Miguel Márquez San Juan walks down Avenida Calle Niños Héroes, just two blocks off of Avenida Revolución. Señor Márquez moved to Tijuana in 1984.
As he walks down a narrow alley, sandwiched between an office supply store and an optometrist’s office, the noise of Tijuana fades, replaced by the sounds of jazz.
Taking out his keys, he opens the door to his dream business, a bookstore called Libros, Café y Jazz, his keychain bell tinkling in the quiet.
Inside, Márquez sits in one of the bookstore's four rooms, playing "King of Blue" by Miles Davis and reading from the iconic Mexican novel "Pedro Páramo." The novel's film adaptation, starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo ("The Lincoln Lawyer"), is set to premiere Nov. 6 on Netflix.
“Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo. Mi madre me lo dijo y yo le prometí que vendría a verlo como es en cuanto ella muriera [I came to Comala because I was told that my father, a man called Pedro Paramo, was living there. It was what my mother had told me, and I promised I would go and see him after she died],” Márquez said, reciting a passage from the book.
Márquez runs the shop with his daughters. They recently celebrated the store’s 15th anniversary.
Stacked floor-to-ceiling with books, the small shop aims to bring literature and music to Tijuanenses at accessible prices. From secondhand Manu Chao CDs to “Bedtime Stories for Rebellious Girls,” they even have a poetry vending machine.
Márquez saw a need in Tijuana back in 2009.
“Estaban las librerías grandes, las clásicas de aquí, pero el libro económico no había [There were the big bookstores, the classic ones here, but there were no affordable books],” Márquez said.
While Tijuana has some options for borrowing books, few offer the option to take the books home. For example, the Centro Cultural Tijuana, or CECUT, has a public library where visitors are welcome to sit and read from the shelves, but not check out books. Daniel Togliatti, a CECUT's press coordinator, says the library serves not just readers, but writers too.
“Part of the mission of the Central Cultural Tijuana is to share this space for writers from the region,” Togliatti said.
But, Togliatti says, the overarching goal for CECUT is to bring the joy of reading to Tijuana.
“They feel an inspiration and they feel the possibility to new, different worlds in this communication between the writer and the reader,” Togliatti said.
He says CECUT and Libros, Café y Jazz are on similar paths, supporting Tijuana’s creative community in unique ways.
“In this global situation, we work on four wheels, and they own a bicycle, but they are in the same place. Sometimes at the same velocity. Sometimes we share the road,” Togliatti explained.
Like CECUT, Libros, Café y Jazz hosts live performances.
“Por ejemplo, el próximo domingo o el próximo sábado — o sea mañana — vamos a presentar un grupo de jazz aquí, se presentan aquí 20, 30 personas [For example, next Sunday or Saturday — so tomorrow — we are going to have a jazz group here, 20, 30 people],” Márquez shared.
If you miss a performance, you might still find Márquez in his usual spot, reading "Los Amorosos” by Jaime Sabines — a poem he holds dear. He sips his coffee, listens to jazz and recites a line:
Los amorosos se ponen a cantar entre labios
una canción no aprendida,
y se van llorando, llorando,
la hermosa vida.
[And the lovers begin to sing between pursed lips
a song never learned,
and they go on crying, crying for
this beautiful life.]
