Denise Sandoval - Bajito y Suavecito

7/28/2019 Denise Sandoval - Bajito y Suavecito

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Bajito y Suavecito: The Lowriding Tradition

by Denise Sandoval

en http://latino.si.edu/virtualgallery/lowrider/lr_sandovalessay.htm consultado el 26 de

febrero de 2012

Bajito y Suavecito. Low and Slow. It is a phrase that captures the distinctiveness of this

American cultural practice. Lowriding has a style and art which is distinctly its own. It is

more than just customized cars; it is also a way of life for many. Family, honor and respect,

those are more than just words, they are the unwritten social codes of the lowrider car clubs.

They are also the building blocks of the history and spirit of the lowriding tradition, which

has crossed regional, national and international boundaries. In many ways, lowriding in

Mexican American communities is a living history of the Mexican American experience in

the United States since its dates back to the early 1940s when Pachucos cruised the boulevard.

Therefore, Mexican Americans through the years have been associated with popularizing low

riding, mainly due to the national and international popularity of LowRider Magazine and

other popular media outlets, such as television and movies. Yet, lowriding has also impacted

other cultural groups as well such as African Americans, Asian Americans and Anglo-

Americans. Each of these groups has marked out a space within the lowriding scene and they

have also added to its vitality. What has evolved over the years is a multicultural practice that

involves crossing cultural borders through a shared passionlowriders. So where did

lowriding begin you ask? That is the million-dollar question. Anyone you ask has a

different story to tell. So, maybe the real question here is just what is lowriding all about?

The journey into the history of lowriding reveals not only a passion for cars, but also

documents a part of the Mexican American experience that is often misunderstood. The cars

are the canvases on which the car owners create their dreams, express their identity, and

continue a tradition that began long ago.


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History of Low Riding

Low Riding as a cultural form is part of an American mode of expression throughboth its materialist ideology and its classifications of aesthetics. Low Riders emerged out ofthe Southwest during post World War II America. . Low riders have historically been part ofthe barrio youth culture, from the early 1940' with pachucos in their zoot suits and nice"rides to the beginnings of car clubs in the 1950s to the Chicano Movement of the late1960s. Car culture within Chicano communities has been the result of the changes occurring

at the social and economic level.

Car industry and aerospace industries boomed in many urban areas after WWII,especially in cities like Los Angeles and Detroit. After WWII, many cities underwent a phaseof tremendous expansion and growth and there was a need for labor in both high skilled andlow skilled sectors. After the war, many people now had money in their pockets to spend oneither new cars or used cars. It was then these used cars that became available to be purchasedby youth, veterans and ethnic minorities since the cost of the cars was affordable.

Additionally, many returning servicemen had acquired mechanical and technical skills duringWWII, which could be put to good use in a sport like car customizing and car restoration.The basic ingredients for car culture were in placeyoung men with cars who could use their

skills to build the coolest rides on the boulevard.

Also of importance is the fact that many Mexican Americans soldiers during this timereturned from fighting a war for democracy and freedom to find that little hadchanged---Mexican Americans were still treated as second class citizens in America. It hasbeen estimated that between 375,000 and 500,000 Mexican Americans served in the armedforces. A little known fact is that in World War II Mexican American soldiers earned moremedals than any other ethnic or racial group (Acuna, 2000). The population of a city like LosAngeles boomed during the war since there was a need for labor and we are able to see the

beginnings of segregated communities such as African Americans in South Central andMexican Americans in East side of Los Angeles. For example, California Mexican populationbetween 1940 and 1960 tripled from 416,140 to 1,426,538. Los Angeles experienced a rapidgrowth, so that by 1960, the Mexican American population numbered over 600,000 (See

Acuna).

Therefore, the development of Mexican American communities meant the beginning

of cultural practices that were a blending of both Mexican and American traditions. Mexican

American youth especially sought to express these dual identities (American or Mexican) and

the idea of not fully belonging in either one became self evident in the practice of low riding.

For example, the low riders were an affront to the car culture of hot rods and car customs as

well within their own communities of Mexican immigrants who did not understand the

younger generation of Mexican Americans. Lowriders created their own cultural niche within

the American social and cultural fabric. Low rider culture then is historically very much a

part of the Mexican American social history and according to Michael Stone (1990):


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Low riding is considered as a public enactment of a re-negotiated sense ofMexican American identity, an identity which contrary to mass depiction isincreasingly heterogeneous. If offers a high profile commentary on the livedrelations of class and ethnicity, and reinforces a sense of collectivity indiversity bound up with being Mexican by heritage and American by destiny.(pg. 86)

Car Culture: hot rods, car customs and low riders

Car leisure activities in the 1950s for Mexican Americans afforded a new generation

a feeling of belonging to America, but also stressed a need to mark a space within car culture,

one which was different from the dominant scene of hot rods and car customs which tended to

be a sport favored by Anglo American youth. The surge in low riding within the Mexican

American community must be framed within the proliferation of car leisure activities after the

war, such as hot rodding, drag races, car shows, and demolition derbies. Low riding is one

genre within car culture that flourished in America, especially with young adults. Therefore,

low riding is linked to vibrant hot rod and car custom scene which exploded in the 1950's.

But, what is unique about low riding is whereas hot rods were about speed and drag races,

low riders responded to the challenge of speeding with the grace of cruising slow on the

boulevard. Low Rider cars were lowered to the ground and meant to go slow in order to be

seen. Young men began to form car clubs that spoke to their affinity for hot rods, car customs

or low riders. Car Clubs provided a source of solidarity among car aficionados but also

provided friendly competition for drag races or car shows movement and show pieces worthy

for competition against the best car customs. The beauty of the low rider lies in fact that it is

built to be in the public eye and the building of the low rider car is not only an expression of

ones identity, but ones solidarity and community with other low riders.

The low rider label started being used in the 1960's after hydraulics were introduced

to the scene. Before the low rider label, the cars were pachuco cars and Chicanos would

lower their cars by cutting their suspension coils and putting lowering blocks to keep the car

low to the ground. Chicanos would also be known to put anything heavy in the trunk of their


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cars, such as sandbags, bricks or bags of cementall which ensured the bajito y suavecito

aesthetic. The goal was to have your car as close to the ground and some guys would even

install street scrapers on the bottom of their car so the sparks would fly out from underneath

the chassis. All of these features made the lowrider stand out, especially to law enforcement.

California vehicle code 24008 stipulated that no part of car could be lower than the bottom

portion of the wheel rim. The police would give tickets to violators of this law and low riders

were often their favorite targets. Low riders needed a technological solution and ironically

one would appear courtesy of the US military.

In 1956, Ron Aguirre, a Chicano, put the first hydraulic system in a 56 convertible,

and with a flip of a switch a car could be lowered and raised. The hydraulic parts which

consisted of hydro air pumps and dumps actually were surplus parts from World War II

fighter planes. The surplus was soon a valuable asset to the low riders since they could ride

as low as they wanted on the boulevard and if they saw the police, with a flip of a switch they

were street legal. Also, the sound this hydraulic system makes when lowering and raising is

very loudimagine the sound of a WWII fighter planebut hydraulics definitely added

class and style to the low rider. Eventually though the WWII surplus would run out and by

the mid-1970s various shops began manufacturing hydraulic parts such as the tailgate pump.

In the early 1970s, hydraulics also added another competition facet to the sport lowriding

jumping contests. Originally, clubs would measure the height with coke bottled or beer

bottles and later on, special rulers were created as cars jumped higher and higher. By the late

1980s, the lowrider would be able to do much more than jump up and down, for instance, side

to side and even around the world (completely turn around). Today the innovations in

hydraulics are truly amazing. All the manipulations of the low rider inherently add to how

these cars stand out or now jump out on the car scene.

