A People's Guide to Santa Ana by

Calle Cuatro DTSA, Santa Ana, CA

tcflores1 — 2024-07-18 06:32:39 UTC

Calle Cuatro in Downtown, Santa Ana is an important place of cultural community, shopping, and entertainment. Over the course of 10-15 years, this area has gone through what I consider to be gentrification. However, through community building and support, most of the restaurants and shops have remained Latino-owned. This area holds a special place in my heart because it is where I would go on the weekends with my family, walking the streets, shopping for our family quinceañeras, and buying fruit from the street vendors. Calle Cuatro is a place where the Latino community in Santa Ana can spend quality time with family, surrounded by goods, music, and food inspired by Latino culture.

Memorial Park, South Flower Street, Santa Ana, CA

tcflores1 — 2024-07-18 07:09:57 UTC

Memorial Park is a beloved green space in Santa Ana. For decades, this park has been a place of gathering. In the summer, it hosts swim classes open to the community, and boasts grassy fields, a baseball diamond and playground equipment. Often, parks in minority communities can be sites that are obviously underfunded in comparison to wealthier neighborhoods. In the last couple of years, the city of Santa Ana has provided upgraded outdoor exercise machines, remodeled playground equipment and funds for community events. The accessibility of this park has made it a staple to the Mexican and Latino community of Santa Ana. Sunny weekends and warm weather guarantees that the park will be enjoyed by families on picnics, celebrating birthday parties and youth seeking a place to play soccer, handball, basketball and more.

Santa Ana Public Library, Civic Center Plaza, Santa Ana, CA

tcflores1 — 2024-07-18 07:30:44 UTC

The Santa Ana Public Library is a place I grew up going to with my mom and younger brother. In the summer, once school let out, my mom would always take us here to get check out books to read during our summer vacations. Every two weeks we'd return our books and check out new ones. It was also in this library that I first checked out the Series of Unfortunate Events, a book series that made my love for reading flourish. This library has remained a crucial resource for the Santa Ana community, with computer and internet access, summer reading programs, and STEAM programs for families at a reduced cost. In addition, the library has also been a place of communication, posting flyers and information about other community events, language courses, and immigration information. When my mom was preparing for her citizenship test, she checked out a workbook/practice test from this library.

Northgate Market, South Main Street, Santa Ana, CA

tcflores1 — 2024-07-18 08:13:03 UTC

Northgate is a Mexican grocery store located in Southern California, however in the context of Santa Ana, Northgate Market is a one-stop shop for food, flowers, and Mexican culinary craftsmanship. The founder of this chain of grocery stores was a Mexican immigrant from Jalisco, who came to the U.S. wanting to materialize the American dream, worked hard to make this business flourish from scratch. It is important to the community (who is still largely Mexican, Mexican-American, and immigrant-based), that such a backstory exists in one of the places that the community relies on the most. This specific location is one that I have been to throughout my upbringing. From everyday groceries to ingredients for shopping for tamale ingredients for Christmas Eve with my ma, this grocery store is special because its been the place that so many Mexican families rely on. In addition, outside this grocery store, food trucks (specifically the best tacos in Santa Ana) line up in time for the dinner rush, bringing in people from far and wide across the community. Food is something that brings people together and having a place such as Northgate so close to home, has really been a mechanism to do just that. Although I'm bilingual, I have never felt the need to speak English while inside Northgate, on the contrary, it would feel wrong to. However, I feel comforted in knowing that because this place has always been here, I have a place and a belonging to this community.