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Is that President Obama outside a Santa Ana auto repair shop? – OCRegister


It’s him all right, sitting on a bench in front of Jacqueline Wheels and Tires auto shop. There’s no denying that presidential smile.

Upon closer inspection though, Barack Obama has seen better days. The life-size sculpture has a broken foot mended with silver tape and three missing fingers. He has a burgeoning bald spot on the back of his head and his eyes seem wonky.

Jacqueline Rivera and her husband, Roberto Perez, bought the tire service shop in Santa Ana about five years ago. The sculture “was already here by the time we bought the business,” Rivera said.

The couple doesn’t know how the former president got there. But he’s awfully popular.

Wearing a suit and red tie, the Obama statue has gathered its share of lookie-loos through the years.  Posed with knees crossed and one arm extended over the top of the bench, he’s particularly attractive to those who want a selfie with the 44th president of the United States.

“People recognize him as they go by, and some stop and ask permission to take a photo with him,” Rivera said.

Eventually, the presidential likeness had to be moved from the front of the shop to the side, “because people would park to take pictures and then customers couldn’t come in,” Beto Perez, the couple’s 17-year-old son, said.

Beto Perez said his parents are “not political people” and the display is just for fun.

One Christmas the elder Perez placed the statue atop the roof, to the right of a life-size reindeer.

Passersby also enjoy it. A homeless woman regularly places scarves around Obama’s neck and once put a COVID-19 mask over his face, Beto Perez said.

How the statue got there was, at first, a mystery.

Some customers said they saw a similar one at a now-closed restaurant and dance club on First Street called Mexicanisimo.

Turns out that’s where it came from.

Mexicanisimo owner Mike Gonzalez asked the former owner of the tire shop to keep it safe for him after his restaurant shut down. Gonzalez said he bought the statue for $2,300 at an auction shortly after Obama first became president.

“I believed he was a great candidate and would come through on immigration reform. He didn’t. I’m very disappointed with the way he treated immigrants,” Gonzalez said Tuesday, Jan. 12, referring to the Obama administration’s record of deporting immigrants who entered the U.S illegally.

The statue was popular then too.  It was once pulled in a golf cart during a pro-immigration parade in Santa Ana, Gonzalez said. But at the restaurant, it often fell into disrepair, with some nightclub patrons abusing the fiberglass statue. Gonzalez said he had it repaired three times.

Gonzalez, a one-time City Council candidate, owns a security guard company and is in the process of buying another restaurant in downtown Santa Ana.

He considers President Obama’s current location a temporary safekeeping spot.

“They’re saving that for me,” Gonzalez said.  “I may pick it up one of these days, when I have a new place.”



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