and tío’s house—I genuinely cannot judge specified a lotus was capable to blossom from the mud of precocious capitalism and the pandemic.”

Among the powerhouses who person go pillars arsenic members of—and beyond-–the Medicine for Nightmares familia was Mimi Tempesst. Her enactment evokes the effortless verbal dreamstate of San Francisco’s existent Poet Laureate, Tongo Eisen-Martin, portion gathering with the governmental fervor and method precision of the precocious poet, June Jordan—who launched the still-active Poetry for the People programme astatine UC Berkeley successful 1991 for underrepresented students and assemblage members. In short, Tempesst is simply a force—and 1 who Aldrete has identified arsenic portion of the bookstore’s astir typical figures.

Medicine for Nightmares’ one-year-anniverary anthology is present connected merchantability (Courtesy of Medicine for Nightmares).

“This is simply a solemnisation of our space,” Aldrete says. “It’s a instauration of this portion of Mission lit but it’s besides a solemnisation of having our familia around. Poets similar Mimi and Tatiana travel successful and bash their thing. Musicians [like Colectivo Calle Son] signifier here. El Siete comes in. It’s a celebration, conscionable similar immoderate different time with the familia coming through.”

Once the portion ends, the bookstore volition resume backmost to its funky, unassuming self. A radical of teenagers mightiness hover adjacent the beforehand of the store, flipping done indie zines and revolutionary creation paraphernalia. A Latina ma decked retired successful a San Francisco Giants overgarment mightiness propulsion her stroller up to the currency registry to greet her homies. An older mates mightiness rotation successful and get mislaid successful the backmost of the store, lone to look with a stack of books to instrumentality location for the chilly wintertime night.

Despite the odds—or possibly due to the fact that of them—Medicine for Nightmares volition stay arsenic a refuge of music, poetry, laughter, and comida for anyone who needs it.