Collaboration between Michael Frid, Sameer Auluck, and Giridhar Bonu

On our adventure through the Five PointsNeighborhood last week, we stopped by a small bookstore on Mulberry Street, across the street from Columbus Park. The bookstore, named “Yu and Me Books”, caught our attention not necessarily as a topic for our class assignment, but purely as a bookstore, and we decided to walk in and take a look. We had no idea that Yu and Me Books, which opened back in December of 2021, was the first Asian American female-owned bookstore in the city, and has the expressed mission of creating a space to highlight books by immigrant authors and people of color. Books that have historically been put on the sidelines are put front and center at Yu and Me and this mission, as well as the welcoming and warm atmosphere that the store has, caught our attention. 

Yu and Me Books was founded by Lucy Yu, a chemical engineer by trade, who grew up in LA. She wanted to find a space to share typically underrepresented authors and opened “Yu and Me” for that exact purpose. As we explored the store, and spoke to the employees working there, we learned more about this bookstore/cafe/bar/neighborhood space, and about its short but fascinating history.