Mexicans Orange County

Just about everything important here happens in December. Weddings, confirmations, first communions. The crowning of the town queen. The parade of princesses and clowns through town and into the rodeo grounds. And of course, the posadas--nightly candle-lit processions leading up to Christmas that wind through the unnamed streets and end with children bashing a pinata.

Just about everything important here happens in December. Weddings, confirmations, first communions. The crowning of the town queen. The parade of princesses and clowns through town and into the rodeo grounds. And of course, the posadas--nightly candle-lit processions leading up to Christmas that wind through the unnamed streets and end with children bashing a pinata.

Adan Tobano took off his hat, brushed the sweat from his forehead in the afternoon sun, then said he had little interest in politics in Mexico, where presidential elections will take place Sunday, or in the United States. "What goes on in my country doesn't really affect me any more--unless I decide to go back," said the 30-year-old ice cream vendor from the state of Puebla. "And here, well, I don't think I can vote, and even if I could, I don't know enough about it, anyway."

Just about everything important here happens in December. Weddings, confirmations, first communions. The crowning of the town queen. The parade of princesses and clowns through town and into the rodeo grounds. And of course, the posadas--nightly candle-lit processions leading up to Christmas that wind through the unnamed streets and end with children bashing a pinata.

Victor Lopez worked hard for the good life he built in Santa Ana during the past four years--a family, a well-paying job, a mortgage, a car. But it all came crashing down last February when, returning from his mother's funeral in Mexico, he was caught trying to cross the border with a counterfeit passport. Ensnared in a crackdown on illegal immigration, Lopez spent two weeks in an INS holding facility and was deported with a stern warning: Try it again and you'll do time in prison.

Last Christmas season, Jose Martinez's downtown shop was thronged with Mexican nationals who needed photographs of themselves for permits to travel home for the holidays. This year, his place is empty. Instead, the lines are two doors away at the Mexican Consulate, which this month bought its own camera and announced that only photographs taken on the premises could be used for the permits.

Dr. Jorge Jaimes has arrived in time: There is a spot under a tree, in the shade. The ocean breeze trails the giggles of children playing at the beach. A young man walks his puppy, trying to make him heel. The parking lot, just across from the Marine Institute in Dana Point, is nearly empty now, but the cars that rest here, also in the shade, have their windows rolled down. Their occupants are asleep. "Look, there are Americans sleeping here, too," Jorge says. "By now we all know each other.

When he first came to America in 1961, David Calderon didn't understand Thanksgiving. Truth is, it didn't make much more sense to him than Halloween. Decide for yourself whether he understands it now. "It was always my dream to someday come here and see with my own eyes what was happening in this country," Calderon, now 61, says as we chat in his Santa Ana home on Thanksgiving morning. "I always hear a lot about this country. My father used to work here for many years.

In a haggard neighborhood of rental houses and faceless apartment buildings, of rusting shopping carts, produce trucks and litter blown against chain-link fences, the rebirth of a dying Mexican village began. Here, near 1st Street and Grand Avenue in the heart of Santa Ana, the first people from Granjenal settled 35 years ago, after two decades of following crops around the American Southwest under the U.S.-sponsored bracero program.

To remind himself that he is not forgotten, parish priest Javier Castro keeps a 3-foot-tall trophy from the Orange County Soccer League at the foot of his desk. His boys won the championship in 1992. They carried their prize 1,500 miles back to this picturesque farming town in northern Michoacan state, handed it to Castro and celebrated for a week. Then they went home to Santa Ana, where so many of Granjenal's people have gone.

In a haggard neighborhood of rental houses and faceless apartment buildings, of rusting shopping carts, produce trucks and litter blown against chain-link fences, the rebirth of a dying Mexican village began. Here, near 1st Street and Grand Avenue in the heart of Santa Ana, the first people from Granjenal settled 35 years ago, after two decades of following crops around the American Southwest under the U.S.-sponsored bracero program.

In a haggard Orange County neighborhood of rental houses and faceless apartment buildings, of litter and rusting shopping carts, the rebirth of a dying Mexican village began. Here, near 1st Street and Grand Avenue in the heart of Santa Ana, the first people from Granjenal settled 35 years ago, after two decades of following crops around the American Southwest under the U.S.-sponsored bracero program.

Victor Lopez worked hard for the good life he built in Santa Ana during the past four years--a family, a well-paying job, a mortgage, a car. But it all came crashing down last February when, returning from his mother's funeral in Mexico, he was caught trying to cross the border with a counterfeit passport. Ensnared in a crackdown on illegal immigration, Lopez spent two weeks in an INS holding facility and was deported with a stern warning: Try it again and you'll do time in prison.

To remind himself that he is not forgotten, parish priest Javier Castro keeps a 3-foot-tall trophy from the Orange County Soccer League at the foot of his desk. His boys won the championship in 1992. They carried their prize 1,500 miles back to this picturesque farming town in northern Michoacan state, handed it to Castro and celebrated for a week. Then they went home to Santa Ana, where so many of Granjenal's people have gone.

To remind himself that he is not forgotten, parish priest Javier Castro keeps a 3-foot-tall trophy from the Orange County Soccer League at the foot of his desk. His boys won the championship in 1992. They carried their prize 1,500 miles back to this picturesque farming town in northern Michoacan state, handed it to Castro and celebrated for a week. Then they returned to Santa Ana, where so many of Granjenal's people have gone. The priest pats his memento and sighs.

From a distance, the five lifeguards could have been stand-ins for a "Baywatch" episode. They had the killer beach tans, the red trunks of California lifeguards, and rad sunglasses. Nothing unusual about these guys--except that up close, they could be heard speaking Spanish. The word for ocean waves is olas, a subject that Jose Luis Estrada Torres knows much about.

More than 30 Orange County Latino community leaders expressed shock and uncertainty Wednesday night after the fatal shooting of Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio. Gathered for a previously scheduled meeting at the Hispanic Bookcase, a bookstore and hair salon, the activists said they were shaken by the events. Word of Colosio's death came to the group by telephone.

In a nod to the growing number of immigrants settling in Santa Ana, officials of the Mexican government are planning to create a cultural gathering place for the thousands of Mexicans who have made Orange County their new home. La Casa de la Cultura de Mexico, or the House of Mexican Culture, would be the county's first center sanctioned by the Mexican government for arts, education and community service.

Adan Tobano took off his hat, brushed the sweat from his forehead in the afternoon sun, then said he had little interest in politics in Mexico, where presidential elections will take place Sunday, or in the United States. "What goes on in my country doesn't really affect me any more--unless I decide to go back," said the 30-year-old ice cream vendor from the state of Puebla. "And here, well, I don't think I can vote, and even if I could, I don't know enough about it, anyway."

During a week when many Orange County restaurants and bars are offering margarita specials and mariachi music to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, local Latino leaders and Chicano studies classes are trying to stress the cultural and historical importance of the Mexican holiday most familiar to Americans. "I think the larger population sees it as a festive day like St. Patrick's Day and an occasion to go to happy hour," said UC Irvine Prof. Maria Herrera-Sobeck.