Bonding on 4th Street : Spanish-Speaking Korean Merchants Thrive in Santa Ana

Fourth Street--Calle Cuatro, as it is called by the thousands of Latinos who live and shop in the city’s bustling downtown--teems with activity as vendors hawk icy paletas amid the blare of hot Latin rhythms from record store loudspeakers.

Teresa Sunwoo stands in front of a tiny music shop, greeting customers as they pass by the posters of Julio Iglesias to browse through rows of cassette tapes by predominantly Mexican artists.

“I always say ‘Buenos dias, ‘ or good afternoon, it’s the custom,” Sunwoo says as she turned to a customer. “Pasale (enter). Pasale, senor, por aqui. “

Sunwoo, a 37-year-old mother of three, is Korean. She’s not only fluent in Spanish, but, in these parts, she’s known as an expert on everything from obscure mariachi groups to the latest Latin dance craze--music she carries in the little shop she owns in the Fiesta Bargain Store.

With Latinos making up half of Santa Ana’s 250,000 residents, 4th Street is fast becoming as ethnically symbolic to the city as Miami’s Calle Ocho or Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.

Yet, redevelopment has created new businesses that are being staked by aggressive Korean entrepreneurs who prefer 4th Street’s bustle to the county’s “Koreatown” commercial area in west Garden Grove on Garden Grove Boulevard. Some Korean merchants have lived in Mexico and other Latin American countries and believe they have established a bond--immigrant to immigrant--with their Latino customers.

“I like it here better. In Garden Grove, it’s only Korean customers. Here, it’s (not only) Mexican but also Anglos, blacks and Vietnamese. And we get many tourists,” said Hannah Kim, who, with her husband Richard sells athletic shoes.

For Sunwoo, who spent three years living in Mexico City with her husband and three children, it’s ideal. “I love it. You go to Los Angeles, you’ll see that one out of three people there is Spanish-speaking. It’s the future.”

While no authoritative figures are available, the Orange County Korean-American Assn. estimated that there are 800 Korean-owned businesses in Santa Ana out of 27,000 business licenses. The association estimates that 100,000 Koreans live in Orange County, the second largest concentration outside of Korea. The largest is in Los Angeles.

For the most part, there is harmony between the Korean merchants and the Latino community. Manuel Pena, a Santa Ana insurance salesman, said he and his fellow members of the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce admire the Koreans’ aggressiveness. “And the fact that they have learned to communicate in Spanish,” he said.

Unlike Koreans who have run into problems in other cities--boycotts in New York City that pitted blacks and Puerto Ricans against Korean grocers last May, and shootings in Los Angeles that left four Korean merchants dead after separate robberies by blacks in 1986--the Koreans on 4th Street seem to have created a peaceful niche in the Spanish-speaking community.

In contrast to racial confrontations, the apparent lack of tension in Santa Ana may be attributed, in part, to the fact that both merchant and customer are from immigrant groups new to the United States, said John Liu, a UC Irvine professor of comparative culture.

Liu also said that both cultures embrace a work ethic and have strong family ties, factors that make Koreans loyal to their businesses--working long hours with little time to invest in the surrounding neighborhoods and rarely hiring outside the family.

“But what is most important here is that they both can speak the (Spanish) language,” Liu said.

Jose Ceballos, a Latino who owns a record store on 4th Street and is one of the businessmen who helped transform the street, said he “had no problems” working with the Koreans.

“I think they’re good retailers. They know our people, and they know what we want. They cater to the Hispanics. It would be good for us Latinos to learn from this and be more aggressive so we can open more of our own businesses,” Ceballos said.

But Ceballos and other Latino businessmen said they are disappointed that so few of the new shops are Latino-owned.

“The way we are at present, is enough Koreans. I was expecting something different, more Latino-owned businesses,” Ceballos said.

Although some Latino merchants said they were concerned about what one said was the beginnings of “another Koreatown,” a city spokesman said no complaints have been aired by anyone in the Latino business community.

“The developers were looking more for product activity, and it just so happened that the most aggressive group was the Koreans, and they’re a pleasure to work with,” said Roger Kooi, the director for the city’s Downtown Development Commission.

“There are absolutely no jealousies,” Kooi said, adding that in large cities such as Chicago and New York, where the central cores have decayed, many Asian business owners have come in to restore the areas.

Realistically, Kooi said, it takes a special type of businessperson to succeed on 4th Street.

“I was in the retail business for many years,” he said. “We have hard-working Latino and Korean businesses, run by people who don’t mind driving to Los Angeles or Mexico weekly (for merchandise).”

The businessman behind part of the Korean emergence is Brian B. Ouh, a 51-year-old Los Angeles importer who owns 90% of the Fiesta Bargain Store, a 15,000-square-foot department store with 17 vendors who sell everything from girls’ socks to diamond rings.

Ouh was a top government official in South Korea before President Park Chung Hee was assassinated in 1979. Fearing for his safety, Ouh emigrated with his family to the United States.

