Ada Alicia Giron, who co-founded and ran several Spanish-language bookstores in Chicago, died August 29 at age 83, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
In 1957, she and her husband, Julio Giron, bought a toy store where he fixed the vacuum-tube TVs and radios. Ada Alicia Giron, who had been a grade-school teacher in her native Guatemala, loved to read and sent away for Spanish-language books. After reading them, she placed them in the stores, "and to her surprise, she started selling the books," her son Juan said.
Giron expanded the book selection, then added greeting cards, records, magazines, comics, romance novels, books on herbal remedies and Mexican newspapers. They opened a range of stores, which at one point numbered 10, buying the buildings in which they were located to avoid paying rent.
After Julio Giron died in a car accident in 1979, Ada Alicia Giron kept the business going. Currently there are several stores, Libreria Giron and Giron BooksGiron Books, as well as Giron Spanish Book Distributors.