Frida-Cinema

Located in the heart of Santa Ana, California, La Cuatro (famously 4th Street) had everything. It was where my family purchased my oldest sister’s quinceañera dress at Mina’s Bridal and where we’d enjoy fruta con chile in the summers. Extended families with aunts, uncles, grandparents, and a superfluity of cousins flooded its walkways to run their mandados. It was where my parents watched Titanic in Spanish in 1997 and Shrek in 2001. It had the Fallas Paredes brimming with families purchasing bulks of affordable clothes. The many quinceañera and wedding dress stores at every twist and turn. Authentic botas picudas (pointy boots) for Saturday parties. Mexican business owners selling goods from back home for those who couldn’t recross the border. You just had to be there. My family stopped venturing to La Cuatro around 2010.

While a newer generation of Latinx entrepreneurs arose, established their businesses, and have done their best to honor the space, almost everything is gone.