The need to be seen was (and still is) at the core, of low riding, and this fact is

especially powerful given the racism and discrimination many Mexican Americans faced on a


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daily basis during the 1940s through the 1960s, such as housing segregation and poor

education facilities. Low riding emerged from the working class Chicano community who

used home grown elements to fix up their cars and later used technological advancements in

car customizing to create a style all of their own. As an extension of the fascination with car

culture within the US, low riding began as an inherent male activity. At the beginning, there

were few women in car clubs, and if the clubs existed in the 1950s or 1960s, they usually

did not last long. Generally speaking men have been the ones to carry on a life long affair

with their cars or cars. Moreover the car also began to be tied to a particular cultural identity-

----an expression of self. At the same time, the participation in car leisure activities formed a

collectivity with other low riders. The low rider forced the broader society, and even the

Mexican American community, to acknowledge the presence of a new cultural identity,

which used a cultural blending of styles within Chicano car culture. Simply put, the various

structural conditions inherent in the post WWII economy created a public environment which

furthered the American males' love affair with cars and Chicanos were no exception.

As such, automobile culture became an avenue to examine how "place creates

cultural practices in which one's identity is negotiated. In fact, the car in many ways may

represent the hopes and desires of the owner. The history of lowriding reveals the importance

of understanding how urban cities and regions become symbolic landscapes within the

cultural practice of low riding wherein individuals use their cars to negotiate identity (gender,

ethnicity, class), technology, and the media.

LowRider Stories

The Dukes

Its a Family Affair


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The best examples of low riding are the stories, which center on the family. More

importantly, the history of low riding is an everyday practice within much of Mexican

American Los Angeles, which revolves around la familia and the strong bonds created

because of that union. Low riding is a tradition that is passed on from one generation to the

next, from father to son to grandson. Los Angeles is also the birthplace for the oldest low

rider car club, the Dukes, who prove that the strength of the lowriding tradition is found in la

familia. They are also very dedicated to keeping nuestra cultura alive in the barrios of

Aztlan. The Dukes are known for customizing 39 Chevys a choice that made them stand out

from the rest of the low riders in the 1960s and 1970s when most lowriders were customizing

cars from the 1950s and 1960s. Today these trendsetters are godfathers to the new

generation of lowriders, especially the younger generation that is enticed by the challenge of

customizing a 39 pachuco style like the Dukes. This car club is a beautiful example of the

lowriding tradition and their story has its beginnings in a time period in Los Angeles history

when being Mexican was a reason to be seen as inferior to Anglo Americans.

It is a story that begins just south of downtown Los Angeles on 41st street and Long

Beach Avenue. In the mid-1950s Josefina Ruelas, a single mother of four boys (Julio, Oscar,

Fernando, and Ernie), immigrated to Los Angeles from Tijuana and settled in with Uncle

Tinker and Tia Chana. Uncle Tinker, who became a father figure to his nephews, introduced

the boys to auto mechanics in an attempt to keep them off the streets and in the process, he

taught them about taking pride in their work. The most important lesson that he imparted to

them was the positive influence of la familia working together. These would be lessons the

Ruelas brothers would one-day pass on to their own sons. As Fernando remembers in the

documentaryLow and Slow:

My involvement in low riding goes as far back when I was a young kid and my unclewas a pretty good influence on that, being he bought us a go-cart. He also took us tothe scrap yard where they had tons of bicycles and hell go out there and hell buythem for us and well put them together and well do all these different types of

modificationsMy mother played a pretty good role into this because she preferredus out there with the go-carts and with the bicycles and the skateboards and the


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scooters than being on the street (Monica Delgado and Michael Van Wagenen, Low

and Slow, 16mm, 27 min., Ritual Films & Publications, 1997).

At age thirteen, they each had a car that they began to customize and each of the

brothers became a specialist in certain areas of car customizing. For example, one brother

would specialize in bodywork, one in upholstery and another in electrical wiring. Since each

one had different talents, they would build the cars as a team. Even though they were not able

to drive these cars legally, the brothers still took pleasure in their work. More importantly

though is the fact that the process of building a car became a family effort of love as the

brothers worked together. It also is a source of pride to say that they built the car themselves

instead of sending the car to different shops in order to get the work done. According to the

Dukes, their lowrider club is an extension of their family and that approach is one of the

reasons for their longevity. In this manner, the car club is more than just cars; it has really

family ties that are integral to the survival of the club. As the oldest brother Julio relates:

A car club is a family orientated thing. We are a whole family. It is a bigfamily and you get them together. You can invite your cousins, yourbrothers, your daughters, your sons, your wife, your in-laws, grandparents,whoever. We will have barbecue or dances. That is what it is all aboutacar club (Julio Ruelas, interview by author, tape recording, Los Angeles, CA,12 June 1999).

The brothers are also acutely aware that lowriding is tied to Chicano culture and it is

something that Chicanos should take pride in. They want the work that they do to have a

positive effect on the Chicano community, especially Chicano youth. Fernando mentioned

that the sole purpose to start the club was not to get a thousand members, but instead their

main objective was to capture the youth and give them a positive alternative to gangs that

might change their lives. They also share their own history growing up to also motivate

youth to enter into positive activities in their communities. An example of this concern is

when a documentary crew asked them to make a film on their car club, they did it only when


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the crew promised to make the documentary available to the schools, especially schools with

young Chicanos. The Dukes are well known among Chicano youth that follow lowriding

history and culture. I can only interject my own experience when I was at the Petersen

Automotive Museum and a large group of Chicano youth surrounded the Dukes one Saturday

afternoon, asking for their autographs and posing for pictures with them. The Dukes are a

fine example of role models from the Chicano community and they also promote the positive

effects of lowriding, which are often overlooked by the media. When asked if lowriding is a

positive activity for Chicano youth to get involved in, Ernie Ruelas responds:

I think that it is real positive because it is bringing awareness and it isbringing Mexican people or Chicano people to work together and to let themknow that is it not about doing combat with one another, but loving oneanother in building something that is in our blood already. Chicano peoplehave a lot of talent but they are starting to work more together with eachother and not be jealous of each other, give each other respect, and getrespect when it is due and all thatI think that I live to see positive change ina direction where people can love each other, respect each other, and to reallylet people know that dont know much about our background and all that.Let them know how talented we are and let them know we also demandrespect through our challenge and that kind of stuff. We must love eachother more and be more aware of the good things rather than the violence and

the fighting(Ernie Ruelas, interview by author, tape recording, LosAngeles, CA, 12 June 1999).

The Ruelas Brothers readily admit that as youth in the late 1950s they joined the 38th

Street gang out of a need for protection. The 38th Street gang achieved mainstream

recognition through the Sleepy Lagoon case of 1942 when 22 of their members where found

guilty of crimes ranging from assault to first degree murder through an unfair and racist trial.

The Dukes roots are tied inextricably to Chicano history in Los Angeles through their

association with the 38th Street gang. Ironically, their cars would be featured in the movie

premiere of the movie Zoot Suit(1981) that chronicled the Sleepy Lagoon case, again tying

them to their own 38th Street past. That aside, in 1962 their passion for cars won out over

gang loyalty and they decided to form their own social club with Julio Ruelas as the first club

president. The Dukes car club was born and the car club became an alternative to gang


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lifeor la vida loca. This threat to gang control of the neighborhood caused some initial

hard feelings between the Dukes and the 38th Street gang. Yet, this riff vanished as the

Dukes car club brought honor and respect to their neighborhood. Car clubs as social clubs

provided an alternative option to gangs by providing the brothers with a positive social

environment that was respectable, even in the eyes of the gang members. Respect and

pride is a theme that runs through their family story. As Oscar Ruelas relates:

So that was really the main thing in starting the car club, doing things, doing different thingsand to show the people that we just werent gang members, we did have some kind of pride inus, we did know how to do something else besides just hanging out in the street, running

around the neighborhood doing nothing.

(Monica Delgado and Michael Van Wagenen,Low and Slow, 16mm, 27 min., RitualFilms & Publications, 1997)

Cars in many Mexican American barrios throughout the Southwest provided the motivationfor many youth to become involved in social car clubs since cars were status symbolswhich a youth could take pride in. The style of car customizing pachuco cars whichChicanos brought to the streets was also tied to the Mexican pre-Columbian past and wouldalso impact the broader community as well during the 1960s. Julio Ruelas traces thebeginning of low rider cars to the pachucos and the cars they drove as statements of theirindividuality within the Mexican American community. And this new car aesthetic wasdefinitely Chicano since it had pride in our rich ancestry from Mexico and also had roots inAmerican car culture. According to Julio, Chicanos have always been low riding. I alwayssaw them in the 1950s. Our colors we get them from our ancestors, the Aztecs. The color offeathers is the color of automobiles you see. We have our own ideas and our own style (Julio

Ruelas, interview by author, tape recording, Los Angeles, CA, 12 June 1999).

