A Letter from the Founder: 10 Years in Existence and Resistance
- LibroMobile
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
By Sarah Rafael García
Dear Comunidad,
This year is rapidly beginning. And as I take a moment to reflect, I can't go on without acknowledging the constant turmoil and healing our gente are balancing daily. I can't go on without stating that, as Santa Ana's only independent bookstore, we feel the anger and heartbreak as many of you. LibroMobile Arts Cooperative (LMAC) and Bookstore will be 10 years old in June. Sadly, we almost didn't make it into 2026. Barrio Writers in OC has been on hiatus since 2022, yet it continues to exist in Tejas. So technically, LMAC has existed for nearly 17 years, and Crear Studio Gallery + Digital Lab is successfully entering its 5th year. But it hasn't all happened without losses. We had to make the hard decision to give notice to our contracted youth: Ashley and Johanna. They will still be around in different ways, but without the reliable weekly pay. Sigh.
A lot has changed since I last wrote this letter at the end of 2023. Over the last two years, the LibroMobile bookstore has been managed by countless volunteers, local artists and youth, and City of Santa Ana youth workers, who have kept the doors open and helped us hustle books into people’s hands — sometimes behind locked doors — and now with a Community Pantry supported by OC Mutual Aid. Unfortunately, book sales have continued to decline, and we have not received grants since early 2024. As a result, we had to restructure how the bookstore is managed in 2026. It is now being run as a cooperative of 7 women from the community. I am there 2-3 days a week (while also teaching at Chapman University), and on other days, a local librarian, an archivist, and two local DJs manage it, among other phenomenal monthly volunteers. We still participate in the City of Santa Ana youth employment program. They, too, have lost federal funding, which has decreased the number of youth working at LibroMobile and Crear Studio. As you may have noticed, we had to stop our free literary arts programs in November 2024. We are still active in front of the Bristol Swap Mall & Food Court, but most events have focused on community-based collaborations led by other individuals and local organizations, with us only hosting local authors. Our monthly 1st Saturday open mics are now led by volunteer Reggie Peralta, who has written film reviews and tiny book reviews in the past. Our upcoming events include new book celebrations for our local poet laureates: Anaheim's Camille Hernandez and Orange County's Gustavo Hernandez!
At Crear Studio, we took a hiatus in 2025 from interpretative and solo exhibitions to focus on digital archives. Can you believe we have presented 21 exhibitions and preserved them all as virtual exhibitions, along with local murals and oral histories? They are being taught in various high school classrooms and at local universities. And we have quite a lineup for 2026 — a whole year of Sergio O'Cádiz Moctezuma. Additionally, I am still working to publish a Crear Studio catalog book, but it has become so much more with the support of UCI Special Collections & Archives. The LMAC Digital Humanities initiatives continue to enhance our multi-tier mentorship model by delivering incredible training and opportunities through our UCI and Santa Ana College partnerships. Dynamic organizations like VAALA, SAAS, OC Heritage Council, and CSO-OC have reminded us to keep true to our mission, and we appreciate their collaboration over the last few years.
We are in the midst of restructuring our annual Anniversary LibroMobile Literary Arts Festival into the OC Poet Laureate Literary Gala to help us welcome a new poet laureate and bring back the Youth Poet Laureate program, while intentionally raising more funds to get through the year. We continue to do pop-ups at local community colleges and special events, and will be at this year's OC Archives Bazaar. Our book paletero cart is now at Crear Studio as a permanent pop-up location, similar to the pop-up with our community partners Common Corners Brewing in Walnut. I pour beers on Thursday nights — swing by, let's toast with books and brew! And we now have vintage vinyl at all locations, too! This is all to say that we hope these efforts help us stay open for you. Because three locations later, we are still peddling books. Like our gente on the street who nourish us with flowers, fruta, and tacos (their persistence keeps us going), we know we can return to a pushcart, too.
What can you do to help? There's plenty: buy books from us, tell our local schools to invite us, and prioritize their local bookstore BEFORE inviting book sellers from other counties. Share our website, Instagram, and events. Visit me on Wednesdays or Fridays for a bookstore tour. Tell everyone about us, even book lovers in other states — they can shop with us online! If you can, donate toward our rent. Every little bit counts. We appreciate all of it.
Forever in solidarity with Palestine, against U.S. Imperialism, y siempre ¡Chinga La Migra! We can't do this without you. Please continue to support us in any way you can.
Sarah Rafael García is an award-winning author, multimedia artist, community educator, curator, and performance ethnographer, born in Brownsville, Tejas, and raised in Santa Ana, California. She has over 17 years of experience as an Arts Leader and is the founder of Barrio Writers, LibroMobile, and Crear Studio — all art programs initiated as a response to build cultural relevance and equity for BIPOC folks in Orange County.
To learn more about LMAC, visit the Our Story page. To donate, click here.
Starting in January 2026, #OffThePage will feature rotating columnists, all volunteers. Our Arts & Culture column was founded by local journalist Gabriel San Román in May 2020, and local writer Melanie Romero continued it in 2024. It was on hiatus all of 2025 due to a lack of funds to pay writers. Prior to then, we have collaboratively featured over 50 stories and paid nearly 15 contributors from our community. Pitch us a story or email us for more information!