At Original Products,
customers are mostly Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban and Jamaican. But in many parts of the country, patrons are mainly Central American and Mexican.
“The botanicas really began in New York, and it’s the Puerto Rican and Cuban communities that really got them going,” said Murphy, who is working on a coffee table book about the spiritual stores. “It’s Antillean, Latin Caribbean – that is the basis of the stores. But now, particularly in my area, Washington, D.C., we’ve got lots of Central Americans and so the botanicas are reflecting those traditions and spiritualities. It’s the pan-Latinization of botanicas.”
Mizrahi is no practitioner, he said, but considers himself spiritual.
“I completely understand the value it has to most people,” he said. “I understand how all of this plays into everybody’s life.” And he’s never been called a snake oil salesman, he said.
Murphy and Hayes-Bautista said that despite occasional reports of charlatanism, most botanica proprietors mean well.
