Standing in front of a wall of Mexican decor and Day of the Dead iconography, Ivan Marquez spun hip-hop music on vinyl in front of an audience packed into the tight space of Rudy Cordova’s Calacas gift shop.
Marquez was years still from becoming one of the founding members of the DJ collective and record shop Funk Freaks. But Cordova still let the young man DJ in his little Santa Ana shop.
Cordova let lots of young artists find their voice, their culture among the store’s shelves, opening, not closing, the doors of his business.
“He was one of the first ones to offer his space to everybody, for the culture,” said Marquez. “He would open his doors and let us do.”
Cordova, 53, died on Nov. 4. Born and raised in the city, Cordova is being remembered as a visionary, a mentor and a proud Santanero who loved his culture and brought the community together.
“He held up a mirror to Santa Ana and showed us how beautiful we are,” said Councilmember Benjamin Vasquez, who said he had known Cordova for nearly 20 years. “He showed us through the events he would put on, the things he would sell, and how he celebrated our culture.”
Cordova provided a platform for local artists with Calacas, his longtime folk-art store on Bristol Street near the border of Santa Ana and Costa Mesa, which he opened with his then-wife Jackie in the early 2000s. The small shop was filled with local Chicano artwork, handmade crafts, and traditional artesanía from Mexico.
Even young kids would walk into the shop to sell him handmade jewelry, Vasquez said.
“It was a community center to me,” said Yennie Diaz, a member of the now-defunct Orange County Dream Team, an immigrant-rights and education advocacy group that worked directly with undocumented youth.
She said Cordova allowed the group to host events at the shop, including a regular Lotería night fundraiser. He also sold T-shirts made by the group, giving the Dream Team all of the profits for scholarships for undocumented youth.
Calacas hosted slam poetry readings and open mic sessions, art exhibits, book signings and free all-ages workshops, including how to make Day of the Dead sugar skulls — the traditions of Día de los Muertos were important to Cordova, a connection to his family’s roots in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, his son, Coby Cordova said.
Coby Cordova, 27, said his father even allowed punk bands to mosh in the store — if something was knocked over, his father would just pick it back up “and let the kids do their thing.”
“That store was a perfect fusion of music, art, just good vibes,” Coby Cordova said. “I feel like (Santa Ana), at that time, needed something like that to progress culture and identity for the city.”
Santo’s Pizza co-founder Mike Moreno said Cordova’s open door also gave local youth a place to gather, to stay out of trouble. He described Cordova as a mentor who believed in people’s dreams, including Moreno’s — Cordova helped Moreno launch his restaurant, helping find the property and investing as a co-founder.
Faced with rising rent prices, Calacas relocated to a space on West 4th Street in Downtown Santa Ana. The couple eventually added a cafe next door. At that time, Cordova worked full-time at Home Depot and Cafe Calacas.
But he still had time to continue with his contributions to El Centro Cultural de Mexico’s Noche de Altares event, where he and Vasquez worked as volunteers. Cordova later founded the Viva la Vida festival, which celebrated its 11th anniversary this year and, for the first time, received direct funding from the city.
“Our whole life, we kind of knew how important he was… He would spread himself so thin that… now I realize, how the hell did he do that? Like, even if I wanted to try to do that, I probably can’t replicate that, which is crazy,” said Coby Cordova, who has two brothers, Rudy and Joseph.
The Calacas gift shop closed in 2012, with the owners turning their attention to the cafe next door. After that closed in recent years, Cordova focused his energy on helping get Santo’s Pizza up and running and organizing the Dia de los Muertos and other community events.
“After his passing, the amount of support… the amount of people that came to drop off flowers… that’s crazy,” said Moreno. “I think that’s a testament to who he was.
“That’s the kind of wealth that I want to leave behind,” Moreno added. “Not with money, but the amount of people that you helped out.”