In the late 1960s a cultural renaissance was hitting Chicano barrios and low riders

were part of that activity. Chicano Pride became the motto of the Chicano Movement and

nowhere was that more evident than in the streets of East Los Angles. Whittier Boulevard

was alive every weekend as the top cruising spot in Los Angeles, and the Dukes were an

important part of that scene. Each lowrider club had their own spot on the Boulevard and the

Dukes had the prime spot in the Huggie Boy (a popular radio deejay) car lot, which was a

prestigious place on the boulevard. As Fernando recalls, Nobody parked in our lot, they

knew it was ours. We filled it with 39s. Yet, the late 1960s also brought the Vietnam War

to many Chicano barrios as many of these same young men who cruised the boulevard were

drafted in the army. Several members of the Dukes were drafted into the U.S. army,


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including the Ruelas Brothers. Oscar was drafted in 1966, followed by Ernie in 1968 and

finally Fernando in 1969. Many of the lowrider clubs also lost members in that war and

Fernando Ruelas thought it would be the end of lowriding. If they lost a member to the war,

they would always honor these fallen heroes a lowrider funeral which consisted of a large

caravan of lowriders. The Chicano Movement was also occurring during this time period,

and anti-Vietnam War protests were also a part of the various social movements, which

sought equity for Mexican Americans. Many activists argued that Chicanos were dying in

disproportionate numbers in Vietnam (see Rodolfo Acuna, Occupied America, 377) , a

sentiment that is echoed by the Dukes who lost many friends to the war. The Dukes survived

this time period even though the car club was reduced to a handful of people in the early

1970s, and the war could not stop the passion for lowriding. Ernie declares how he felt in

those early years, And it made me say it doesnt matter if you have only two people, three

people, we are the Dukes (Ernie Ruelas, interview by author, tape recording, Los Angeles,

CA, 12 June 1999).

Therefore in1974 Fernando Ruelas became President of the club, a title he holds till

this day, and he is also responsible for the changes to come on the lowriding scene in the late

1970s. The Dukes were key in the formation of the West Coast Association of Low riders in

1978 with the Imperials and Groupe car clubs. The purpose of the association was to get car

clubs to unite and do something positive within the Chicano community. Together these

clubs put on a Christmas Toys for Kids car show with all proceeds going to purchase toys

and Christmas stockings for underprivileged children. This annual tradition continues to this

day. It is their commitment to community activism that separates the Dukes from other car

clubs. The Dukes have organized car shows to benefit the broader Chicano community from

Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers to Mecha and other Chicano organizations to local

prisons. They even had a Dukes Bus that they would take to prisons, along with lowriders,

to put on lowrider shows for the inmates. All of this activity reveals the importance of la

familia and the community to low riders who do more than just cruise la calle/the street. The


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Dukes represent the statement giving back to the community and they are also a testament

to the power of la familia which sustains Chicanismo in the barrios of Los Angeles. As

Fernando states:

We were raised poor and we know what it feels like to hungry and poor. Atseven years of age I sold newspapers and shined shoes to help support myfamily. So, our car club stated donating time for fundraising to help thecommunitythe community needs help and we are there to help any way wecan (Fernando Ruelas, interview by author, tape recording, La Habra, CA, 10June 1999).

The Dukes were also pioneers in the low rider car show circuit. Between the years

of 1966 and 1977, the Dukes were featured at the Trident Car shows (which later became the

R.G. Canning Productions) and were the only low rider club invited during the initial years

because of the tensions between hot rodders and low riders within the car customizing scene.

Unfortunately, low riders were given little respect if at all within the mainstream car

customizing scene. But that would change. In 1979, the Dukes helped to produce the first

Super Show at the Los Angeles convention Center along with Sonny Madrid, the editor of

Low Rider Magazine. They also participated in the very first LA Street Scene along with

Tower of Power, War and Tierra. The Dukes also broke through many cultural barriers by

being accepted by mainstream car magazines, such as Car Craft and Hot Rod Magazine. The

Ruelas Brothers are able to promote their productstheir carsand they also take great pride

in having made a name for themselves within the lowrider scene as car customizers who

produce top quality work, again as a family unit. Ernie describes the legacy of the Dukes car

club to the lowrider scene as follows:

I think that someone out there who is versed in old custom cars can work atone of our customs that we built and say right away, the Ruelas brothers builtthis. Because they know we were first in doing that style of car. I think thateven now that is what it is all about. To me, I get off on being able to havethe energy and the charisma and everything else and the knowledge of beingable to build my stuff the way I want it right nowHere with this family that

I am involved with is so talented, is so rich in talent. I am really blessedIwish that we can be able to do more things together, like we used to when we


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were young though (Ernie Ruelas, interview by author, tape recording, LosAngeles, CA, 12 June 1999).

Today, the Ruelas family still owns the shop and house that Uncle Tinker left them

on the corner of Long Beach Ave and 41st. Their shop is a family business that Fernando

wants to keep in the family and he is grooming his sons and nephews to take over one day.

They have had many offers to sell the property for big money since it is located right along

the Alameda Corridor, but Fernando always refuses. He believes that is important that it

stays in the family, even though some of the other brothers believe the money would be nice.

Today, all the Ruelas brothers moved their families East of Los Angeles to the suburbs of

Whittier and La Habra, yet the oldest brother Julio still lives in the house he grew up in, and

right on the porch is a street sign that reads Lowrider Blvd. Even though the brothers

moved out of the area, they still get together on the weekends to work on their cars. And Jay

and Ernie Jr., the oldest sons of Fernando and Ernie respectively, work in the shop during the

week and they are also dedicated to the Dukes lowrider legacy. Ernie Jr. describes what it

means to be a part of this legacy:

It feels pretty good to work with my dad and my family because Id rather work withthem than work with anybody else. And also people think lowriding is a negativeimage like gang members and stuff. Its not necessarily like that, theres a lot offamily orientated people that are involved in it. They make look strange atsometimes, but its particularly family working people who are earning an honestliving and just want to have fun and build their cars and take them out to shows and

have a good time. Its really a family thing (Monica Delgado and Michael VanWagenen,Low and Slow, 16mm, 27 min., Ritual Films & Publications, 1997).

.

Just as the Ruelas brothers learned their customizing skills by working on bikes andgo-carts, the younger generation of the Dukes received their schooling on customizingthrough also working on bikes. In 1977, The Dukes started a bike chapter in order to get theyouth involved. Just as the Ruelas brothers had to work for their money to customize as boys,the next generation of Dukes also had to work hard in order to buy the bikes and also tomaintain their bikes. In the process, a love and passion for customizing was born later


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continued as they graduated to working on cars. The bike chapter is also a way in which thefathers could build relationships with their sons by working together to create a lowrider bikeand also teach them to have respect and pride in the work they do. As Oscar Jr. a member of

the Dukes bike club chapter states:

I save my cans for I could make money so I could buy parts. I buy the parts for mybike and Im barely working on it. I worked on it for one year and Im also finished.I really like working with him [my dad] on my car. I really like watching my dad. Ilike cleaning it [the car] for him and everything (Monica Delgado and Michael Van

Wagenen,Low and Slow, 16mm, 27 min., Ritual Films & Publications, 1997).

The women in the Ruelas family also play a central role in the workings of the car club,

although their roles may not be visible, their presence is still felt. And many of the men

mention that they could not participate in the car club if not for the support and patience of

their wives. Gloria Ruelas is Fernandos wife and she is the coordinator of all the Dukes

chapters throughout the United States. Gloria remarks that the car club has been a positive

influence for her sons in the documentaryLow and Slow:

I think its great that the boys are involved in the old cars and the old bikes. It kind ofkeeps their mind off drugs, being in the street, drinking and basically stirring up aruckusThis takes up so much of their time and theyre so intense about it that theyreally dont have time for anything else. And also, it costs a lot of money. They haveto work to get their cars done. And the bikes, its a very expensive hobby and I wantthem to know that if they want something they have to work for it. No one is goingto give it to them (Monica Delgado and Michael Van Wagenen, Low and Slow,

16mm, 27 min., Ritual Films & Publications, 1997).

