Dancing Around the Tree: Hectors Mariscos Brings in the Banda

Fast friends of the Calliotree project are the brothers Oscar and Diego Olivares, who were informed about what was going on by Manuel Pena or “Manny” as we call him. Manny has been in the city of Santa Ana since the year 1980 and is known as one of the founders of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Orange County. He was also once the president of the Downtown Business Association and currently runs an insurance agency off of Broadway adjacent to the parking lot that holds the Historic tree.

As I described in an earlier blog about that "first meeting under the tree," this is the point where Manny’s work of organizing his neighboring businesses around the Calliotree project came to full fruition. The first neighbors he influenced were Oscar and Diego Olivares who recently opened another branch of their famous Marisco’s restaurant in Downtown.

Now, if you have never been to a Hectors Mariscos you have not yet seen all the sites of Santa Ana. Walking into Hector’s Restaurant you find beautiful and robust, scantily clad Latino women that wait on you. You will find larger than life images of Emiliano Zapata and the beloved Pancho Villa lining the walls. You will find the sounds of big brass bands playing Banda music with their horns-a- blasting. You regularly see massive crowds of people packed into the restaurant almost every night of the week and even more people can be seen to come out during the famous fight nights.  The managers of the restaurant Oscar and Diego love being around people and love to bring people out and their space is perfect for it.  
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Fortunately, the Historic Spurgeon Tree just happens to sit in the parking lot behind their restaurant and so it was a natural that these two brothers, prodded by Manny Pena would become part of the project. What we did not expect is how excited they were to contribute.
Diego and Oscar instantly partnered with us beginning during Treeversation and began to help us to highlight the tree.  

The brothers at Hectors brought out food and music and even blocked the streets at the first event allowing people to dance in front of the tree. The night became alive with celebration and our excitement grew and people passing stopped and became involved in the festivities. 

Written by Madeleine Spencer