4th Street Goes Back to Business With New Hope

The day after thousands of protesters poured onto 4th Street in Santa Ana, it was business as usual in the city’s heavily Latino district. Vendors sold sliced pineapples and peeled mangos on sticks. Women promoted cheap flight tickets and prenatal care to passing shoppers.

And what of the cries of “Si, se puede” that punctuated the loud rallies supporting immigration reform the day before?

“Now, we wait. We hope,” said participant Florentino Alcocer, manager of El Paso Shoes. “We can only send the message that we’re here to work, to support the country, to make a good life. They’re the ones who have to decide now.”

He was one of dozens of 4th Street merchants who reopened their doors Tuesday, ready to return to their routines after the day of political action.

Leo Gomez closed Joshua’s Designs, a formal dress store bursting with magenta taffeta and turquoise sequins -- during peak prom season, he added -- so that he, his wife and their two children could attend Monday’s protest. It was a beautiful sight to behold, he said -- people with hearts full of love for this country assembling in peace.

It was exactly what they intended the day to be. “That love needs to reverberate within the halls of Congress,” Gomez said in Spanish. “It needs to permeate the hearts of legislators. It needs to trigger immigration reform that is humane and just.”

If nothing else, he said, something must be done to save the families that stand to be torn apart by a bill that would make it a felony for a foreign national to be in the United States without a valid visa. The bill, which passed the House in December, would also make assisting illegal immigrants a felony.

Alcocer is the patriarch of one such family. The 37-year-old Mexican immigrant has worked at El Paso Shoes six days a week for 10 years. He walked across the border in the summer of 1994 and remains undocumented.

He said he worried about being deported, should the strict legislation be enacted, and how that would affect his children. “It’s a very hard reality to live with,” he said, lacing a black suede shoe. “Very hard.”

El Paso, like most other shops on 4th, closed Monday, its busiest day. The store lost about $650 in sales. Alcocer lost about $90, his daily wage.

After his three children got out of school, he and his wife took them to the Santa Ana rally where, he said, they could voice their desire for a future free from fear of deportation.

Although the protest was considered successful overall, Rafael Torres Rodriguez, another shop proprietor, said it would take more than a few marches to solve the nation’s immigration problems.

Rodriguez dropped by his store, Regalos de un Angel, Tuesday afternoon with his 4-year-old son, after whom it is named. He wanted to make sure everything was back to normal. It was.

The Sycamore Street store advertises cosmetics and gifts on a green tarp that hangs over the entrance. Hair dye and perfume are sold beside tearful busts of Jesus and ceramic fountains of wolves playing beside a snow-covered tree stump.

Rodriguez, 48, worked as a carpenter for 20 years and put two kids through college before he was financially secure enough to open his own store.

He said he was grateful to the United States for that opportunity, one he never would have had in Mexico.

A sign promoting the boycott still hangs in the store’s door window:

“Ustedes Apoyan Mi Negocio, Yo Apoyo Su Causa. Cerramos el Primero de Mayo.” (You Support My Store, I Support Your Cause. We’ll Be Closed May 1.)

Just last Friday, the governor walked by.

Shocked, Rodriguez said the first thing that came to his mind: “Arnold, Arnold!” It worked.

Schwarzenegger entered the store and, after a bit of small talk, zeroed in on a wall of angel figurines, ultimately settling on a statue of two blue-eyed angels holding a basket of pink roses.

It’s from the Victoria Collection, Rodriguez said. “Our biggest seller.”

Schwarzenegger insisted on paying for the statue. It was a gift for his daughter, he said. $42.99, plus tax.

On his way out, the governor gave the shopkeeper his blessing: “¡Latinos, adelante!” (Onward, Latinos!)