About Us

When we launched Cemí Underground in June of 2007, it was with the goal of establishing an entity that would add another voice to the desperately few voices promoting and proclaiming our art and artists to the world. Situated in the heart of El Barrio at 112th street and Lexington Avenue, Cemi Underground is full speed ahead towards this goal.. We understand that it will be a long road and not an easy one at that but, we are fully committed to growing this bookstore/gift store into a major cultural venue for the Puerto Rican/Latino community not just of El Barrio but the entire city and state as well.

Cemí Underground has been greeted with much enthusiasm and support by our friends and other cultural advocates (guerilleros culturales). Our weekly Friday events have been well attended and have given an opportunity to our artistic community to share their talent and hone their skills as well. Most of all we have been moved by the many that come up to us to thank us for starting this venture–a missing linchpin in the Puerto Rican/Latino community.

As we begin we are not sitting around waiting for books, art and artists to drop on our lap. We continuously look for and add books that are hard to find and written by local and national Latino authors; we have a wide variety of cultural events; we continuously add more t-shirt designs and have introduced a line of designs promoting El Barrio.

Cemí Underground is not a not-for-profit organization-it is a business. We are not dependent on government funds to operate and to promote our culture. This is a positive thing because we are not bound by government strings and are fully independent. We did not start this venture with the aim of getting rich nor with the aim making somebody else rich. As an independent entity we have to work hard to get your support so that we can continue to do what we do. We are not an organization that can rest assured with the knowledge that that our funds will be there to pay the rent even if there is nothing going on. This has been one of the weaknesses of many organizations and the reason why they fail-they are not hungry enough to go out there to get the funds for their next meal. We depend solely on the sales of merchandise, on the income from the admission to our events to pay the artists and from future internet sales.