The guiding principles of this program were set forth by the State of California making recycling mandatory with Measure AB 341. This will require businesses that generate four cubic yards or more of waste per week to have a recycling service. The service can be a combination of reused, recycled or composted items and can be done by self-haul, subscribing to a hauler service, arranging a pickup of the recycled materials, or subscribing to a recycling service that may include mixed waste processing that yields diversion results comparable to source separation.

Deli Station
Sandwich fans rejoice! Deli Station in 4th Street Market is also an excellent choice for families. Deli Station is home to classics such as the turkey club or the Cuban, as well as specialties such as the ribeye philly cheesesteak. The Kids menu consists of grilled cheese with fries and a grilled ham and cheese Sandwich. Special combos include half a sandwich with chicken noodle soup or salad and a drink. The kids meals are $5 and $6. Check our their menu on their website.

Burritos La Palmas
Burritos La Palmas is not new to Santa Ana, but they are brand new to 4th Street Market! Although they don’t have a specific kids menu, their menu offers items that are quite popular with children. It includes items such as cheese quesadillas and bean and cheese burritos. Burritos La Palma is known for the amazing quality they provide, which even kids can enjoy! Check out the menu here.

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Downtown Santa Ana welcomes families to enjoy and experience all that the community has to offer. Finding a place that is kid-friendly is really easy to find, especially in a community that values family and good food!

El Granjenal is a little town in Michoacán where my mother’s story began. For as long as I can remember my family has returned to take part in this little town's December festivities. From the soccer tournament against the rival towns in La Plaza de Toros, to the nightly gatherings in a neighbor's front yard, the festivities are always centered around a space submerged with food, music, and people.

​In El Granjenal, the space is not officially a plaza, it is just some benches, common space, and people enjoying each other’s company. The church’s plaza was where all traditional events were held, and its small “placita” was used more as a social gathering ground. Apart from the “typical” plaza experience, there is an “afterlife” where younger crowds gather around nightly fogatas and enjoy the booming Banda playing music around them. ​

In Santa Ana, the plaza is everywhere: from the hot Saturday afternoons around my dad’s grill to the Easter Sunday gatherings at Mile Square Park. Each gathering has a different sense of the plaza in them. Decembers not spent in Mexico were spent in a local aunt’s house. Christmas and New Year’s gatherings were always spent with the people we love, like most people usually do. In addition to holidays together, we had a baseball game-on-Memorial-Day tradition. We would get together on a Memorial Day, when most of my family was off and go to Morrison Park, where people that lived in the neighborhood could join in on action. The “carne asadas” -- communal meat cook-outs -- that my dad would randomly suggest were spontaneous plazas for bonding with our neighbors. He would call our neighbor and it would sometimes turn in to a potluck dinner even though it was last minute. The afternoon would be spent updating on each other lives including the occasional neighborhood chisme. The times spent in these different places made up the plaza space that we were missing.                  ​

​The plaza in a community is a place that has a multitude of meanings, in most Latin
American countries it signifies the physical center of the city or the central gathering point.

​This “dynamic space” as Professor Setha Low of the City College of New York explains, is where the
culture of the community takes place. But what happens when the dynamic space of a plaza is
not an actual space? Is the community robbed of that plaza experience? Plaza Talk: Race and
Place reminded me that the plaza can be in any space, even when there may be a lack of space.

Story by Abrham Gomez