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Portico Bookstore: Bringing Latin American books to D.C. readers

By hola | Published April 9, 2014 | 1 Comment

Washington DC has a Latin American bookstore that offers a wide selection of Spanish language books on a variety of topics—literature, the social sciences, art, economics, politics, philosophy, and history, as well as children’s books. Portico has more than 8,000 Spanish-language titles at the IDB building in downtown Washington.

(Read in Spanish)

HC: When this adventure started?

Gloria Miranda Romero (Portico’s manager): Five-years ago, is a joint venture  between the Mexican government publishing house, el Fondo de Cultura Económica and the InterAmerican Development Bank.

HC: How did Portico open its doors in Washington D.C.?

Gloria Miranda Romero: The (Inter-American Development) Bank needed a place to showcase the books it publishes and the local Latin American community needed a bookstore in Spanish. I think those were the main reasons. This is the only Latin American bookstore (focused on literature and technical and academic texts) not only in Washington D.C. but in Virginia and Maryland too.

HC: Can you explain what is the Fondo de Cultura Económica?

Gloria Miranda Romero: El Fondo de Cultura Económica has a long history in the bookselling business, was founded in 1934 to address the needs of Mexican university students. It began by publishing affordable university textbooks and foreign-language books on topics such as economics and sociology that hadn’t previously been translated into Spanish. From there, FCE added children’s books, art books and other kinds of books.

HC: The Fondo de Cultura Económica operate other bookstores outside of Mexico?

Gloria Miranda Romero:  The FCE operates similar bookstores in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Spain, and Venezuela, where el Fondo de Cultura Económica operates. This is the first and only bookstore in the United States. We have a lot of work ahead.  As you can imagine, the demand is tremendous, but what we need to do first is let people know that we exist and show customers what books we have for sale.

HC: The name “Portico,” which means porch, if I am not mistaken. How did the bookstore end up with this name?

Gloria Miranda Romero:  The original idea was to create an open and welcoming atmosphere—the entrance to a marvelous Latin American world that people do not know yet.  “Portico” is a very common word in South America, so what we try to do is welcome our customers. We want to get to know them and what we can do for them. If you are looking for a book on the Mayas, for example, I am not going to show you just one book; I am going to show you ten books for you to choose from.

HC: Who are your customers?

Gloria Miranda Romero:  Our customers are students; parents; children; people who are interested in Latin American art; people interested in politics in Latin America; the economy in Latin America; and Latin American literature. But our market is not just made up of the Latin American community; it also includes university researchers interested on what’s going on in Latin America.

We also hold readings at the bookstore twice a month and go to readings given by our authors at area universities where we sell books and promote the bookstore. It helps a lot to have events and presentations because people from our countries often tell me, “We didn’t realize you were here!”

HC: How do you choose which books you feature?

Gloria Miranda Romero:  I review catalogs, websites, magazines that cover new releases, and read the newspapers. We also take suggestions about new books that people are looking for. For example, a lot of customers were looking for books from Planeta, a big publisher from Spain. The way I usually work is to first check with the author and make sure the book is available—three copies to start. If I the books are selling, then I order more. I also keep up with what’s being published in different Latin American countries and the U.S. university publishers such as Pittsburg University Press and Duke University Press to see what they are publishing on Latin America. I try to have books from every country, though some books move faster than others.  For example, Nobel Prizewinner Mario Vargas Llosa’s novels do better than 18^th century histories of Brazil. When Carlos Fuentes died I had everything he’s written. It’s all part of knowing your customers and finding the correct balance between books you must have and what’s popular in the moment. There’s a big bookstore chain in the city that sells a few titles in Spanish, the way we compete is having a very good selection that is interesting to our customers.

We are working on a strategy to have more new releases and offer more affordable books. For instance we’ve added a table of books discounted from $20 each to $12. We also want to start relationships. I just noticed that Bolivians here have a lot of clubs dedicated to dance, and that’s wonderful! And I was just thinking, I need to contact them and let them know that we are here. It’s important to think about how to grow one’s customer base because bookstores around the world are facing lot of challenges.

HC: I am Latino, I am Salvadoran, and I don’t have as much connection to my roots. What would you say to a person, in my position, who is interested in learning more about Latin culture?

Gloria Miranda Romero:  Well, first, come here. We will be very glad to help you find what you are looking for. And if we don’t have the book, we are going to do whatever possible to get it. We have a saying in my country, “de la vista nace el amor” (to love it you must first see it). If you don’t come here, you won’t know what we have. We may not have the book you are looking for, but we may have something else that’s even richer than the book you were looking for.

Edwin Martinez

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