The Lowrider Studies Reader
Culture, Resistance, Liberation, and Familia
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Advance Praise
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- About the editor
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Dedication
- Foreword (Frank Hernandez)
- Preface (Selinda Guerrero)
- Introduction: The Rise of Lowrider Studies (Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez, William A. Calvo-Quiros, Anthony J. Nocella II, and Elizabeth G. Ramos)
- 1. Cruising into the Classroom: Lowriding as a Pedagogical Practice (John Ulloa)
- 2. Aesthetics and the Battle for the Eastside: Google’s Lowrider, Chicano Park, and the Performance of Space (Ben Chappell)
- 3. East Side Hero (Daniel Osorio)
- 4. Our Existence is Resistance (Xris Macias)
- 5. Maui the Lowrider: Healing the House of Trouble (Lea Lani Kinikini and Marlena Wolfgramm)
- 6. Car Clubs to Cohorts (Dionicio Miguel Garcia)
- 7. Lowriding as an Ancestral Healing Phenomena (David Escobar)
- 8. It’s Not a Hobby, It’s My Culture (Juan Roman-Medina)
- 9. El Campesino Project: Conciencia y las Raices de Tu Causa (Martín Morales Ramírez)
- 10. Raza’s Membership in Lowrider Car Clubs (Elizabeth G. Ramos)
- 11. Lowriding Murals: Freeways, Automobiles and Mobility (Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez)
- 12. Exploring San José’s Lowrider Industries (Estella Inda, Kathryn Blackmer Reyes, and Julia Curry Rodriguez)
- Afterword (Luis Alvarez)
- Contributors’ Biographies
- Series index
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all of those that have been repressed or oppressed by colonialism, ICE, and borders because they were Cholx, Latinx, or Chicanx.
Foreword
Frank Hernandez
Lowrider and custom-designed cars have been a part of my life as far back as I can remember. I grew up during the late 1970s and early 1980s in West Dallas in the Elmer Scott Housing Projects. At that time, the projects were the greatest concentration of low-rise family public housing in the United States. We were all poor, our parents were young, and almost all families living there relied on government assistance. My grandparents lived in Ledbetter, a small barrio about as far west as one could go in Dallas. There, we had the Jaycee Center, where we learned to do ceramics, play ping pong, and swim. We had tíos and tías and cousins who lived in Oak Cliff, another isolated community in Dallas where mostly Black Mexican American families lived. Oak Cliff has changed over time and now serves as a hub for the area’s Mexican American community. My formative years revolved around those three communities. It was there that I learned to appreciate pan dulce, the importance of a quinceañera, and the extent to which the design and accessories of one’s car could shape one’s identity.
When my immediate family and I visited my grandparents in Ledbetter, I grew quite personally familiar with lowriders and the lowriding community. It was not unusual to see four to five lowrider cars on the lawn of my grandparents’ house. The hoods and the doors on the cars would be open, and more than likely, Tejano music would be playing. My tíos and their male friends would walk around each car, talking in detail about their vehicular work while taking sips from cans of Schlitz beer. They would start an engine to rev it up and show how loud and powerful it was. Other times, the gentlemen would bounce their cars, which was fascinating for me as a child to see. Then, my tíos and their friends were off to Oak Cliff to cruise Jefferson Street along with other lowriders across the city. Whether it was the best rims on the streets, a paint job like no other, the flashiest hydraulics, or beautiful chrome—all played a role in lowrider culture.
As a scholar today, I now have a much deeper understanding of the role of the lowrider and custom cars that my tíos and their friends worked on and shared with the community. The men loved these cars not just for their intrinsic beauty and uniqueness but also for their representativeness of Mexican American culture. The men were proud of this culture and used the cars to express, in a political way, their own identities. The cars were works of art that brought immediate and extended family members together. An important point is that lowrider culture often served to combat stereotypes about lowlifes and gangsters in the Mexican American community. In this regard, lowriding was a family-oriented culture passed down from one generation to the next. Younger family members would often start out with “lowrider” bicycles, designed in imitation of lowrider cars.
Even with all of the expressions of culture and family that stem from the lowriding community, some people still try to silence and obstruct this beautiful element of Mexican American culture. Cities like Dallas and Fort Worth continue to create new ordinances that affect where lowrider cars can be parked and where they can cruise.
This ground-breaking critical well-organized book edited by Anthony J. Nocella II, which is important for the academic world and for social justice movements, highlights lowriding and its relationship to culture, resistance, liberation, and familia. The Lowrider Studies Reader: Culture, Resistance, Liberation, and Familia, a collective of diverse lowrider scholars provides personal reminiscences from members of and witnesses to the lowriding communities in the United States and around the world. From a general perspective, the information herein can assist readers in thinking critically about spaces, communities, and the symbols that define culture and its connection to identity. Anthony J. Nocella II an outstanding intersectional scholar- activist and lowrider puts together a pivotal book that will lay the groundwork for the development the emerging new scholarly field, lowrider studies.
Preface
Selinda Guerrero
In May of 2021, Albuquerque Police Department, one of the deadliest police forces per capita in the United States, revealed they had spent $35,000 in tax dollars and an additional $60,000.00 of in-kind donations to build and display to the community a police lowrider car. This is a police department who has experienced all eight of the recommended reforms and still today remains under the Department of Justice oversight as one the most harmful cops in the entire U.S.
