O.C. Shop Offers a Tome With Your Trim : Literature: Santa Ana hair salon doubles as a bookstore, with the latest works of Latino authors.

It’s getting a little harder for Rueben Martinez to cut hair these days.

Sure, customers still come to his Santa Ana barbershop for a trim. And people still drop by to get their hair dyed. But more and more of them are coming in looking for a good book.

In the modest shop on Third Street, there are no dog-eared issues of People or Field and Stream. Instead, customers find Gabriel Marquez’s “Hundred Years of Solitude,” Sandra Cisneros’ “House on Mango Street” and dozens of other works by Latino and Mexican American authors.

Chicano texts and children’s books are clustered on shelves between black-haired dolls and dried chiles. And if Martinez doesn’t have a book on hand, he’s happy to hunt it down.

“The little bookstore is a dream come true,” said Enriqueta Ramos, a professor of Chicano Studies and Spanish at Cypress College. “The books are absolutely the latest.”

It all started last summer, when Martinez and his business partner, Diana Hernandez, were bemoaning the lack of bookstores in Orange County that stocked complete works by Latino and Mexican American authors. So they bought three wooden bookshelves, lined them with hardcovers and paperbacks, and hung a new sign in the downtown barbershop window that read: “Martinez-Hernandez Hispanic Bookcase.”

Their new venture quickly caught on. When Victor Villasenor, a noted author from Oceanside, visited the salon for a book signing in October, more than 300 people lined up outside, among them Santa Ana City Manager David N. Ream.

The selection of books in Spanish and English has drawn literature lovers from across the county and Los Angeles to Hacienda Hair.

“I can’t keep anything of (Mexican artist) Frida Kahlo in stock, they just snap it up,” the 53-year-old Martinez said, waving his hand with his usual frantic ebullience on a recent afternoon. He turned to look at another book and clutched it to his chest.

“Look at this dictionary, I like it so much I don’t want to sell it!” he said.

But more books are on the way, as well as plans for signings by popular authors such as Mary Helen Ponce on Dec. 4. Hernandez and Martinez also have coordinated a book signing by Luis Valdez of “Zoot Suit” fame next April at the nearby Bowers Museum of Cultural Art.

The success of the store during tough economic times points to Latinos’ economic presence in Orange County, where 23% of the population trace their roots to Mexico, Central or South America. Santa Ana, in particular, has a thriving Latino community.

“More than anything else, it’s to teach our people to read more,” Martinez said of the bookstore. “We have hundreds and hundreds of authors out there who will keep us heading in the right direction.”

Most every afternoon, customers pop into the salon to chat and hear the latest chisme , or gossip. And if anyone would know, it’s the down-to-earth Martinez.

He’s been cutting hair in downtown Santa Ana for almost 20 years, and though he’s busy sitting on the boards of several nonprofit groups, he still gives seven to 12 haircuts a day. He’s known for being a staunch Democrat and often trims the locks of the political elite. Dozens of politicians, from city council members to governors, have sat in his black leather chairs.

Born and raised in Arizona, Martinez moved to East Los Angeles and worked in hair salons after high school. He moved to Orange County in 1974.

Martinez traces his education-oriented philosophy to the Chicano movement of the 1960s, but his 1990s version takes a decidedly conciliatory approach. He talks of bringing people of all cultures together, and sees his bookstore as a way to do it.

“The wheels have turned for a long time, now they’re going into second and third gear,” Martinez said of the Chicano movement. “What keeps me motivated is the young people out there that keep trying to improve themselves.”

He has teamed with Hernandez, a 55-year-old former surgical technician from Riverside, who came up with the idea for the bookstore.

After she read a good review of “Rain of Gold,” she went out to search for the book earlier this year. But she couldn’t find the Latino epic in any mainstream bookstore. “When I finally found it and read it, I thought ‘Why is this so hard to find?’ ”

She talked to Martinez about it, and found him a willing partner to take a risk.

Hernandez is the bookworm of the shop; devouring novels is her passion. She is also the business brains of the venture, coming up with ideas for new books, calendars and posters.

She drives to the salon twice weekly to order books, usually two to six copies of a title at a time, knowing space and a tight budget limit the shop’s wish list.

Sometimes, Martinez sells books right out of the box while he’s unpacking a shipment. Parting with the unread works can be frustrating. A customer recently stopped by and wanted to buy a brand-new book, “but I asked her if she could come back later to get it, because I wanted to take a look at it before I sold it!” Martinez said, laughing.

One customer, Frank Luna, a Santa Ana Parks and Recreation supervisor, stopped by recently to talk about a book he just read.

Luna and Martinez slipped quickly and easily from English to Spanish, jumping just as effortlessly among topics such as Mexican American war heroes, cultural pride and teen-agers.

Luna planned to attend a weekend book signing by author Jose Antonio Burciaga, and hoped Latino teen-agers would see Burciaga and other authors as role models. “That’s what we need to slow down the gangs,” Luna said.

He left with a quick “ Andale, pues ,” a standard goodby, but not before ordering three books.

Friends such as Luna, who has sent 10 customers to the store, are at the heart of the business. Luna recently bought Ruben Navarrette Jr.’s “A Darker Shade of Crimson: Odyssey of a Harvard Chicano” as a gift for a co-worker’s son--a Santa Ana teen-ager who is a freshman at Harvard University.

Martinez was so touched by the gesture that he got Navarrette to sign the book for the youth. “I understand,” Navarrette wrote. “ Adelante, y buena suerte “--go forward and good luck.

The teen-ager’s father also bought a Mexican cookbook for his son, and sent it to Massachusetts. “He said they don’t have good Mexican food at Harvard,” Martinez said.

Other visitors to the shop are bilingual Latinos who buy Spanish-language books to improve their language skills; some are lured in by novels they spy in the window as they walk by.

Ninfa Duran, a librarian in Santa Ana’s Public Library system, has visited the store several times. She calls it a “fresh breeze,” and says that newcomers to the country can use Latin American literature to retain their language and culture, while learning about their new homeland.

“The more you know about your culture and your language,” she said, “the easier it is to learn another language and culture.”

Professor Ramos said the bookstore encourages people to read and compare not only Latino authors, but also American writers and others.

Because the store is so close to her Santa Ana home, Ramos now avoids her former treks to UCLA or Cal State Northridge to buy hard-to-find books. She lauded the store’s folksy atmosphere, and imagined the shop could be a social and educational hub if expanded.

“It would be wonderful to have a big bookcase, and you could take your time selecting the books, sit down on a couch, have a cup of coffee and talk to people about literature.”

The store has a diverse clientele, and almost a third of the shoppers are Anglo, Hernandez said. A book appeals to almost everyone if it’s a good story, she said, citing the popularity of Laura Esquivel’s “Like Water for Chocolate.”

Students at local colleges also come in to buy books and to explore their cultural roots, in places such as Guatemala and Argentina, Martinez said. They also want to read about Mexican Americans and the Chicano movement.

“Take, for example, a book like ‘Zoot Suit,’ ” he said, scouring the shelves for the book. “Oops, we don’t have any copies right now. Well, anyway, 20-year-olds are coming in and buying ‘Zoot Suit.’

“I mean, they weren’t even born” when the zoot suit riots occurred in 1943, when more than 1,000 military men on leave in Los Angeles brutalized young Mexicans over three days.

Martinez and Hernandez started the bookstore with only $2,000 and 25 books. They plow their profits back into buying new books and, for now, intend to keep the place small.

“One of these days when we get serious,” Martinez said, “we’ll alphabetize the books.”