As the country reopens, Kalima DeSuze’s
priority as a small business owner is the safety of her community.
That ethos is personal for DeSuze, a Crown Heights, Brooklyn, native, and the founder of the neighborhood’s Cafe con Libros, an intersectional feminist bookstore and coffee shop that describes itself as a “vibrant community space where everyone, specifically female-identified folx, feel centered, affirmed and celebrated.” Its shelves house Black feminist classics, novels by queer authors and inclusive children’s books.
DeSuze, a veteran and former graduate school instructor, refinanced her house and used her savings and a small business loan to open Cafe con Libros in 2017. A nod to her Panamanian roots, the bookshop reflects her own coming-of-age: As a teen, she intentionally transformed her reading list by focusing entirely on celebrating authors of color, which DeSuze says changed her worldview. After the military, she found a community of Black feminists and organizers reading the same books and took interest in intellectual activism. “My bookstore felt like the next step in my activist life,” she says.
But the pandemic squeezed independent bookstores like DeSuze’s: As of May 2021, over 80 indie bookstores had shuttered. A combination of Paycheck Protection Program loans, online sales, mission-driven seller platforms and owners pivoting offset even more damage. When DeSuze and her partner, who regularly worked at the shop, closed the business to customers in March 2020, they knew they’d need to become even more resilient and creative to stay afloat.
A Neighborhood’s Book Haven
Cafe con Libros adjusted day-to-day operations during the pandemic to survive and keep its Brooklyn community safe.