Latinos in Santa Ana Have Long Way to Go

There’s so much about Santa Ana that reminds me of my “adopted hometown” of San Antonio--its history of early Spanish settlements, the older adobe homes, the growth of neighborhood organizations and the push for educational excellence.

Even the recent City Council debate over reducing the number of pushcart vendors reminded me of the “second Battle of the Alamo” that occurred several years ago in San Antonio, when the council forced vendors to draw for spaces in front of the Alamo because the competition at the premier tourist spot sometimes ended in fisticuffs.

But that’s pretty much where the similarities end, based on my first impressions. Granted, I have been covering Santa Ana less than a month and I still have a lot to learn. But as I talk to people, I am constantly reminded that Santa Ana is not San Antonio, where I worked for one of the local newspapers.

Probably the most significant difference is that while Santa Ana’s 65% Latino population is larger than San Antonio’s, which totaled 55% after the 1990 Census, many of the Latinos here are newly arrived immigrants. And because they are new to this country, their large numbers have not yet translated into the political force that they are expected to be some day.

This lack of political empowerment reminds me of San Antonio 20 years ago.

Those were the days when the Anglo-controlled political Establishment would get citywide support for capital improvement bond issues, but then spend all the money before they got around to repairing the streets, sidewalks, and making drainage improvements for minority neighborhoods.

And then one day in 1974, a Catholic church-based group called Communities Organized for Public Service burst onto the scene--not asking, but demanding that services be provided to their neighborhoods that sometimes resembled Third World countries.

Believing that power lies in numbers, the group took dozens of citizens to a downtown bank controlled by an “old money” power broker, and clogged up the tellers’ windows by asking for change--a handful of dollars for a fistful of dimes--until the bank official agreed to meet with their representatives.

The next major change came in 1977 when the U.S. Department of Justice ordered single-member districts for the council. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund had challenged the at-large council election system, claiming it diluted the voting strength of minorities.

The “politics of inclusion” dominated the 1980s. The best chances of getting solid, citywide support for bond measures existed when the city’s chambers of commerce joined forces with the community leaders and a council majority.

Council members learned that it was better to compromise than to face an angry mob at each weekly council meeting.

During my first visit to a Santa Ana council meeting, I heard loud voices--by citizens trying to protect their neighborhoods, and by the Latino vendors trying to hold on to their source of income.

After calling for a recess, Mayor Daniel H. Young was cornered by swap-meet vendors’ representative Alex Vega, who wanted to talk about the recent closing of the popular El Mercado swap meet at Rancho Santiago College.

Pressured by neighbors near the college, the city cited zoning violations and obtained a court order to close the open-air swap meet held on weekends.

Vega was asking the mayor to help them find a new location, but Young argued the city should not be in the position of helping private industry, such as the swap meet.

A few days later, the mayor’s political foe, Councilman John Acosta, suggested the swap meet move to the parking garages near City Hall. That way, he said, there would be no cars on the street or the visual nuisance that draws neighborhood complaints.

“You put the Mexicans up on the top floor,” he said jokingly, “and they can’t see us up there.”

But the mayor said “no” to the use of government property, including parking garages or parking lots.

And that took me back to San Antonio and the compromise reached over the Fiesta Carnival.

The annual 10-day fiesta--commemorating the heroes who fought for Texas’ independence from Mexico in 1836--is the city’s slightly tamer version of Mardi Gras. It includes high-society garden parties, street celebrations, parades and the carnival--one of the few fiesta events without a gate admission fee that caters to the Latino community.

Because of the large crowds, and perhaps the kind of people it draws, the location of the carnival drew controversy each year. No matter where it went, neighbors and downtown merchants would complain.

Some council members balked at suggestions to move it away from downtown, claiming that to take it away from the center of fiesta activities was to remove the Latino element of the celebration.

The issue reached a boiling point a few years ago when the council put the carnival on parking lots and streets surrounding the county courthouse.

Soon after the courts went into session, judges and staffers on the upper floors were horrified when they gazed out their windows and witnessed the tryst of two carnival lovebirds who had spent the night on the platform of the “Super Slide” high above the ground. Moments later, the couple gleefully took a ride down the slide and onto the front pages of newspapers as county officials swore the carnival would never again be located outside their windows.

With no place left to go, the carnival was moved the following year to the City Hall parking lots and surrounding streets, and has remained there ever since.

And what citizens had long suspected finally came true. City Hall, they said, has always been a carnival.