I bring this spectacle of cultural appropriation up as a deliberate example of the power of lowriding as a culture. Oppressive power structures of colonialism steal everything, even our swag! This structure of state violence recognized the power of our lowrider culture. They have attempted to infiltrate our communities by attempting to assimilate into our culture. There is a long history of this practice from confidential informants being on cops payroll, such as setting up community members to be arrested and even recently a string of Black and Brown folks being introduced as Police Ambassadors. Law enforcement continue to create tactics of assimilation to infiltrate and oppress our people. Last year during the debut of the police lowrider car we organized a protest and drove through the police car show with a megaphone playing political Hip Hop! We encouraged all true lowriding communities to rally against this so-called police lowrider car and continue to encourage them to run the police off the block every time they try to show up, even if it is in a lowrider.
You see, lowriding is a sacred culture of unity and pride. As long as I can remember one of my best memories was the feeling of sitting in the “ranfla” while hitting switches. There is nothing like that feeling in the entire world! If you could capture the essence of self determination and liberation in a moment in time that would be it. It is the pride of a badass ride, bouncing in freedom, music playing loud in the background with all the homies applauding and celebrating with you! It is a moment of feeling in total control and in full power of your own self, literally liberating. The unity of our people in true solidarity that nobody can mess with, it cannot be broken, we ride for each other, in the most literal sense of this phrase.
I was just a child when my cousin took me lowriding in his 1975 Impala hardtop with the bubble window in the back. I thought I was big shot cruising with the older cousins. Riding slowly and waving at our people in the neighborhood as we rolled by. That’s when I recognized the unity that lowriding was all about. My cousin Bertha and I would walk to the back of the lowrider park San Gabriel Park in the 80’s and 90’s and car hop with all the homies to cruise on the weekends. We lived for that energy and joy. Seeing all our friends bragging about each other’s cars, having spontaneous bounce contests and hitting three wheel motion. This was also the era of mini trucks, we had entire car clubs of mini trucks, some of the homies would put “juice” on the truck beds and make the beds dance while we cruised up and down Route 66, Central Ave in Albuquerque, NM. This was 2 miles of two lanes up and two lanes down bumper to bumper cruising on the weekends. After Hip-Hop concerts they would come out and cruise with us. I had the privilege to cruise Central with Kid Frost, Lighter Shade of Brown and DJ Quick. The Albuquerque Police have criminalized cruising on Central Avenue and continue harassing and criminalizing lowriders in all their hypocrisy.
New Mexico is also the home of Espanola, the lowrider capital of the world! In the 80’s and 90’s there was no cruising better than in Espa. Some of the most beautiful cars in the world are here in rural New Mexico. Most of these cars were featured in Lowrider Magazine, you knew you were the shit when you were featured in Lowrider Magazine. I had the honor of being a lowrider car model in the magazine in my younger years at the car shows. Lowriding culture has always been part of my life and lives deep in my soul. I told my kids they could not make me a grandma until I got my lowrider, so my grandbabies could hit switches with me as we cruise through our neighborhoods.
It is the essence of Chicano, Black, and Asian Cultures. This is a worldwide phenomenon for the reasons of power and unity. This is a culture that unites across race and ethnicity with a deep respect of solidarity. This is why lowrider culture is targeted by state violence, they fear our power and unity. When Chicano, Black, and Asian folks come together in power we can accomplish anything. That is the biggest fear of global imperialism, is when communities come together in unity and resistance.
In my work as a community organizer, I often talk about why we floss so much, why our swag is so important. When people experience oppression, sometimes all we have is HOPE and these pockets of liberation. We like to shine because they told us we couldn’t, these are the experiences that give us the confidence to resist. Our people have always resisted and have always fought back since the colonization through genocide and enslavement of our people and we are still strong today standing on the shoulders of our ancestors and the old school values.
So, for all the snitches and police collaborators, our message is clear this is a culture so deep and so solid it cannot be shaken. During the 2020 uprisings, police believed they would have an advantage of pushing the uprising into downtown Albuquerque where the lowriders cruise in Albuquerque on Sunday evenings. Instead of an advantage, the lowrider community was ignited to join the uprising and went into an all night stand off with riot police. This is the night I was shot by a rubber bullet while resisting with the youth who were downtown for lowriding. This night was one of the most powerful and profound nights of uprising I supported in my work as an organizer against state violence because I witnessed young people who were not even at the protest be ignited and they were with the shit! They have felt the pressure state violence profoundly from restrictions on cruising, window tint, volume of music, too many people standing together, driving past the same location too many times, etc. They took to the streets in powerful unity and resistance and that is the power of the lowriding community!
As someone who grew up in Hip-Hop, lowriding is like an underlying element of Hip-Hop or maybe the 10th element. Lowriding holds the essence of the elements of Hip Hop from the cars dancing on their switches in the spirit of breakdancing; the woofers blast the beat of bass in your ear in true DJ fashion; most cars are designed with some of the most profound graffiti art that exists on the planet; you must be an entrepreneur to have the privilege of the investment of a lowrider; the swag because you must be dressed to impressed if your taking your car out for a cruise, and most of all we have the power of street knowledge.
Details
- Pages
- XXVI, 194
- Publication Year
- 2024
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781433197260
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781433197277
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781433197475
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781433197482
- DOI
- 10.3726/b20708
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2023 (December)
- Keywords
- Chicano Studies Latinx Studies Gender and Sexuality Studies Peace Studies Familia Lowriders Automotive Sociology Social Science Community Social Justice Liberation The Lowrider Studies Reader Culture, Resistance, Liberation, and Familia Anthony J. Nocella II
- Published
- New York, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, Oxford, 2024. XXVI, 194 pp.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG