At 5 o'clock each weekday afternoon, the bells of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Santa Ana ring a long, melodious tune. You can hear the bells a couple of blocks away on the corner of 10th and Spurgeon streets, where two giant parking lots bisected by 10th—let's call them the northern and southern lots—empty of their cars.
At 6 o'clock, the St. Joseph bells ring again. The southern parking lot is empty, save for a little Latina girl sitting under the shade of a tree. Soon, other children join her. Mothers pass through the southern lot with strollers. Boys ride their bikes in circles or stage impromptu races on asphalt that radiates the day's heat. Smiles all around.
People begin to fill the northern parking lot. Couples walk the perimeter. Men, the sweat of the day still moist on their shirts, laugh and lean against the wall. Families lie out on tiny grass medians sprinkled across the northern lot. The chimes of the paletero—the ice cream man—are approaching.
There are about 20 people in both parking lots. One of them is Evangelina Montero, 38, who takes off her shoes and stretches across a median in the northern lot. Her three young children share chips.
“There's really no other place to take the kids,” Montero says. She lives a couple of blocks away in a two-bedroom apartment she shares with her husband, children and brother-in-law's family of two. She visits the northern lot almost every day. “I don't have a car, and there are no parks close to our apartment where we can relax.”
That's not exactly true. Diminutive Logan Park is about half a mile away; near the apartments where Montero lives is French Park, a small triangle of grass, benches and trees that was Santa Ana's first designated parkland. But both Logan and French parks quickly fill with Latinos looking to enjoy a respite from the heat and cramped humanity of their homes—apartments and a few houses that have been converted to apartments. Moreover, Santa Ana officials long ago designated French Park a “passive area,” a bizarre classification meaning residents can't run across the grass under penalty of a reprimand from the Historic French Park Association.
Santa Ana—the youngest and most-crowded big city in America, according to U.S. Census figures—also boasts another ignominious distinction: California's least-green town. Your average California city has about five acres of park for every 1,000 residents; according to the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, Santa Ana has just 1.2 acres per. Some organizations are trying to better the situation: Latino Health Access, for instance, is battling with Santa Ana officials over the fate of a dirt lot that the non-profit wants to transform into a park (see “At the DL,” Feb. 9).
Santa Ana, like most cities in central Orange County, is strapped for money and space. And so Montero and dozens of other Latinos reclaim parking lots, streets, sidewalks—any and every open space—in the name of a pleasant outdoor evening.
The lots bustle with activity for a good two hours until the sun begins to set. The moms and their girls leave; the men and boys stay. The lights in the northern lot flash on, bathing everyone with a sickly orange glow. The southern lot empties.
At 9 o'clock, a group of about 20 young men arrive with a soccer ball. They play here at least twice a week. Four men place their backpacks on the ground at opposite lengths of the lot. These are the goal posts. The match begins.
A crowd of about 20 men and boys cheer and ooh and boo each rush, shot and save. The players run, kick, leap into the air for headers. One man even tries to slide for the ball, only to fall and shout in pain. “Oh, my poor knee!” a teammate yells at the downed player with a mocking laugh. The wounded warrior leaps up.
“We don't have anywhere else to play,” says Arturo Delgado, a 24-year-old dishwasher. Today, he's just a spectator. “All the other parks where I live are filled with soccer leagues. I have some friends who live around here, and they told me about it.”
Asked about playing soccer on asphalt at night, he shrugs. “Soccer is soccer. When you can't find any other place, you take what you find.”
After about an hour, the match ends, 8-6. It's about 10 p.m. The teams shake hands and leave. “Hasta maana,”Delgado tells a friend as he hops into a truck with three other guys. The northern lot empties.
