In the Fall of 2014, Rhode Island Latino Arts commissioned local Cuban artist, Ana Flores, to work on an exciting community art installation entitled Café Recuerdos.

Café Recuredos is a visual complement to Nuestras Raíces oral histories collected by Marta V. Martínez, RILA's Executive Director.

Café Recuerdos began, as many meaningful ideas do, over a simple cup of coffee. For so many of us, a cup of café is more than a drink—it’s a ritual, a comfort, a quiet moment that brings memories rushing back. The smell alone can transport us to another place: a kitchen from long ago, a conversation with family, a sense of community that may feel far away but never fully lost. Here in Rhode Island, coffee becomes both a bridge to what we carry with us—allá—and a way of grounding ourselves in where we are now—aquí.

This project honors that in-between space, the hyphenated experience of becoming Latino-American, where memory and presence exist side by side. Café Recuerdos is a way of holding onto the past while continuing to build something new, together.

At the heart of the project is a mobile coffee cart—hand-built from steel, scrap metal, and rows of Café Recuerdos cans carefully assembled into its walls. The cart itself carries stories. Along its surface are painted likenesses of Latino community members in Rhode Island—individuals whose stories have been shared, remembered, and honored, alongside others who shape the fabric of our communities every day. It is both functional and symbolic, designed to move through different spaces, indoors and outdoors, meeting people where they are.

Wherever the cart goes, we serve coffee. The aroma draws people in—sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes out of recognition—and invites them to stay. We create a small café space with tables and chairs, but what truly fills the space are the conversations. Over a cafecito, people sit, talk, remember, and share. Stories unfold naturally, just as they do in our homes, our neighborhoods, and our lives.

Café Recuerdos is also rooted in collective making. The cart was brought to life with the help of artists, students, and community members who contributed their time and creativity to its construction. At the same time, young people across Rhode Island have helped gather stories—listening, documenting, and adding to a growing archive of lived experiences that continue to shape who we are.

Years earlier, in 2004, I had helped curate an exhibition of her work at the Rhode Island Foundation—whimsical pieces created from empty food cans, inspired by her childhood memories and a recent trip to Cuba. When we reconnected, we met over coffee to talk through ideas, and somewhere in those conversations, Café Recuerdos was born.

This project began as I recorded the stories of Rhode Island’s early Latino pioneers. Among them was Doña Fefa from the Dominican Republic, who shared how she and her family opened the first bodega in the state. I later met Valentín Ríos, who arrived from Colombia in 1965; Rev. Francisco Litardo of Iglesia Bautista Hispana El Calvario, the first Latino Baptist congregation in Rhode Island—and in New England; and Victor Mendoza, one of the state’s early Latino political activists.

As I listened to these stories, I felt something was missing. I couldn’t shake the sense that an important piece of Rhode Island’s Latino history had yet to be told—the Cuban story. What unfolded in Cuba in the late 1950s and early 1960s, following Fidel Castro’s rise to power, had a profound global impact, and I wanted to understand how that history shaped the lives of those who made their way to Rhode Island.

That search led me to Cuban artist Ana Flores. I initially reached out with the intention of recording her oral history, but instead of simply contributing her story, Ana proposed something more creative.

Ana Flores, a local sculptor, and Tim Ferland, Art Production Manager at the Steel Yard in Providence put together a "maquette," or a preliminary sample of the coffee cart that will be used as a model for the Café Recuerdos project.

In mid-May, Tim will begin the actual creation of the cart, which will be made of light steel and other scrap metal, and Ana will work on a design on canvas.

Alternately, Ana will continue painting coffee can with the faces of people that have been interviewed by Marta for Nuestras Raíces. She will then create a wall of the painted cans and will include stories behind each person featured on the can.

Stay with us as we continue to document the creation of the cart and watch as the stories unfold.