The beauty we found in Santa Ana by looking beyond ICE sweeps and demonstrations

La Cuatro — as the downtown stretch in Santa Ana is fondly called by locals — is usually a busy destination.

Families shop for quinceañera dresses, others check out El Vaquero, known for its cowboy boots. Street vendors serve up cold agua frescas or fruit cups loaded with lime and Tajín. Everywhere you look, Latin culture is front and central in this mostly Latino city.

But, now with the federal government stepping up immigration enforcement, the mood on La Cuatro has changed. On a recent afternoon when a LAist reporter visited, it was like a ghost town with no foot traffic or street vendors.

A storefront selling quinceañera dresses — seen at left — is closed for business in the middle of the day on Wednesday, June 18.

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Yusra Farzan

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LAist

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It’s like the pandemic all over again, said Jose Rodriguez, known as Mr. Diablito, a fruit vendor who typically sets up shop at the corner of 4th and Bush streets.

Rodriguez said he's a permanent resident with a green card. But he's reluctant to go to his usual corner, worried that he could be swept up by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and detained.

Which explains why nearby Alta Baja Market, known for wares from California, Mexico and the American Southwest, is now also selling fruit.

Owner Delilah Snell opened her doors to Rodriguez to sell his fruit cups brimming with coconut, watermelon, melon, lemon, pineapple, orange, cucumber and jicama in her brick-and-mortar store because Mr. Diablito is “a part of the fabric of our downtown”.

“When I heard that was happening, I needed to do something, whatever I could,” Snell said. “I just said, let's do a shelf here and then I'm going to get them on our catering menu.”

The small businesses in this downtown area have learned to pivot over the last few years in order to survive.

First, it was COVID-19.

Then, the O.C. Streetcar project — a light rail project constructed through the downtown area.

And now the ICE detentions and National Guard presence.

All have all disrupted businesses — but not the community’s spirit.

 ”The culture of our downtown, the way that all these independent businesses work, and there a lot of them are family owned, it makes this city unique, special,” Snell said. “ When you come here, you're really meeting business owners, you're meeting part of our culture.”

And that culture is all about taking care of its own these days.

Painting monarch butterflies to raise funds 

Alejandra Vargas runs Vibes Boutique on 4th Street: it’s a one stop shop for Labubus, clothing fit for a Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar concert and Mexican talvera pottery products.

Since the protests and raids began, she has lost about 80% of walk-in customers. And her business was damaged during the protests.

During Saturday’s No Kings protest, Vargas said she opened her shop to give water bottles to the demonstrators and allow them to use her restroom. She locked up the shop and left at 8 p.m. She returned the next morning to find a glass window shattered.

She said the security camera footage revealed law enforcement shot at protesters and hit her window.

Vargas said when she spoke to the police department, they said that they would take accountability and asked her to file a claim.

But she'd have to pay upfront to get the damage fixed. Within hours, though, Councilmember David Penalooza had city staff clean up the glass and board up the shop window. And a GoFundMe raised enough to cover repairs.

The community rallied around her, so now she’s looking to rally around them.

On Saturday and Sunday, she's opening the doors to her shop for a sip-and-paint event to raise funds for Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).

" Business owners are scared. Customers are scared so it means like right now it's a dead town,” she said. “There's no one walking around. It's super scary to think maybe you could be taken away from your family so no one's coming out.”

Vargas, a DACA recipient, has been worried about mixed status families and undocumented folks who are sheltering in place.

 ”Bills are not gonna stop for them,” she said.

The event will also help boost community morale, she added.

" It could be something to help people decompress and maybe just put their pain or their fear into something that's something meaningful,” she said.

For the paint-and-sip event, she chose something symbolic.

“We're going to be painting monarch butterflies,” Vargas said.

Why monarch butterflies?

“I think to me mean migration and family and being free,” she said.

Alta Baja Market

• Open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• 201 E 4th St., Santa Ana

Vibes Boutique

• The sip-and-paint event will be held twice on Saturday and Sunday, from 1 to 3 p.m. and again from 4 to 6 p.m.
• 208 W. 4th St., Santa Ana
• Recommended parking nearby at 310 N. Birch St. First hour free, 75 cents every hour after that
• More info here.