Since the car club is family orientated, the participation of the women is also important, and

they too are at all the car shows. The most important female presence is that of Josefina

Ruelas who is always at every car show and exhibit to show support for her sons as she says

I am always with them, all the time. In spite of my age and all, I love to be with them

(Monica Delgado and Michael Van Wagenen,Low and Slow, 16 mm, 27 min., Ritual Films &

Publications, 1999).

Over the years, the Dukes have built a solid reputation and have set the standards for

other car clubs. The Ruelas Brothers developed the necessary skills in car customizing that

would establish them as one of the top low rider car clubs for nearly forty years with thirty

chapters nationally and even internationally. The Ruelas family is truly passionate about

lowriding as a sport and as a way of life. As Fernando says, If God gives me another fifty


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or forty years, we still be doing the same thing. It is something that we will carry

on(Fernando Ruelas, interview by author, tape recording, La Habra, CA, 10 June 1999). But,

it is their commitment to their East-side roots over the years, which speaks to the strength of

the low riding tradition within Chicano communities. The Ruelas brothers exemplify the

roots of lowriding which is anchored respect and family. It is also a source of pride that

stems from el corazon/the heart as Julio beautifully states:

A true low rider comes from ones heart, a true working person that has hisown steady job or his own business and he loves automobiles and goes bylow riding. Low riding is more than a name. It is really a customized car,whether you change the interior, change the painting, the engine, put chrome

here or thereAnd your soundsyour oldies music

(Julio Ruelas, interview by author, tape recording, Los Angeles, CA, 12 June 1999).

The DeAlbasEl Corazon

I am not into baseball, so I am not going to join a baseball team. If I join a

baseball team I have to dedicate myself to be at practice and all the games.

It is the same thing with our car club, we take it that much to heart.Alberto DeAlba

(Albert DeAlba, interview by author, tape recording, Montclair, CA, 19 March 1999)

The importance of family is key to many car clubs since it is the center of loyalty and

unity in many Chicano families. Lowriding is more than a sport, it is a lifestyle choice that

takes a lot of heart and hard work to be successful at the top competition levels. Yet, low

riding is also about the relationship between fathers and sons. For example, a father

teaching his son about the history and skills of a low riding becomes a time to share his own

stories of cruising the boulevard and they also create new memories as the work on a car

together. Then, hopefully one day his son will teach his own son (and now grandson) the

skills of a beautiful tradition and the art of low riding. It is a passion that many families

share. The DeAlba family of Montclair is another example of the family tradition of low

riding. They have a family business called Mario's Auto Works in Montclair, California.

There are three sons, (Mario Jr., Albert, and Greg) and they all work together with their father


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Mario Sr. And after the shop closes, they work together on their low riders, building on a

passion and skills which Mario learned in Tijuana and brought with him to the United States.

It is a history which his sons know well and they now begin to teach their own sons.

Mario Sr., 53, worked at the horse track in Tijuana when he was youngster, which

was a prestigious job to have in those days. Mario would notice that the jockeys were the

ones who had the money and they would drive customized cars. Mario began by learning

how to customize bikes at an early age, but the cars always turned his head. Mario recalls,

"There was a lot of low riding down there [Tijuana, Mexico].....I would see the cars going

down the road and I would say that maybe one day I'll get me one (Mario DeAlba Sr,

interview by author, tape recording, Montclair, CA, 19 March 1999). Mario Sr. was

fascinated by those cars and true to his words, his first lowrider was a 39 Plymouth that he

bought for fifty dollars. He cut the suspension coils on it to lower it closer to the ground and

he cruised the streets of Tijuana as a teenager. At eighteen he came to the states and settled

in East Los Angeles. The year was 1965, known as part of the golden years of cruising on

Whittier Boulevard, and he would often join in the festivity of the performance by cruising

that sacred boulevard. Mario Sr. reminisces about the good times of cruising on Whittier,

which today is shut off as a cruising spot,

On Whittier Boulevard, I still remember like the cruising would start fromFord and go all the way, way past Atlantic. If somebody went up there to justget through, it would take the person an hour or so because of the cruisers.They are so slow but that is what everybody used to go for, just to be seen on

the street and a lot of cars and people in the business parking lots and all that.It was like a car show on wheels. I have seen a couple of fights or two oncein awhile. But that is normal when there is a lot of people. They come andgo but nothing major, nothingIt was very nice. Like everybody mind theirown business. If it could be done again, I think it would be nice (MarioDeAlba Sr., interview by author, tape recording, Montclair, CA, 19 March1999).

Mario Sr. had his cruising days cut short when he was drafted into the army in 1968

during the Vietnam War and as he says I was mad. Nothing you can do when Uncle Samsays its your time(Ibid). Mario was also married that same year and after he returned from


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Vietnam, the family settled in Pomona and Mario worked in an auto repair shop. Mario Sr.

had joined a car club called Elite which his cousins started in the mid-1970s but then the club

collapsed, so then he joined Style from Pomona and that club lasted until 1983. Mario then

did not join a lowrider club for almost another ten years. In the 1980s, lowriding came to

shortstop for many car clubs, some of the reasons may be economic troubles of the Reagan-

Bush years, but by the beginning of the 1990s, lowriding was able to pick up again.

During those years of the 1970s and 1980s, Mario Sr. kept his sons off the streets by

teaching them customizing skills. He started with the bikes and eventually the boys would

graduate to learning how to customize cars. Alberts older brother, Mario Jr., was the one

who got him interested in customizing. Mario Jr. would always fix up their little pull wagons

and little pedal cars . Their dad later bought them bikes, they would fix them up and their dad

painted them. Once Mario Jr. learned how to paint, he would start painting the bikes. The De

Alba boys really enjoyed customizing and they learned the skills that have made them one of

the top customizers on the low riding scene today. Again it is a true-life long passion that

began in their youth while learning to fix their bike and they also learned the rewards that

come with the competition as others admire your work of art. As Albert says, It is a

statement of your personality. Lowriding to me would be a statement of my individuality. So

when people are looking at it, they are also looking at you (Albert DeAlba, interview by

author, tape recording, Montclair, CA, 19 March 1999). Mario also taught his sons

responsibility and dedication by making them work for their money by cutting the yard or

other chores in order to buy parts for their bikes. It is this work ethic that their father taught

them which they now apply to the cars they build and which is evidenced by the many

trophies their car club Elite has earned in car shows throughout the years. It is this pride in

their work that makes them feel good about their own self worth. Albert elaborates further

when he says When somebody admires your car, they are admiring you at that same time.

You developed that. You are the one who put the ideas and work into it (Ibid).

As Albert and Mario Jr. entered their teenage years, they also became fascinated by

car culture as part of the mini-truck craze of the late 1980s. They were not happy with the car

clubs that were around back then, and they started thinking about bringing back to life their

dads old club Elite when they learned another old club, Traffic, was started up again. They

remembered how they used to go to car shows when they were kids and they wanted a club

that had a history and also had lowrider style. Albert mentioned that the other clubs that he

and his brother checked out were just single guys who wanted to be out there screwing

around. They had started out with customizing mini-trucks as teenagers, but the DeAlba

brothers were now ready to begin customizing the more classic lowridersChevy Impalas


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and bombs. The DeAlba brothers wanted to be more focused on a professional level of low

riding to create some of the best cars on the streets and in the show circuit. So these two

principles of professionalism and fantastic lowriders would shape the direction of the re-born

Elite car club in 1991. When asked what are the requirements that club members must

follow Albert explains:

Well we tell people, like all our membership is based on friends and friendsof friendswe put people through a 3-month trial phase, a probation period.We are now more of a family orientated clubSo our requirementsnowadays are to have a nice car, you dont have to have the best car in theworld, but your car has to have hydraulics, it has to have wire wheels, youhave to have a hell of a paint job, you have to have a hell of an interior, thecar has to be top notch periodWe tell them our main goal is to have guyswith level heads. We dont have want guys that our pushing drugs. Wedont want guys that are using drugs. We dont want guys that are in gangs.We dont want guys that are just negative people. We want pure positive,more family orientated, grown up people (Ibid).

