The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica

What are the motifs in The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica by Judith Ortiz Cofer?

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Art and experience are recurring ideas. The customers in the deli elevate the status of the items there to art as they read "the labels of packages aloud, as if they were the names of lost lovers." One "fragile old man lost in the folds of his winter coat" reads his lists of items "like poetry." The store items become poetry as they remind the customers of their culture and so reaf- firm their sense of themselves.