Houston, Texas – After a year of community pop-ups across Houston, Dreamers Books + Culture has opened a brick-and-mortar location. The space is a cozy bookstore built inside a converted shipping container at Ironworks in the East End.
The store is the realized dream of Elizabeth Farfán-Santos, a local author, anthropologist, and former University of Houston professor who’s spent her career celebrating the diversity of Latino experiences. Farfán-Santos says she created Dreamers to fill a cultural and literary gap in Houston’s book scene, a place where readers can explore fiction, poetry, and children’s books in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.
For Elizabeth, this space is deeply personal. Her love of reading runs in the family, her grandfather was an avid reader, and her aunts shared that same passion. Growing up, she spent summers in Mexico, where books and culture were part of daily life. She also remembers tagging along with her mom and aunts to sell tacos at construction sites. Years later, before opening Dreamers, she found herself “slanging books the way we used to slang tacos,” at pop-ups and community markets around the city.
The name of Dreamers is also, reader-inspired. Yuyi Morales’ illustrated picture book, based on her own story of immigrating to the United States was a book turned safe space for Elizabeth, who hopes her bookstore can duplicate that feeling of haven within the Houston community.
As an author herself, Farfán-Santos knows the challenges of getting local books on local shelves. That’s why Dreamers isn’t just about selling books, it’s about building belonging. She’s committed to featuring Houston writers and supporting emerging Latino authors, ensuring their stories have a place to be seen, heard, and shared.
Regular hours are Wednesdays-Thursdays 10 a.m.–2 p.m., Fridays and Sundays 10 a.m.–6 p.m., and Saturdays 10 a.m.–7 p.m.