Each day before welcoming customers into her shop, Dina Leor lights incense made from resin from the Copal Tree in Mexico.

"I feel like it cleans out anything negative from yesterday, and mainly brings in good energy that's what I like about it,” said Leor, who has owned La Sirena, a Mexican Folk Art Store in the East Village for nearly 22 years. 

Leor’s shop on East 3rd Street is filled with colorful chotchkes, garments, and other items, all made by artisans in Mexico, a country she embraced when she traveled there as a young girl with her mother. Her mom is from Argentina, so Spanish was Leor's first language. 

What You Need To Know

  • Dina Leor opened her La Sirena Mexican Folk Art Shop in the East Village nearly 22 years ago

  • The shop features items from artisans in Mexico that Leor has met over the years during her travels there

  • Leor began trips to Mexico at the age of 9 when her Mother rented a house in the mountains for a month and a half

  • La Sirena closed for nearly five months during the pandemic, relying on online sales instead

"We spent a month and a half in the mountains of Mexico, she rented a house, and I fell in love with the country and the culture and the people, and just kept going back," said Leor, who also kept buying folk art from local craftspeople during her visits. Once a carpenter and then an art therapist, she decided to open a place where she could sell the wonderful items she discovered in her travels. 

"The beauty of Mexican Folk Art is that when you go to somebody's house and they are creating it in their patio and there is a whole family there," said Leor, who added that “it's not like you go to school for it or you just learn it living in your house, because it's handed down from generation to generation."

Leor said that during the pandemic, the artisans got really creative, making facemasks with the designs of those famous “Lucha Libre” masks that Mexican wrestlers wear. She had to close the shop for nearly five months due to coronavuris restrictions and got by with online sales.

She is playing catch up now, hoping she doesn't have to go out of business. Leor is trying to stay positive and is hopeful she will make it through this. 

"I'm always optimistic, so I always go for yes I do, I think it's a magical place," said Leor, who says the shop not only makes her happy, but it makes her customers happy too. It's all about keeping the store open, and continuing to support the artisans she has connected with during her lifelong love affair with Mexico.