La Calle Cuarto by Lizeth Martinez and Lucero Garcia

La Cuatro Ahora Spring 2023

DTSA businesses remember the time before construction

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IN MEMORY OF LA CUATRO

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On May 8, 2023, students from Santa Ana College went downtown to interview old businesses and document La Cuatro now, creating an archive of a community in the middle of gentrification. We hope to give voice to those who have been here since the birth of La Cuatro. What we found were dozens of businesses that were still recovering from the impact of COVID and the construction of the OC Streetcar.

This zine documents a time between the past and the future.

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SHELSYES Bridal and Banquets 220 W 4th St, Santa Ana, CA 92701

What is your name and how long have you been in La Cuatro?

My name is Minerva Alvarez and I am a designer. I have been here for 30 years..

I started with wedding dresses.

Quinceañera dresses are what I’m most passionate about.

When girls come and go happily, I am happy. I don’t just have one daughter, but now I have thousands of daughters.

Back then, it was a very Latino market. It was everything except Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons are coming now.

I don’t know if the construction will benefit us but I know that it has harmed us.

OCTA did not ask permission, they did not take us into account.

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If you could preserve something from La Cuatro or Santa Ana, what would it be?

For my business to be able to continue with the girls who come and look for me..

I have clients that I dressed them at 3 years old, communion, their quinceañera, their wedding and now I’m doing their daughters quinceañeras.

That’s why I would like to preserve my business, because they are our roots. They are Latino roots that they have to follow.

I treat all girls the same as I would like all girls to leave happy like mine; let them leave with a beautiful dress.

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“When girls come and go happily, I am happy. I don’t have just one daughter, but now I have thousands of daughters.”

Owner, Minerva Alvarez

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Telas Fabrics 114 E 4th St, Santa Ana, CA 92701

Owner, Shawn Makhani

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What is your name and how long have you been in La Cuatro?

My name is Shawn Makhani, and I’ve owned this store on Calle Cuatro for 33 years now.

The reason I came here was because of the Latino market.

Oddly enough, it’s worse than COVID now because there are no customers on the street.

Our customers are Latino. When the city takes them away we don’t have customers. And when there are no customers there is no business, simple as that

I’m thinking about closing at the end of the year.

La Cuatro was a family oriented place and a nice neighborhood to have a business in.

Has business changed?

Yes, very much. I’m one of the people telling the city of Santa Ana that gentrification is happening on Calle Cuatro, and they have to stop it.

What’s happening is that they have started these gentrification plans and getting rid of Latino families.

Has business improved or do you think it will improve during the year?

It won’t get better if the community doesn’t get involved or if people don’t support us.

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What do you miss about La Cuatro?

My customers first and foremost, and my business. I don’t know if you remember what Calle Cuatro used to be? It was a very family-oriented place, very nice, happy and with a lot of energy.

People used to love to come here and enjoy their day, but now no one comes.

Where do you see your business in five years?

I’m thinking about closing my business at the end of the year.

I was planning to close last year but decided to stay another year to see what was going to happen but it’s not getting better.

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“There are only four vendors left.

Before we were 11, 20 years ago.

With all the changes, they chose to go to other places where there are more Latinos.”

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Señor Diablito & Doña Coco “That’s why I love La Cuatro, I’ve seen the kids grow up.”

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Pictures taken December 2022

Employee Jaret Vargar

Angel’s 213 W 4th St, Santa Ana, CA 92701

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Construction has affected most of the businesses more than anything because there is no sale.

People don’t come. They think businesses don’t exist here anymore.

We are still open day by day waiting for people to come but we are struggling a lot with the parking lots. Sometimes people don’t come, and we close early.

What has benefited the owner (Grace) is that she has loyal customers.

Before, the store was where the Swap Meet used to be. The owner has been in La Cuatro for over 20 years.

Prices are also cheaper here than elsewhere. We are very economical and we have a variety of shoes, underwear, girls’ and boys’ clothes. Here we are just two employees, me and the other girl. I’ve been working here for a year.

Children who were four or five years old, come with their children. “I came to buy my quinceanera shoes here,” people say.

If the streetcar works and brings more people from

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outside as they think it will work, we’re going to do well. Hopefully this works out.

People who haven’t been here in a while come and look for stores that are no longer here.

They look at everything

“People who haven’t been here in a while come and look for stores that are no longer here.”

differently. People keep looking. She is accessible to customers. People leave happy and come back with a friend, and bring more customers.

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Yerba Mex

302 N Broadway Santa Ana, CA 92701

Picture taken December 2022 What’s your name? Tell us about yourself.

My name is Fidel Gomez Peril and I have been here for 30 years. I raised my children here in Santa Ana. All have graduated from university, I’m very proud.

I studied metaphysics in my state of Mexico and was almost a lawyer.

I now study theology and offered free classes before the pandemic. I’ve been working here with my partner since the 80’s. All my

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products fight diseases in a natural way.

My products are from all over the world. I have also gone to Ensenada to pick up products.

Has your business changed?

I really don’t know if my store is going to last.

During the pandemic I was supported by a councilor of Santa Ana but today I do not sell the same.

Reporting done Nov 24, 2022

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Yerba Mex changed locations due to building renovations. Its new address is 2040 S Main St Santa Ana, CA 92707, now called Botanica Sofia.

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C lo s e d Ja n . 2023

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“Santa Ana: Downtown”

by Gustavo Hernandez Sometimes the cold evenings after work are filled with parrots.

No one knows how they got here, how a couple of feathers fanned out into this squawking-green sky netting. Where do they sleep?

A white woman writes in an article, her surprise in finding them in the city. She admits her family knew there would be changes when they moved, but screaming parrots? She calls this place her hood, she takes the hood’s good with the bad: the Mexican food, the rest of the unpalatable characteristics. Writes about its history. All architecture.

Wonders if she’d been better off with a Spanish-style home. It’s not too late.

History. I think about how the Black woman who lives across the street from the house where I grew up had to fight in court to lease an apartment where she and her sweet husband could sleep. History. Gardeners in front of glowing donut shops before the sun comes up. The neon signs, the tired jokes on the AM radio. The laughter of men who could make even coffee bloom. Saving to buy a home of their

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own. Renting garages and tiny rooms in the meantime. Their children carving out land for themselves, quiet places for homework, where they can shyly radiate with new words, long division and dreams.

Still, the new investors make promises to bring the shine back. Exorcise the downtown scrap yards—you, tell me whether you are of this world or the next, and I’ll tell you where to eat.

The streamlined storefronts, cold windows radiating the cleansing frost. I once heard a man at the barbershop give his reasons for splitting a small stretch of Fourth Street into an east and a west, in this place where ten years ago cardinal directions would have squealed out of his head in a wrong-turn panic.

But where the hell do these parrots come from, man? Damn invasion.

Oh, that house we just got is going down next week, tearing the yard out too, but we’re definitely eating the tangerines. And at the edges, I can see the chayote vines reduced to border filigree, swinging their spiny pendulums below the living, floating, breathing down, the mystifying cover that is questioned then dispersed.

Gustavo Hernandez is a poet from Jalisco, Mexico. He was raised in Santa Ana, California.

His work has been published in Cactus Heart, Word Riot, Assaracus, and Reed.

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d @eldonnews

Reporting and photos / IG: Lizeth Martinez @hellolizeth Lucero Garcia @lucerogarciaa Lupita Contreras @mydamnstagrams_ Danha Sanchez @chick.from.guitarhero Put together by Lizeth Martinez.

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