By Sarah Rafael Garcia
When I first received the rusty, planter cart from my friend and local business owner Delilah Snell, she was explaining how to garden herbs and organic veggies. Meanwhile, I was envisioning a bookmobile and planting books in gente’s hands alongside the fruteros on La Calle Cuatro.
LibroMobile is a literary project I initiated in Santa Ana, California with support from Red Salmon Arts and Community Engagement. It integrates literature, free visual exhibits, year-round creative workshops and live readings. The actual LibroMobile (a repurposed gardening cart holding an inventory of diverse books) is not only mobile but also builds community and promotes literacy. As of January 2018, after a 9-month stint in a stairway, the retrofitted bookmobile resides in a warehouse on Calle Cuatro (off 4th & Spurgeon, back alley area), travels throughout Santa Ana visiting a variety of community-based events, and on Saturdays we provide free café de olla donated by Café Calacas. The design of the LibroMobile is a tribute to the iconic paletero carts or fruit vendors that are part of downtown Santa Ana. To hear or see a paletero or frutero cart builds cultural interests (from locals and visitors) to know that something authentic and familiar is being offered, and LibroMobile has achieved the same connections through relevant literature.
In March 2016, I returned to my childhood city, Santa Ana as an artist-in-residence at CSUF Grand Central Art Center (GCAC). Prior to my return, Santa Ana’s only bookstore had closed and its disappearance, along with all the changes to downtown, made me nostalgic while gentrification issues kept resurfacing into my daily conversations. I wondered about the missing carousel, vanishing quinceañera boutiques, and the white-walled cafes. I judged myself for living across a trendy bar I’ve boycotted since 2009. At the time, I never thought I would be accused of artwashing or being complicit as an artist and bookstore owner, I never thought folks would say I was contributing to gentrification. “Artwashing” is a term often associated with artists and creatives who are seen as the central force to change the urban landscape of an area while pushing out underserved residents. I am one of two SanTaneros (gente/folks from Santa Ana) in the art center. I was not invited nor approached about being an artist-in-residence. I sought the opportunity and it took me over a year to be awarded the position. Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make sure someone local replaces me when my time runs out. My personal goal was to reclaim space in my community and provide culturally relevant literature and art. I am also trying to find a way to be sustainable and finally make SanTana my permanent home. But LibroMobile’s future is still in question and affording rent after my artist residency is still unpredictable.
In the first months, I learned quickly that I would not be able to pop-up on corners. In fact there is a law in Santa Ana that prevents it. However, I also learned that many local venues ask for 50% of profits from artists to sell goods. I began to ask questions from the powers that be, from other women-owned businesses like Alta Baja Market and local welder Diana Markessinis (who designed LibroMobile’s new look); I began to learn the loopholes and negotiate for space. I also received advice from Jen Hofer with AntenaMóvil and collected books by virtually reaching out to my writers’ community. To this day, LibroMobile receives donated zines, books and various publications on a weekly basis. But with each gain came a loss, loss of support from those I refuse to do business with, loss of support from community members who boycott where I live, who I collaborate with and where LibroMobile is hosted, and loss of friendships because I cannot commit until I have a balance of trust. And most recently, I’ve also learned I’m a target for cultural tourism and white savior tactics. But regardless, LibroMobile must continue, libros for Santa Ana must exist.
The LibroMobile Project offers affordable books by writers of color, bilingual and Spanish books for children, youth, and adults, as well as books that speak to culture and social justice issues relevant to the local community. Stocked items began with 60 books and now include approximately 1000 titles ranging from handmade zines to popular authors, to small press bilingual publications, a community board to post local resources and a traveling Little Free Library—this has become a book-haven for our homeless residents and is continually refilled by SanTaneros, OC residents, and librarians. Additionally, I restock four Little Free Libraries located at the Delhi Center, Heritage Museum of OC, Triada Apartments and Sullivan Manor apartments. Through support from Community Engagement, I also donated little libraries to El Centro Cultural de Mexico, the public garden of Heritage Museum of OC, GCAC and a private residence in Santa Ana. I believe in reciprocity. As long as I am an artist-in-residence I’m in position to share resources. Now, LibroMobile sells art by local artists where 100% of the profits are paid directly to the artists.