The Elite car club ranges in age from 19 to 54 years old and is focused on

representing low riding at its most positive level, so cars that fly the Elite flag must do so with

honor and respect. If a car member is out on the streets and gets in trouble, that comes back

to reflect on the car club. So very simply, Albert feels that in order to be part of club, a person

needs to not only have a top-notch vehicle, but also must be down for the lowrider

movement, which means full dedication at club meetings and club events. Since cruising

has been outlawed, one of the main places to display your lowrider is at car shows and car

club picnics. Every year the Elite car club has their own car picnic, which is very successful

and their flyer announces their emphasis on the positive vibe to lowriding, No colors and

no attitudes. This statement is a warning to gang members and also car clubs that like to

start problems over losing awards or car hopping contests as a result of competitive jealousy.

Albert believes that club picnics are part of the future of low riding since it offers the best

solution to cruising, and the various car picnics are open to other car clubs to attend. Most

important though is that these car picnics are family orientated and a time to celebrate the

tradition of lowriding on a Sunday afternoon in the park, which is a tradition in many barrios

throughout Los Angeles. For the DeAlba family, lowriding has brought them together and

this family is another testament to the positive-ness of lowriding within the Chicano

community. The DeAlba men also have the full support of the women in their family and

according to Albert, lowriding as a hobby is not something women in their family should

worry about. It is also something that Albert is sharing with his young son, Albert Jr, and his

son now shares in his passion and enthusiasm for lowriding. Albert relates:


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Like my mom, my wife, they know where we are at. We are not at nude barsspending our paychecks out there. Like a lot of people do and that is theirthing and thats fine. But like my dad says, lowriding is good, cleanwholesome fun. It is a deep hobby. It has brought our family close. We go tothe shows. Like I told you earlier, my son, Albert Jr., is a hard-core low riderfanatic. He got to meet the Alberto Lopez who is the old owner of themagazine. The day he met him he was acting like he met Michael Jackson.And, I have even seen it in our club, the members pick up their cars, and nowthe parents come to the shows, their wives and kids. It is a family thing.Lets bring the families out. That way you are closer to your family. It is notonly a thing for guys. When we were younger, we would go cruising, andyou would go to the cruise spots to meet girls or whatever, but as you mature,you grow out of that (Ibid).

The DeAlbas pride and dedication to lowriding is best exemplified in their show

stopping 1951 Chevy Couple entitled El Corazon which gets its name from its fiery red

color but also because as Mario Sr. states, I put by heart and soul into that car. It is a

legend on the bomb scene and it won the title of Lowrider Bomb of the Year three times in

1991, 1993 and 1994. It also represents the ingenious innovations of lowriders as they design

cars that can boggle the imagination and also can be compared with great works of art. As a

young boy, Mario Sr. was always fond of 51 Chevys and he originally bought this one for

$150. He used it first to run parts for his shop before finally deciding to customize it in a

manner he had always dreamed of as a boy living in Tijuana, Mexico. Working with his

three sons, it took Mario more than four years of hard work to created this explosive ride that

also has many technological changes. First he installed a 1979 Chevy engine in order to give

his car power. He then he shaved down the original body of the car and extended and

rounded the hood in order to get a unique look. He included other car modifications such as a

53 Chevy grille, 59 Pontiac side moldings, modified 76 Cadillac rear skirts, 49 Dodge

tail-lights, and a center console from a 66 Pontiac Grand Prix, just to name a few. A master

painter, Mario went all out on his car by first applying a custom acrylic lacquer gold base and

then layering on numerous layers of candy apple red and brandy wine lacquer. The interior of

the car is red velour and gold plating can be found throughout the car. Finally he added

several coats of clear lacquer to give it extra shine and for historic sake, a pair of fuzzy red

dice hang from the rear view mirror. The car lies so low to ground that you can barely slide a


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piece of paper under it---an exquisite lowrider masterpiece. The car has become an icon on

the lowrider scene and also represents the passion for lowriding within the DeAlba family so

according to Mario Sr., he would never sell it. The name of the car embodies everything that

it takes to build a lowrider----el corazon/the heart.

A Caravan of Love: The Evolution of Lowriding

Brotherhood

Everybody in the club no matter where they are from is my brother and family member.

Some of the members have been in other clubs before and never felt as if they belonged, but in

Uso, as brothers, we all belong to each other. We are really one big family, enjoying eachothers company, helping each other to achieve their goals.

Kita Lealao (interview by author, tape recording, Los Angeles, CA, 15 April 1999)

USO is an example of a car club that started in the 1990's with a multi-cultural

perspective on cars and people. USO in fact translates to "brother" in the Samoan language

and the club definitely has a created a brotherhood across racial lines. The club also speaks to

how lowriding has evolved from being Chicano specific to one in which the passion for cars

is viewed as a more important requirement for club membership. In 1991, Kita Lealao and

his friends, who are of Samoan ancestry, decided to start their own lowrider car club in the

city of Carson where they lived, which is a city that has a mixed population of Samoans,

Chicanos and African Americans. Kita, who has been low riding over twenty years both in

Northern California and Southern CA, was one of the few Samoans in low riding in the late

1970s. He is comfortable in multicultural settings since he grew up in neighborhoods with

primarily Chicano and African American residents. He also sees acculturating and interacting

to other cultures as normal for Samoans living in the United States as part of their quest for

the American Dream. He explains:

Where I grew up on Second Street, there was a handful of Samoans that hungout with Chicanos, because there wasnt a lot of Samoans in our

neighborhood, so we hung out with people we lived with. So that this how Ilearned a lot of the culture. We grew up with Blacks too. When you come


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from different countries like the Samoan people do, the only places we canafford to live in and start our families is in the ghetto. You know as youmove along, you get upgraded as you go along, and find a better job, youmake a little bit of money and move to a better neighborhood just to betteryour family (Ibid).

Kitas upbringing exposed him to different cultures and also taught him how to get

along with people from different cultures. And it would be the Chicanos and the African

Americans who first introduced him to the low riding scene. Presently, there are 31 car club

chapters of USO, and they even have chapters in Canada and Guam. In 1998, Lowrider

Magazine named USO Lowrider car club of the year and they have the added distinction of

being the youngest car club to win this prestigious title. Uso is an example of a new breed of

low riders who are multicultural and diverse in membership. As they boast, While other

clubs talk about being together, USO does it everyday (Lowrider Magazine, April 1998,

134). The club speaks to the transformation of low rider culture and also is an example of

multiculturalism in practice. Yet, they are also representative of the central tenets of the

lowriding practice which are pride, respect, and family.

Kita Lealao is 42 years old and he was born and raised in the Bay Area. As a young

kid of 9 years old, he remembers visiting his relatives in Los Angeles and seeing lowriders for

the first time and he was soon hooked. Or as he says, I feel in love with them ever since

(Kita Lealao, interview by author, tape recording, Los Angeles, CA, 15 April 1999). He

purchased his first lowrider in 1976, a 73 Lincoln Mark IV, which he customized and lifted

with hydraulics. Lowriding hit the Bay Area big in the late 1970s with cruising the Mission

District in San Francisco and King Boulevard in San Jose as standard weekend activity for

many youth. In 1979, he joined his first car club, Low Creations, based in San Francisco and

they were the biggest lowrider car club on the scene at that time. They were also a mixed car

club with an African American as club president. Kita remembers there not being much

racial tension between Blacks and Chicanos back then as he says They low ride basically the


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same. They just come from different towns (Ibid). Yet, he does admit that some Chicano

members would later leave Low Creations to form a different club, just for Chicanos. He

remembers that every weekend the streets in Northern California were filled to capacity with

people and everyone was getting along and just enjoying themselves.

Yet, Kitas dream would be to start his own lowrider car club one day, but that would

not happen until he moved to Southern California and settled in Carson. In 1991, Kita co-

founded Uso with his cousin Daniel and a friend Joe Hunkin. They had initially thought to

start a Samoans Only club, but that plan soon changed when they realized that they would

not have many members since they are so few Samoans who low ride. So, they instead

decided to open the club to every race. As he tells it, they did not care what ethnicity a person

was, they just wanted some one who had a lowrider style vehicle and who had a positive

attitude. Put simply, The basic requirement for a member is only 10% the car and 90% the

person. That is the way we judge people in our car club (Ibid). So with 10 members, USO

was born and would soon rapidly grow in numbers. USO is also a lowrider car club that does

not have specific car type requirements for instance only specializing in bombs or Chevys

or strictly American made cars. Again it is the passion for lowriding which is key to

membership. Kita explains:

We wanted people who would look at the club as family, get involved witheach other and enjoy each others company. After all, if we were going to bea success, it would be as a club and that meant that everybody would have tocontribute and help each other to achieve their goals. To me, a car club is like

a second family. You have your immediate and then you have them. Besidesyour job, those are like the three groups you kick it with mostly. You knowwhat I mean. Myself, I like it because it is something that a bunch of guys,even their women, that we all like to do together. build cars, talk aboutthem and hang out (Ibid).