He arrived in Los Angeles and embarked on an immigrant’s odyssey; his first jobs were as restaurant busboy and dishwasher. He had some savings but didn’t know how to start a business. Over time, he asked questions and learned. Ouh tapped into South Korea’s cheap labor market and began manufacturing cotton swabs there and importing them to the United States. His California company, Kortec Enterprise Inc., is now Southern California’s largest importer of cotton swabs.

When the developers of Santa Ana’s Fiesta Marketplace sought a merchant who could handle a department-type store, they picked Ouh. He, in turn, recruited former associates, who were predominantly Korean, to manage the departments, and also brought in independent vendors who lease space from him.

In April, he plans to complete construction of escalators and the store’s top floor, adding another 18,000 square feet. Already, 20 new tenants have been found, all Korean.

“We are not a swap meet, and we are not a major department store. We are direct merchants,” he said. “We’ve found that many Latino people are hesitant to go to the big department stores at the malls, but they also want good quality.”

Ouh’s right-hand man is Jose L. Romo, who is the general manager for Ouh’s department store. Romo, born in Mexico City, emigrated to the United States seven years ago. He attended Cal State Fullerton and has a degree in business management.

“When you go to the mall, you know what you’re going to pay. But everyone negotiates here. People in Mexico are used to doing that, and they are always trying to get the best price,” Romo said.

Korean tenants were so enthusiastic about leasing space on the department store’s second floor that they were “waiting in line,” Romo said. With rent relatively inexpensive at $2.20 per square foot, “vendors were saying, ‘I’ll sell whatever you want,’ ” he said.

Romo said that the Korean merchants inside the store have become very accustomed to the Mexican culture, even to the point of knowing some of the special holidays and their customers’ patron saints.

“I remember one day last August when one of the Korean vendors walked up to me and said, “Say, what are we doing for Independence Day?” I thought to myself, what holiday? The Fourth of July is over, and I thought he was confused. So I asked him and he said, “No, not that holiday, for Sept. 16, el diez y seis (Mexican Independence Day).”

“They all know that Dec. 12 is a big day here because that’s when we Mexicans celebrate the Virgin de Guadalupe (Mexico’s patron saint). And the other big holiday is, of course, Mother’s Day. For those two events and independence day, we go all out and have special decorations,” Romo said.

And in contrast to Koreans elsewhere, Ouh, with urging from Romo, has made it a point for merchants inside his store to integrate with Latinos as much as possible and prompts them to blend into the community.

“I know the problems that Korean businessmen have had in Los Angeles,” Ouh said.

In the past year, the merchants have raised money to buy a car that was donated to an Orange County Mexican-American women’s organization to help raise money for scholarships for Latino students during a raffle. They also have donated hundreds of soccer balls for the use of neighborhood children at the Corbin Center in Santa Ana, and have also donated two refrigerators and large color television sets to the Santa Ana Senior Center.

“We try to always help the community here,” Ouh said.

Unlike the county’s upscale malls, which can be intimidating to non-English speaking customers, the bargain stores and open-air mall atmosphere along 4th Street fill a unique niche. Menswear stores stock heavy cottons and warm jackets and boots, while children’s wear is everywhere. Stores, including those owned by Koreans, carry such hard-to-find items as boys’ white mini-tuxedos and girls’ flowing white dresses for important religious milestones, such as baptisms and first communions.

For Mexican shoppers, it’s a cultural rarity to not only find these items but to have them being sold by Asians speaking Spanish.

“Mexicans are funny shoppers,” Romo said. “They like to talk to the person behind the counter and, rather than a cold transaction at some new mall with palm trees, these people remember their early days bartering in the open-air markets and want a little of that.”

Maria Madrid, a Mexican mother of two who shops regularly on 4th Street, said she found it funny for Asians to be speaking Spanish. But Madrid, who visits family members in Ensenada on a regular basis, said she wasn’t that surprised because of Ensenada’s large concentration of Chinese who also speak fluent Spanish.

A Latino fruit vendor said he doesn’t mind the growth of Korean merchants along 4th Street at all. “They’re nice. I don’t mind them. Here on 4th, there is room for all people. It’s a very busy place.”

Jay Chong, 43, from Tustin, came from Seoul, South Korea, about 14 years ago. Before leasing space inside Ouh’s store, Chong made a career selling new clothes at swap meets in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

He prefers doing business with Latinos, he said.

“It’s different for us here. We like the Mexican customers. We’re trying to get a little friendship with people, working here and living here. I know in Los Angeles there are a lot of problems. There, the people buy things from you and then throw the money at you, they just fling it across the counter and say, ‘You want your money? Here. Take it.’

When Mexican people ask for change, Chong said, “I give it to them, and I always say ‘Thank you, gracias.”’

Shoe salesman Richard Kim was born in South Korea, but he grew up in Brazil where he lived with his parents for 17 years. He wanted to be a doctor but after several years at a Sao Paulo university, he dropped out. Four years ago, he accompanied his parents to the United States.

“In my opinion, Koreans and Latinos almost think the same way,” said Kim, 30. “You know, we are immigrants and the Hispanics are immigrants too. I work hard, seven days a week. Any immigrant works harder than others; they have to.”