Yet, regardless of the success and community-building, LibroMobile was recently protested by a local anti-gentrification group. Participants from the protest previously presented on a conference panel stating I, along with the free literary program (Barrio Writers) I’ve offered to teens for nearly 10 years, contributes to the displacement of local residents. These counter attacks were justified because of my collaborations with some new local businesses and the grant I received from the city to retrofit LibroMobile, buy books and pay authors to present. Plus, Community Engagement rents the LibroMobile warehouse from a long-standing developer who has monopolized most of downtown. I can’t deny my own internal conflict with such resources and spaces. Years prior I also protested such powers and have been on the other side of the boycott. However, I am still compelled to infiltrate this system in order to gain more access to resources. There are still spaces downtown and organizations I refuse to support, such as the organization that focuses on marketing new businesses downtown, the local business council and I also refused to accept recognition from members of the city council and local congressmen.
What I have learned since the inception of LibroMobile is that the community I initially aimed to serve is only a small percentage of the community members seeking books in Santa Ana. Had I never expanded LibroMobile into a tiny bookstore or reached out to book lovers across the U.S. (and a few out of the country), I would not have the affordable book collection I have now for Santa Ana residents. Nor would I be able to host over twenty-four live readings and creative workshops (some with 70 people in the audience, some with 5) or pay most of the writers a modest stipend. Yes, on occasion, I do get a hipster or two who love to read like I do, but most importantly my regulars include Spanish language readers of all ages, Young Adult book enthusiasts, bilingual mamás, los poetas de SanTana who solely read and write for themselves, first-generation scholars who know a vintage Chicanx title when they see one, and even fellow bookstore owner, David from Bookman in Orange, who stops by on occasion just to make sure I’m still open.
On a daily basis I get asked for more books in Spanish, books by Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, books of poesía and the history of the Zapotecs. I banter with los señores who sit under a tree chismeando day-after-day twenty feet away from LibroMobile, the same men remind me of mi abuelo each time they call me mi’ja and drop a dollar or two in the coffee donation bin for café de olla on Saturdays. I get visited by the tamale lady, plenty local librarians, a mom who works at La Michoacana trying to keep up with her son’s love for reading—all of us talk about the weather, the changes to downtown, and books. I don’t tell them of the protesting, or that I may not be in Santa Ana next year. They tell me of their favorite books, of their children and the books they read to them. They tell me of their loved ones waiting to be deported and the poetry they wish they could write to them. You see, beyond the picket line lies a community who is fighting and collaborating to provide and obtain knowledge regardless of some folks yelling at my doorstep.
What I have learned full-heartedly with LibroMobile is that I can’t give up despite the history of our displacement in this city, in this nation. I cannot give up as long as people are still talking to each other about the existence of our gente, our community and reading books en ingles y en español.
Sarah Rafael Garcia is a writer, community educator and traveler. Since publishing Las Niñas (Floricanto Press 2008), she founded Barrio Writers, LibroMobile and Crear Studio. She is a Macondo Fellow and editor for the Barrio Writers and pariahs anthologies. In 2016, Sarah Rafael was awarded for SanTana’s Fairy Tales (Raspa Magazine 2017), which was supported in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, through a grant supporting the Artist-in-Residence initiative at CSUF Grand Central Art Center. Currently, she is supported by Community Engagement for LibroMobile, a literary project aimed to cultivate diversity through literature in Santa Ana, California. Early 2018, Sarah Rafael García participated in a collaborative artist residency at The Guesthouse, Cork, Ireland and awaits word on her new book, A Womyn’s Place. In October 2018, she will be honored as an Emerging Artist at the 19th Annual Orange County Arts Awards. Her works and lifestyle promote community empowerment, cultural awareness and collaboration.