At a Cultural Crossroads

Isidro Lopez and Charles View look down the same stretch of downtown Santa Ana’s 4th Street and see different worlds; one sees tradition, the other potential.

For Lopez, who moved to the city 30 years ago, the bustling commercial district is reminiscent of his native Michoacan state in Mexico.

The 55-year-old retired construction worker sits on a pastel wooden bench in Plaza Fiesta, just off 4th. He watches bargain-hunting mothers strolling with baby carriers. He hears the strains of ranchera music from scratchy store speakers and passing cars in the distance. Sometimes he shops at stores that sell $5 shirts and snacks on diced mangoes and melons from one of a dozen street vendors. He chats in Spanish with other Mexican men in their vaquero hats and leather boots in the plaza. Everything is familiar.

“I come here every day,” Lopez said. “This is our little corner of the city.”

But View, Santa Ana’s development manager, sees other possibilities.

Echoing the vision of other city officials and some business owners, View imagines a more cosmopolitan downtown with appeal beyond the blue collar Mexican immigrant clientele that now makes up the majority of the area’s shoppers. More French Quarter, New Orleans. Less Tijuana, Mexico.

Whether these two visions can coexist is a high-stakes question for local merchants and the city, which has poured millions of development dollars into the area. To protect its investment, Santa Ana has passed ordinances that officials say are designed to improve the district’s appearance, including restricting portable signs and hand-scrawled window paintings that dot shops and advertise everything from “ayuda legal” (legal services) to “costillas” (ribs).

That in turn has spawned charges that the city is cracking down on businesses that cater to Latinos like Lopez. City officials vehemently deny that. It is about economics, they say, not ethnicity.

“What we are trying to make is a city that is for everybody and does not bar anybody,” Santa Ana Mayor Miguel A. Pulido said. “We don’t care whether you are wearing cowboy boots and hats and come from a village in Mexico or if you are a suit-and-tie-wearing professional. . . . Rents may go up and some won’t be able to afford to stay there. That is part of what happens when you have a better, more attractive environment. But I’d much rather have the problems of a vibrant economy than the problems of having a ghost town.”

Today, downtown is a contrast in cultures. Ponytailed artists sip latte and dine on chicken Caesar salads in the trendy Artists Village to the south. The now 6-year-old redevelopment project is a conglomeration of art schools, galleries, theaters, cafes and apartments. It is designed to attract a mix of artists, deep-pocket art lovers and hip young professionals to the area.

Just north is the 4th Street shopping district, where blocks of stores hawk everything from money-grams to wedding dresses and discounted airline tickets. Shoppers, virtually all Latinos, mosey from shop to shop scrutinizing racks of inexpensive clothes and taking breaks to savor churros from a nearby street vendor.

A few blocks west, the glistening 2-year-old Ronald Reagan Federal Building, another anchor in the city’s redevelopment plan, sends a constant stream of well-to-do professionals to the newly renovated and rustic-looking Shelly’s Courthouse Bistro.

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Diversity is something the city would like to preserve, officials say--but in a more presentable package.

Last year, the city put restrictions on new check-cashing businesses, arguing that a concentration of them hurt the city’s image. Community activists decried the move, saying it would hurt poor Latinos who depend on such businesses. It also tried to prohibit pushcarts from downtown. But after losing a challenge to the ban on a first round in court, the city recently agreed to settle the matter with the vendors. Under the settlement still to be ratified, operators will wear uniforms and have standardized carts.

Most recently, the City Council banned merchandise displays in front of stores and portable signs. It also restricted the amount of signage businesses can have on their windows. The city will start enforcing the new ordinances next year.

“Our customers couldn’t care less about pretty storefronts,” said Michael Kury, who owns La Moda, a 4th Street clothing store. “They come here looking for bargains. Now that business is starting to improve a little bit, [city officials] want to make changes.”

Some shoppers are concerned the area will lose its character.

“The attitude is: ‘Let’s get rid of the Mexicans,’ those who have kept downtown up for decades,” said Enriqueta Ramos, a longtime resident and trustee of Rancho Santiago Community College District who often shops downtown. “There are things that you go to those places for. You enjoy the different environment, the products you can’t find anywhere else.”

City officials say that doesn’t have to change. They simply want to improve the area for all shoppers.

“I think some of the shop owners are setting their expectations of their Hispanic customers too low,” View said. “It doesn’t matter whether you are spending $5 or $50; the two are not mutually exclusive.”

Skeith DeWine, Shelly’s bartender and owner of a gallery in the Artists Village, agrees.

“Ethnic groups don’t make up the city, individuals do. And individuals have to adapt to the changing times,” he said from behind the restaurant’s new lacquered bar. “Without higher-income clientele, my gallery can’t survive. We have to have a balance. We can have low-end businesses, but they’ve got be kind of hip, kind of cool.”