Kita attributes his clubs success to the cohesiveness of the various chapters.

According to him we put our brains together 24-7 and they talk to each other everyday,

either by phone or through e-mail. They also have a website that keeps everyone in the club


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up to date through a newsletter so that every member can be informed to of the club business.

Another innovative way they communicate is that they have their own telephone code of 870

so they all the USO members in the United States can communicate with one another. In six

years, they were able to have a respectable name for themselves on the lowrider circuit and

they also established club chapters. Kita views the strength of the club being the brotherhood

since they value the person, not the race of perspective members. They want positive people

who have good attitudes and if they are affiliated with any gangs, then that person need not

apply. Yet, if a person was once a gang member and now they are out of the gang, then he

says they are welcome to join and they can also be part of teaching youngsters the rights and

wrongs (Ibid). Another similar trait that USO has with other lowrider clubs is their belief in

being role models for young kids. Kita even equates his club to college and the members then

are the professors teaching the kids the right way of doing of things in life in order to stay out

of trouble. It is this dedication to the younger generation by being good role models that

makes USO stand out. It is also a fact that often goes overlooked by the media and other

critics of lowriding. Kita relates:

Believe it or not, I look at USO as more like a college. Its where you can

learn right from wrong, what to do to achieve what it takes to get there, and

whats wrong and how to stay away from that. Ive got more than twenty

five years of experience in lowriding and I want to make sure that the

chapters are preaching the right concept to the members and to the kids who

are going to be lowriders in the future (Ibid).

Almost everyone you talk to on the lowrider circuit knows Kita and speaks of him

highly. He is well liked and is also very respected from an older club like the Dukes to a

highly competitive one like Lifestyle. Some common words heard to describe Kita are nice

guy, big teddy bear, and family man. Those are people who know him and have interacted

with him, but Kita also has to deal with being stereotyped by how he looks by those who do

not know him. It is easy to take one look at him and jump to all the wrong conclusions. He is

a big Samoan guy, with a shaved head and tattoos and one would think that this guy was


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either in gang or maybe even has done some time in the pen (penitentiary). Yet, the real

story could not be farther from truth and is an example of how stereotyping can be damaging

to a person and mislead those outside of lowriding what the culture is really about. Kita has

this beautiful personality and a warm soft voice that does not match his physicality, and he is

quick to hug those he meets as if they are old friends. He is wonderful human being. And he

is an example of the reality that just because a person has a lowrider and tattoos does not

mean the person is a gangster or ever was one. The connection between lowriding and gang

banging is one that is hard to overcome, because it obscures the fact that many of the

lowriders are hard working guys with families and respectable jobs. It is still easy to

criminalize lowriders, which is a reality that many of them face everyday. Kita explains this

fact,

The first thing they always ask me when they see me tatted up is hey man

what joint were you in? No man, I have been really lucky. I just like

tattoos. When you tell people that, they are kind of like, you are kidding. I

say, no man, Im not. Im telling you the truth. Yeah, sure I can glorify

myself and say Ive been in this pen or that pen, but for what. You are just

going to look at me like what the hell, I dont want to be talking to this

fool..When everybody says that lowriding is associated with gang bangingand stuff like that, I would tell them about just the lifestyle, having a nice car

and I have worked for TWA for twenty years. You can keep a job, keep a car

and still have fun. That is what I mean, having fun is the bottom line (Ibid).

Though lowriding is about having fun, there are times when it is not fun and involves

being mistreated because you are always seen as a gang member because you are brown

skinned, you have tattoos and you cruise the streets in a low rider. Some clubs have good

relationships with the police, especially the older clubs that have been around for a long time

in East Los Angeles and have built an understanding with the police. But, the police harasses

other low riders, and Kita says that the Los Angeles County Sheriffs in Carson were not

friendly with lowriders. He describes the degrading and humiliating experience of being

pulled over for no reason, sitting on the sidewalk and having his car searched for guns or

drugs. He also says that the sheriffs talked down to him and cussed him out just because they


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found nothing wrong and were trying to provoke him so that they could arrest him. When

asked if he received the same kind of treatment by police in Northern California, Kita

elaborates,

Not as severe. I am talking about severe means just like verbally abusing

you. You say one little thing back just to say Im sorry or something like that

because you didnt hear the question, it is like boom, they want to kick your

butt. If they think you are trying to get smart with them, but you are not, you

are just trying to utilize your rights. They just be throwing it in your face

man, You say one more thing, I am going to kick your ass (Ibid).

Kita also keeps the lowriding tradition by passing along his knowledge to his children

and he admits that his daughters who are eighteen and nineteen are the best pupils. He says

that they can tell a difference between all the different styles of Impalas and they also know

the year and makes of lowrider cars. Kita says all his children can look inside a trunk and

tell you what kind of hydraulic set up it is, to what kind of paint job a car has, to basic things

such as what type of rims are on the wheels. And now, even his grandkids also are learning

what lowriding is about. It is very rare for a Samoan family to have lowriding roots

according to Kita. Lowriding in the case of the Lealao family is something that they can do

together and at very car show, the whole family is there in support of lowriding. Kita best

describes the energy that lowriding has for him when he says:

It doesnt matter how old you are, that love is still there for the game. The

sport. That is what I love about low riding . To me, it is like Im always in

the candy store. I never get tired of it. Never. It is always exciting (Ibid).

The excitement of lowriding is something that continues to grow stronger. And as

lowriding has evolved through the years, it has changed, and this is mainly due to the increase

of low rider car clubs, especially multicultural car clubs. Not all car clubs have strict

requirements for membership, such as a specific type of cars or even ethnic ties, but some car

clubs are social clubs based on a passion for lowriding. Kita told me that the oldie song that


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captures the style and emotion of his car club is one by the Isley Brothers called Caravan of

Love. He said this song is like the national song for his club, especially the words we join

our hands, we join the caravan of love. For him, Uso is all about love. And I believe that is

an accurate description. Uso also lives the social codes of the lowriding of pride, respect and

family, albeit with a multicultural twist. When asked to describe the contributions of USO to

the lowriding scene, Kita sums it up when he says:

There is nothing in the like expressing yourself and your ideas on a lowrider

that you have so much love for. USO is proud to be part of that. In just six

years, USO has gone from being just another lowrider club to what we

hope will be the pattern for all of the other clubs of the futureno racial

lines, no color lines and connected to the hear of the Lowrider Movementthrough LRM. That way, all of us can spend more time enjoying the sport of

lowriding that we live and love and less time with problems among the

people. While other clubs talk about being together, USO does it every day

(Ibid).

The Rock and Rollers---the Lowrider Lifestyle

I dont let my family involved in anything I do here really, they wouldnt understand. You get

told why are you leaving? You gotta see your sons football game!My friends are

always there for me, and if one day I am not there for them, theyll never forgive me. The less

I tell the family, the better off I am.Joe Ray, President ofLifestyle (Interview by author, tape recording, Los Angeles, CA, 6 May

1999)

There are many lowrider clubs that depart somewhat from the structure of the

incorporating the family into lowrider club life, and instead are focused on the passion for the

cars as a purely masculine activity that sometimes must come before the family. These clubs

typically have young men in their 20s and 30s who are single and then also a few guys from

the older generation in their 40s and 50s. The commitment they make to the club is a

primary one, and many of them therefore are divorced or have broken relationships with

women and even their children. The particular car club that I am examining here is called

Lifestyle---and the name captures the philosophy of the men in the club. Lowriding is the

lifestyle they choose, and they live it in its fullest extent with pride and respect for their craft,

with one exception, family is often a sacrifice that one has to make in order to belong to the


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club. When a man chooses to join Lifestyle, they are joining a club that must come first in

their lives and the loyalty they have to one another creates bonds that are displayed through

behaviors that one can accurately portray as being macho. It was one of the few instances in

my research process that my role as a woman placed me in a disadvantage and I had to prove

myself to them through various masculinity strategies that were employed against me.

