Even on bright spring days in New York City’s Chinatown, Yu and Me Books – with its dark brown shelves, thoughtfully placed lamps and fairy lights strung around the store – feels as cozy as settling in to a good book.
The calm ambience of the shop is a contrast to the bustle of the neighborhood. The park across the street is home to frequent mahjong, ping-pong and soccer matches. Those heading to popular restaurants and bakeries around the corner pack the sidewalks, dodging families wheeling shopping bags toward grocery stores.
Since the bookstore opened in December, Yu and Me Books has become a literary and community hub. Go to the store on a weekend, and it will be packed with people browsing its shelves and sipping coffee. Signed copies of recent releases are showcased around the shop, and the store has hosted readings and events with authors from around the country.
The bookstore’s opening in December, and the love and support it has gotten since, is a sign of resiliency from a community that continues to withstand some of the pandemic’s harshest impacts. Asian Americans have seen an uptick in race-based attacks since the beginning of the pandemic, with more than 10,000 self-reported hate incidents reported across the country since March 2020, according to the non-profit Stop AAPI Hate.
New York this year has specifically seen some of the most brutal crimes against Asian Americans. In February, a woman was murdered in her apartment in Chinatown, just half a mile away from the bookstore. In early March, an Asian woman in a suburb north of the city was hit in the head 125 times by a stranger.
To Lucy Yu, 27, owner of Yu and Me Books, the attacks highlight the need for a sense of celebration and security among people who have become accustomed to fear because of their identities. Yu opened the store with the idea that it would be dedicated to carrying books by writers of color and immigrants, particularly Asian Americans.
“Especially with the hate crimes that were going on, I wanted to do things for communities that look like me – immigrant communities. Something that makes them feel a little less alone, a little less scared in the world,” she said. “Our immigrant communities can come together and find a lot of commonality and connection with each other.”
The concept of Yu and Me Books is inspired by Yu’s own upbringing in west Los Angeles, where she was raised by a single mother who emigrated from China. Reading was an important part of Yu’s childhood, but she was often left disappointed by the lack of representation she saw in books.
“I was a big reader as a kid, but I didn’t see myself in a lot of books,” Yu said. “That’s not just my experience. Any child growing up in an environment where no one looks like them or very few look like them, that’s what they experience.”
To Yu, opening a bookstore was a far-off dream, a plan after retirement. Before opening the store, Yu was a chemical engineer and a supply chain manager – jobs where she found stability, but no passion. But the death of a close friend in 2020 led her to realize the lack of fulfillment in her life and re-evaluate the possibility of opening a bookshop.
“I had an urgency to figure out how I’m going to do things that fuel me with love and passion and joy,” Yu said. “And this was it, so I started putting the business plan together in January 2021.”
The name of the store is not only a clever pun, but is also a recognition of her mom, whose initials are “YM”. While she has come to love the shop, Yu recalls her mother’s skepticism over her plan to spend her life’s savings to open the bookstore.
“When I first told her about this store, she’s like, ‘What the hell? You’re an engineer! You have a 401K,’” Yu said, adding that she understood her mother’s initial reaction.
“It took her a while to get used to the instability [of running the bookstore]. She came here to have stability. She escaped the Cultural Revolution, all these things. So I understand the perspective that she has, it’s just very different from mine.”
In May 2021, Yu started a GoFundMe for the store, stating her goal to open the first Asian American female-owned bookstore in Manhattan. Within two months, she raised $18,000. While working her full-time job, Yu spent her weekends looking for retail space. When she came across the location at 44 Mulberry Street, she knew it was the perfect spot.
“I saw this space and it just felt so right, like the shelves were already there. I could envision it was going to be a cozy spot,” she said.
The bookstore sits on a street nicknamed “funeral row” for the funeral homes that are located along the block. Yu said that the space, which used to be a funeral supply store, feels even more special in this somber setting.
“I feel like I have to respect all these generations of people,” Yu said. “Their stories are here on the shelves.”
Yu designed the store with reading, gathering and community in mind. A reading alcove in the back features portraits of Chinatown residents taken by photographer David Zeng. Chairs and small tables are placed throughout the store. A shelf of books is dedicated to her friend who died in 2020. Yu serves coffee and chats with customers sitting at a wooden counter in the middle of the store. Above this counter are framed prints, including a portrait Yu painted of her dog, Odie, and photos of Asian American activism taken by the late photographer Corky Lee.
Though the store was built to showcase diverse writers and artists, Yu and Me Books has also turned into a community space for safety and healing in light of the recent violent incidents against Asian Americans.
In mid-March, hundreds of people lined the blocks around the store to get free pepper spray and personal safety devices from Soar Over Hate, a non-profit that set up a distribution table outside. Yu and Me also hosted the Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW), which held an event in memory of the victims of the Atlanta spa shootings on the anniversary of the attack.
“Yu and Me Books is just so perfect,” said Lily Philpotts, programs manager for AAWW, who has coordinated several events at the store. “It’s in the heart of Chinatown. It’s really beautiful to just walk in there and be immersed in that community.”
Those who visit Yu and Me Books agree that they see it as a physical love letter to Chinatown and immigrant communities, and there is a special sense of belonging when they enter the store.
“I felt really safe in there. It’s just a really nice, positive, uplifting space,” Celina Liu, an ad ops specialist based in Brooklyn, said of her visit to the store. She noted that the store highlights authors that may not be prominently featured by other bookstores or bestsellers lists.
Leanne Gan, a Brooklyn-based designer and illustrator, said there is an “immediate comfort when you walk in”, and its existence gives her a sense of optimism amid news of violence against Asian Americans.
“I feel like the store is a huge celebration for the community and something that we can all look to,” Gan said. “I feel so grateful to have the store.”
Yu said her favorite part of running the store has been meeting customers and hearing their stories. A few people have become regulars, coming in once a week for a new book and to chat with Yu. Local writers, artists and photographers have come to see the store as a place to showcase their work.
“That’s really special,” she said. “There’s so much beauty in Chinatown that I don’t think gets represented as much as it should be.”
