Santa Ana’s 'community gem' of a bookstore is at risk of shutting down

LibroMobile — a bookstore in Santa Ana commonly referred to as a community gem that has become a hub for arts and culture — is at risk of shutting down, a victim of changing consumer habits and a decline in state grants, its owner says.

The bookstore serves as a hangout spot for youths. Through office hours with O.C. Poet Laureate  Gustavo Hernandez, residents can gain access to knowledge, writing and poetry. Community organizations like Santa Ana Active Streets Coalition and Community Service Organization use the space for meetings. And the volunteer founder of LibroMobile, Sarah Rafael García, has started digitizing archives and is creating a catalog of local artists, particularly artists of color.

“We're definitely building on (the) anti-gentrification movement, but also cultural centers practices, because we want people to see the bookstore as an extension of their home,” she said. “Or maybe it's an escape from their home, because so often youth also struggle with space, especially in this area of not even having their own room, let alone a kitchen table to do art.”

The bookstore is also run by young people aged between 16 and 30. García said she rarely goes into the bookstore, instead mentoring youths to run it on their own.

But it could all go away soon. García said they lost out on roughly $50,000 in state grants that they had been getting for the past three years..

“Between the $50,000 loss in grants as well as the decline in book sales, we're having a hard time just making rent,” she said.

The state budget cuts to arts funding has meant García has had to dip into savings.

The community weighs in

O.C. Poet Laureate Hernandez called LibroMobile “a literary medium in our community.”

“Santa Ana is an underserved community in a lot of ways and so LibroMobile is a place for writers of color to gather and to be heard and to be acknowledged, which is not common,” he said. “ LibroMobile is a place that I know for me made me feel like my writing was valid, made me feel like my writing was important, like my voice was important and so, I try to pay that back now with people that I mentor myself.”

Mary Camarillo, a novelist based in Huntington Beach, added that García is intentional about featuring local authors.

“ There's a little free library. She gives books away. She's really careful about pricing books so that the community can afford them,” she said.

Rain Mendoza of Community Service Organization and Dorian Romero of Santa Ana Active Streets Coalition said García has opened up the space for them to host monthly meetings and events.

“ I've gotten a lot of really great books from there. I've discovered a lot of really cool authors … I would never pick up on my own,” Mendoza said.

How did LibroMobile come about

García grew up in Santa Ana with neighbors from different ethnic backgrounds but said she didn’t read a book by an author of color until her senior year of high school.

She also didn’t have a teacher of color until she was in community college. That teacher, who is now a close friend, introduced García to Malcolm X, Louis Erdrich, Amy Tan and Pat Mora.

“I  was exposed to all these different cultures and points of views in my first year in college, and that's what really started changing my perspective of what we should have in our hands to read,” she said.

These two ideas would end up informing the space she created with LibroMobile. And now everyday, García said, the bookstore celebrates the different communities that call Santa Ana and Orange County home versus limiting offerings to monthly cultural and ethnic celebrations.

“ The desire to read and appreciate books has to start at home or at least something that feels like home and that has always been my desire with the bookstore. It has to feel like home,” she said. “It has to feel like your city. It has to feel like it's a place that accepts you no matter what you bring in, you know, with identity or thoughts, or even provocations.”