Women are conspicuously absent at all club activities and that is the way they like it.

Therefore, it is important here to include my positionality as a Chicana on the research

process because it is relevant in context of the clubs philosophy. Lifestyle car club is a

perfect example of how lowriding at its most basic level is an expression of masculinity,

though some clubs display it in a less forceful level than others, and their existence speaks to

the diverse politics involved in lowrider clubs. Also, this section allows the reader the chance

to understand the inner workings of car club meetings, which can range from an expressions

of male bravado to the mentoring of younger members of the veteranosthe older

generation.

My first interaction with Lifestyle car club came at a club meeting on February 26,

1999, car club meetings are usually held every other Friday in an auto-body shop in Santa Fe

Springs . The car meeting was supposed to start at 9 pm, but would start late because the

President of the car club, Joe Ray, was running late. The meeting started around 9:20 pm

when Joe Ray arrived, and the rest of the car club filtered into the garage. I noticed that most

of them were in their early 20s to their early 30s and there were about 40 or so guys. All of

them were Chicano, except for two Japanese guys. The car cub sits in a make shift circle,

some find chairs or boxes to sit on and other just stand around. The officers of the club stand

together on one side of the circle. And Joe Ray stands in the front. All club members are

wearing their car club T-shirts, which are the clubs colors of Black and gold.

The club meeting then officially started by taking roll and collecting dues. The dues

are five dollars a meeting and you get fined for being late, and a guy can even be placed on


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probation for habitually being late to club meetings. I asked Joe Rodriguez, the secretary of

the club, as dues were being collected if everyone at the meeting has their own car and he yes.

Joe said that one exception to the rule of a car per member are the cuates or the twins.

They have one car and they were voted into the car club together. As the meeting continued,

some older men walked in and Joe mentioned to me that they were honorary members who

come to meetings when they wanted. These men are typically in their late 40s and early 50s

and have been in lowriding for along time, so they have special status. There is a definite

generation gap in the club between younger men and the old timers. The club celebrated their

25the anniversary in the year 2000 and Joe Ray, the president, was with the club since the

beginning.

After roll and the dues are collected, Joe Ray then begins to preach to his young

audience, which is something he does a lot during this meeting. But his preaching is a

combination of motivational speeches and also admonishments ala Vince Lombardi or even

General Patton in some cases. He tells the club that he is ashamed at the club presence in the

last car show in Arizona were they showed only thirty cars. He said that some of the cars in

this club are not cutting it and they will be kicked out of the club for not having their cars

show ready. Apparently, some of the guys in the club have been in the process of building

their cars forever and Joe Ray said that this is unacceptable. He says the club is about

competition, not only among car members but also about having cars that are competition

ready and cars that are the best ones out there. And the lack of progress by individual car

club members reflects badly on the whole car club according to him. Joe Ray speaks in a

tough manner and as he talks he walks around and looks at every car club member. He is

very dramatic and energetic in getting his point across and everyone is listening and watching

him.

Then this being said, it is time for the head of the car committee to go around the

room and check on the status of the cars that are still in process. Joe Ray says that he wants


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the guys to be short and sweet on their updates, and he wants no excuses. This though would

end up being the longest part of the meeting as the guys get into elaborate stories as to why

their cars are not done and the rest of the club gives their opinion on the matters. I guess from

this process that certain members have a history of giving sob stories and making excuses to

why certain things are not done on their cars. And then there a few members who are in the

club that have not even built a lowrider yet. Joe Rodriguez mentioned to me that in the car

club at the moment are 35 cars that are competition ready and 15 cars that are not. That

means that those 15 members cannot fly the club colors or the club plaque on their car. Also

all the cars are classic lowriders such as Impalas, Riveras or other Chevy cars, and there are

even Cadillacs, but basically no car after 1979. He said that the club has certain standards for

modifications to the cars and the car committee does have the final say on what the member

does to the car. The car committee also challenges certain members to finish the work on his

car and also tries to motivate them. Joe Ray particularly challenges a young Chicano/Flipino

guy in his early 20s, who has a 59 Chevy convertible and all that has been done is the frame

of the car. Joe Ray tells him that he needs to think about why he got into the car club in the

first place because so far he has done nothing to his car and he appears to have no interest.

Joe Ray tells him forcefully, Where is your motivation? You need to look at yourself and

your whole life and ask yourself that question. You build the car yourself and you got into

the car club yourself. Get off your butt and do the car or throw in the towel and get of club

because at the moment, you are doing nothing. The young guy looks at him the whole time

he is talking with a bit of arrogant attitude, and this exchange reminds me of a father trying to

motivate his son to get his life together. Joe Ray then talks about how it takes pride to fly

your machine and how it is an issue of respect. You get respect for being in the club, having

your Lifestyle plaque and also for having a nice ride. And every member reflects on the club,

therefore he is going to keep each member on check. Finally, the wrapping up of the

meeting was supposed to start, now it was about 10:30 pm. Joe Ray mentioned that if any

member is late to the Azalea Festival that they would be fined or swatted. Swatting is


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something that I would experience first hand in a few minutes, but Joe Ray continues to try to

motivate his members. He also mentions the importance of grooming future leadership in the

younger generation. He says that he used to be a lot stricter with the club, but he is

mellowing out in his old age. I think to myself what exactly mellow means to him, as I

again notice the generation gap between the club members. And at the young age of 43, Joe

Ray is the veterano who is respected and admired for having given twenty-five years of his

life to this club and to the lowriding scene.

It was now time for the swatting to begin. The Sergeant of Arms a young Chicano in

his 20s steps forward carrying a large black wooden paddle with the name Lifestyle etched on

it. He says that he is going to go through the list of members who need to pay their fines and

be swatted. If someone is late or misses a meeting, it is $25 and apparently if your fines are

then over $15, you are swatted with the paddle. There are three members who are swatted

during this meeting. It works something like this; the guy being punished walks to the center

of the car club circle, bends over and then receives one swift hard smack on his ass by the

Sergeant of Arms. . One guy tries to negotiate his way out the swat, he said the club knew

he was having money problems and okayed the fact that he would be late with the money he

owes. But, The Sergeant of Arms says that the rule is that if you owe more than $15, then

you get swattedno exceptions. So, the guy has to bend over and get his smack. As this was

happening, I was trying hard not to laugh at the absurdity of this ritual, that reminded me of

something that frat boys do, but I had to suppress it since everyone was so serious. This was

not a laughing matter to the guys in Lifestyle. And it also something that not too many car

clubs still do, it is a throw back to old days when the car clubs were run like gangs on

wheels.

After the meeting ended, Joe Ray walked over to my dad and I and said that he was

sorry if any of the language offended us, but his club is dedicated to keeping it real. Joe

Ray thanked us for coming to the meeting and then asked me to notice that there are few


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wedding bands on the guys which means it is hard to have relationships with women and also

be in a car club. He also told me that many of the guys are divorced because of their

dedication to the club. Also, that the dedication is so fierce that their wallets are thin from

putting so much money into their cars. This fact speaks to the dedication of the guys in the

club, but also speaks to how ones family life at home suffers. I am reminded of something

that the artist Mr. Cartoon said aboutLifestyles philosophy in regards to lowriding:

Put it this way, we pay the chrome bill before we pay the phone bill. Weredown like that. We lose sleep over what color were going to paint our carsand how were going to affect the streets when were rollin in our cars. Welive our lives like that and we bounce off each other because building a

lowrider isnt just about one person, its a unity of all our friends. So formost of us here, lowriding is our passion. It is something we will always do(Lowrider Magazine, August 1999, 70).

My experience atLifestyles meeting was one instance when I see how each car club

has different politics and also a different philosophy toward lowriding. For Lifestyle, it is

about dedicating your life to the club and to having your cars at a competitive level. They

only have one chapter because they want to control the way they perceived on the lowrider

scene. And their cars are some the best lowriders I have seen. They are also one of the most

respected lowrider clubs on the customizing scene and they have a lot of prize-winning cars.

Yet this club, and there are other clubs out there like them, does not integrate family into the

car club. The car club comes first and family second, therefore a member must be willing to

sacrifice their family or have a family that is very understanding. Joe Ray can be overly

dramatic, but his own life experience with the club has cost him a lot. He reminds me of the

Godfather when he says, Lowriding is a sport. Its a hobby. Its a lot of fun. It takes a

serious commitment of time, you get trapped, youre stuck and youre not gonna get out. Im

stuck real bad (interview by author, tape recording, Los Angeles, CA, 6 May 1999).

Chicano Art and Culture

Pachucos and Lowriders


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It is the secret fantasy of every bato in or out of the chicanada to put on a zoot suit and play

the myth mas chucote que la Chingada. Luis Valdez, Zoot Suit (1981)

El Pachuco: Man or Myth?

The pachuco is an image that still influences low rider culture--from the logo of

LowRider Magazine to the clothes some youth wear at car shows---the image is a reminder of

a time during World War II when zoot suit style represented defiance to the status quo. The

zoot suiters were an affront to the war time style of dress when more conservative suits were

the style due to fabric rationing during the war, as well as short hair cuts by men, especially

military men. The Pachucos wore a baggy suit with a high waisted trousers, a wide brim hat,

and a long gold watch chain. In addition, they wore their hair a bit longer than was the style

of the time. It is style that flagrantly visualized extravagance and excess in a time in

American when minimalism was favored due to the war. The zoot suit style was favored by

some African American and Flipino youth, yet the style came to be identified with Mexican

American youth. Therefore, this style reflected a stance of resistance or an attempt to mark

out a different space in American society. For the Pachucos, the zoot suit was definitely not

the traditional Mexican style of their parents, and at the same time it was also different from

other American youth. But, the zoot suit is every part American, just like the low riders,

which are also American cars. Both styles would eventually invade popular culture and reach

mainstream audiences in America.

Whereas Octavio Paz the great Mexican Philosopher saw negativity in the Pachucoafter his visit to Los Angeles in the 1950s, since according to Paz, they represented thechildren who lost their connection to their Mexican roots. Yet, this Pachuco identity is stillvery much alive within Chicano culture as a symbol of resistance. Octavio Paz in his bookLabyrinth of Solitude (1961) captures the complexity of the pachuco cultural identity. Hewrites: His whole being is sheer negative impulse, a tangle of contradictions, an enigma.Even his very name is enigmatic: pachuco, a word of uncertain derivation, saying nothing and

saying everything ( pg. 14).

Therefore, the Pachuco style was one which stood out and it can also be seen as a site

of resistance in the fact pachucos would be the target in the Sleepy Lagoon case of 1942 and


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the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. The former was a case when the media and law enforcement

publicly criminalized pachucos. Seven pachucos were found guilty of murder with

circumstantial evidence and the case revealed more about public sentiment of pachucos who

were labeled juvenile delinquents. The chief of police even said that Chicanos were

expected to violent since they descended from the Aztecs. The case was eventually

overturned, yet it was a landmark case for Mexican Americans in Los Angeles in that it

revealed the racism of the American Justice system. Another important event was the Zoot

Riots which occurred in the Summer of 1943 when U.S. servicemen who ventured into areas

where pachucos hung out in the city and they terrorized them. The servicemen would beat up

the pachucos, tear off their zoot suits, and even cut their long hair. The servicemen saw the

pachucos as un-American and draft dodgers, and the beatings represented a way of re-

establishing order. The police were of no help to the pachucos and they only stepped in once

the beatings were over and arrested the pachucos, the servicemen were let go. Both these

instances reflect the disdain that the broader society had for the pachuco.

The romanticization of the "pachuco" past and the quest for a Chicano identity is also

present within the pages of Low Rider Magazine and other magazines that focused on low

riders such as Street Low, Teen Angel, and Orlies Lowriding. The way the past continues

to live the present and how the present in turn is used to make sense of the future is a quality

shared by many pop cultural forms. An example would be how Low Rider Magazine during

the late 1970's encouraged its readers to send in pictures of their parents and grandparents

during the Pachuco era of the 1940's and 1950s. The pictures were included in a section

entitled "Low Rider Pasados" (Low Riders of the Past). The readers responded

enthusiastically by sending in their pictures of both men and women dressed in Zoot suits

which created a collectivity within the low rider culture by linking the past to the present.

The magazine made a political move to link the low rider "movement" to a time in the past in

which an alternative space was carved out to celebrate being Mexican American. It also


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demonstrated how Chicanos of one generation admired the Chicanos of an earlier generation-

--The Pachucos.

The pachuco through his dress, language, and style embodied a meaning of

resistance, just like that of a low rider who chooses to drive his car low to the ground. In

addition, both styles are visual, a person cannot help but notice, yet by being seen, both

styles are often criminalized and seen in a negative light by the dominant society. The

pachucos existed between both their American and Mexican identities in a space defined by

the working class roots of the barrio. To see and be seen, a visible marker of difference, yet

sameness by creating a community---of pachucos and eventually low riders. Both subcultures

within Mexican American communities are a sign of youth attempting to make a new identity

for themselves, and in the process the pachuco and the low rider have become symbols of

Chicano culture. But, the pachuco is the beginning of a Chicano identity rooted in rebellion

and resistance. The great Chicano poet Jose Montoya once proclaimed the Pachuco the first

Chicano freedom fighters of the Chicano Movement. Where they real men or romanticized

symbols of strength in the face of negativity? A myth does not create such an impact like the

pachuco has within Chicano communities, their spirit of resistance is still alive in many

barrios across the Southwest. Que viva la pachucada.

El Arte Chicano---an art for and of the people

A truly public art provides society with the symbolic representation of collective beliefs as

well as continuing re-affirmation of the collective sense of self.

(Eva Sperling Cockcroft and Holly Barnet Sanchez, Signs From the Heart: California

Chicano Murals, 1990, pg. 5)

Chicano art at its basic definition is something that is tied to the everyday reality of

Chicanos, whether it be in the barrios of Los Angeles or the deserts of New Mexico. Chicano

art was born during the Chicano Movement which was the civil rights movement for Mexican


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Americans during the 1960's and 1970s. Chicanos began to fight for their civil rights whether

it was in the work place, school, or local communities. Chicanos began to create changes and

bring equality to their own communities through the belief in self-determination and self-

empowerment. Pachucos were the first Chicano freedom fighters who began to create a

different identity and community for themselves through a visual mediumthey were also

the first Chicano artists. And Chicano visual artists have always been present in the barrio

especially during social movements since art is the method which fuels the inherent rage,

passion, and resistance.

Chicano graffiti for example expressed the rage of Chicano youth and it was also tied

to the reality of the streets and barrios which they inhabited. Graffiti was also a precursor and

even a foundation of the Chicano mural movement of the late 1960's. Chaz Bojorquez is a

world wide graffiti artist who has been active in the graffiti art scene since the 1960s.

According to his research graffiti or tagging started around the 1920s in Los Angeles when

shoeshine boys would mark a corner by painting their names. The Pachucos continued the

tradition of marking their space, and they used the Old English style of writing to mark their

neighborhoods. And since the spray can was invented around 1952, the graffiti would be

hand painted. There has always existed a struggle for an identity for the Chicano and

marking out a space in society is very important. For these youth, what they could claim was

the streets or their neighborhood, and graffiti was a part of that. It was the first truly Chicano

art on the walls of the barrios of Los Angeles. And eventually Chicano murals would also be

added to those walls during the late 1960's early 1970s. Art whether on walls or cars became

a way of expressing Chicano cultural pride and even rage, and it is a tradition which has

continued until today. According to Chaz, art is born in ones own community, It was the

streets that built me and those are my building blocks and those are my elements that I take to

describe who I am(Chaz Bojourquez, interview by author, tape recording, Los Angeles, CA,

15 January 1999).


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The seizure of open space for Chicano murals in the late 1960s and early 1970s drew

from their graffiti art predecessors. Walls within Chicano barrios provided the canvas to

express an art which was different from that which hung on museum walls. It was art for the

masses--to be seen by the c

Documents

Denise Sandoval - Bajito y Suavecito