La Botánica Cultural: Ars Medica, Ars Poetica

In the Latino barrios of many U.S. metropolitan centers, there are establishments that bewilder the inexperienced passerby: botánicas. Fascinated (or disconcerted) by the term—is this, perhaps, some sort of garden shop?—and the colorful and eclectic shop windows—a seemingly unfathomable melange of books, statues, herbs, candles, soaps, powders, spiritual lithographs and leaflets—few are aware of their cultural and functional diversity and complexity. A glance inside and the mystery increases, as one is confronted with the copious pharmacopoeia of traditional folk and ritual healing: shelves of multicolored “solutions” in a variety of forms claiming power to effect important changes in one’s life—from a remedy for a problematic love life to the cure for a serious illness or relief from distress. With time the mesmerized onlooker soon discovers, however, that the botánica is a multifaceted reality. Part herb shop and folk clinic, more than a “poor man’s pharmacy,” the botánica is a curative promise. With a pluralistic and eclectic worldview, botánicas are a community enterprise, a heritage, and a symbol of Caribbean cultural healing, a palpable representation of medical mestizaje, or syncretism. La botánica cultural is our metaphor, then, for the diverse range of holistic/artistic and spiritual remedies that Caribbean peoples have drawn upon for centuries whenever the need has arisen for individual and/or communal healing.