Join Eric Ignacio Thomas and Alexis Paul Monroy’s conversation on the sights, sounds, and transformational power of the street for Latinx persons. As a lowrider Monroy’s goal is to spread a deeper consciousness and appreciation for street culture while amplifying the often-unheard voices which fill them. How does Cultural Studies allow for deeper analysis of the lowrider and the street? How can we reimagine lowriders in Southern California?
For more information about the CGU Cultural Studies department, visit their website.
Good morning. Here we are on Latinx in the Inland Empire. This morning we’re going to speak with Alexis Paul Monroy, who is currently a cultural studies doctoral student at Claremont Graduate University. He is a resident of National City, California. His work at CGU concentrates on the sights, sounds and transformational power of the street. As a lowrider, his goal is to spread a deeper consciousness and appreciation for street culture while amplifying the often-unheard voices which fill them. Alexis received his bachelor of arts in sociology from San Diego State University and a master of arts and cultural studies from Claremont Graduate University. Good morning, Alexis.
Good morning, Eric Thomas. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.
Yeah. I got to know you in class last year in Dr. Poblete’s class, and I was really interested in your burgeoning master’s scholarship and research. And I know you’ve worked really hard on publishing scholarship around lowrider culture. So tell us, Alexis, what is lowrider culture?
Oh, I mean, well, in its simplest form, I mean, you can think about it as the car culture, it’s a form of American car culture but with a Latinx and a Chicanx flare. It’s a culture that takes things that are forgotten or thrown away, revamps it, brings new life into it. And so, it encompasses everything, encompasses the religious aspects of Mexican American life with the combination of Mesoamerican origins, it’s a culture that resist norms and push me back against white authority, but it’s a vibrant life, it’s full of color, and amusement, and wonderment, that’s how I see it.
Oh, most definitely. So let’s talk about a little bit of the history of it, and then let’s take it back to the context of National City lowrider culture today. So did lowrider culture begin in SoCal in the ’40s or how did it begin? Talk [crosstalk 00:02:38]-
Yeah. I mean, the major kind of conception of lowriding, it gets its roots in Southern California, it’s car culture, post kind of World War II. What happens is, in general, the car in American culture has representing upward mobility, expansion, forward progress, it’s that American dream. And for immigrants as well, for Mexican Americans coming to this land or already part of this land of the United States adopt that as well, but they bring their flare and their expertise with them. So it’s kind of ironic, it’s like the World War II provided the skillset necessary for these cars to be built. You take these instruments of war and you make it into a different weapon of identity, pushing back against norms of invisibility.
So after the servicemen left World War II, they have the skillset of working on World War II bombers, the auto pool. And unfortunately, they couldn’t afford the cars coming off the assembly lines of Detroit. So what they do is they’re like, “Okay, we’re going to take these old cars, these forgotten relics, and we’re going to revive and bring a new identity to them.” So they start backward engineering. Backyard engineering is pretty much what I call it, they kind of, “How can we get these cars running? It’s not good just to have a car that runs, we want something with style and flare.” And so, they start experimenting and starting to realize that if you drop the cars down, there’s a different attitude, there’s a different mobility of the car.
And then, of course, the paint jobs was their way of kind of showing their identity, whether they’re marked with Mesoamerican iconography, to religious elements, or even a Mexican American war icons like Emiliano Zapata or Pancho Villa, it was a canvas for them to express their identity. And so, yeah, there is this kind of connotation that it comes from Southern California, but I mean, it has its roots in so many different places, whether it be the American ideology of the automobile to its roots in Mexico with the caballeros who used to adorn their saddles with silver engravings and parade the streets. These are relics that are carried on and moved on in different forms through culture.
Mm-hmm (affirmative), most definitely. I really liked how you spoke a lot about the significance and contribution by Mexican Americans and the Chicano culture. As someone who lives in the Inland Empire, there’s many, many lowrider communities. And one thing I’ve learned is that one of their taglines is low and slow. And I wanted to ask you, Alexis, let’s unpack that. I think there’s a lot to say there that touches on a lot of communities that we’d spoken about and what they’re trying to do when they’re doing that low and slow.
Yeah. So I mean, low and slow in its form, it’s a performance. It’s a performance of being seen. So first when they dropped the car, they saw that it became an exaggerated, just the optics of it. So when someone lowers their car, it creates a new line, it creates length of the car, the vehicle, you can see different aspect of it, but it’s an attitude, it’s a form of being seen. So when you’re doing that low and slow, it’s just how do we elongate this time? How do we elongate this act of lowriding?
And it’s a contrast. So in Southern California, you can kind of had two scenes. You had the lowrider scene and you had the hot rod scene. So predominantly the hot rod scene is an Anglo kind of culture that wants to go fast, “We want to go as quickly as possible, it’s all about speed.” Where the lowrider flips that axis. It’s not about going fast or going point A to point B, it’s how do we elongate this performance? I want to be seen. And it comes to a lot of different things. It comes from being in a culture where, especially in Los Angeles or even where I’m from in San Diego during the ’40s and ’50s is that invisibility where we’re supposed to be not seen. It’s that survival tactic, don’t be seen, don’t be heard, that’s how you’re going to get to the next day.
Well, lowriding says, “No, I’m not invisible anymore. You’re going to have to see me. You’re going to have to deal with my bravado, and I’m going to be here, and I’m going to be occupying space and time.” So that lowriding low and slow is that occupation, it’s that retaking or reclaiming space and time. So it’s more than just actions, I think that’s what kind of drive me into researching lowriding. It’s like, you grow up around this aesthetic, and you grow around this culture, and you enjoy it as a youth.
And then when you get to kind of where I’m at now, and you start saying, “Well, what is it really doing? What does lowriding do? Why is it such a stigma criminalization? Why is it a criminal act in some aspects, because it’s in a lot of cities throughout California.” And you want to know what is it doing to authority? And I think the biggest thing is saying that we’re here and we’re not going anywhere. You’re going to see me; you’re going to have to deal with me. And I think that’s the big thing, it’s a disruptor of authority and of hegemony.
Yeah. As someone who appreciates lowride culture and went to Berkeley during the 1990s, I was really informed, like most of us in the ’90s, by the West Coast hip hop, G-funk culture. Dre, Snoop Dogg, how they kind of featured that as part of kind of a music kind of vibe too and the relevance of street culture for a lot of us who want to be seen. And-
Yeah. And I think the big thing too as well is that lowriding is not all just a Mexican American creation. It has its roots there, but it also expanded way beyond the Barrio. And I think too, we have to come to realization is that we, and when I say we, me, myself as Mexican American Chicano, that we occupy the same places and spaces as our black and African American brothers, we have the same obstacles. And so, a lot of things that draws to lowriding is because we’re occupying the same space in place, that we’re more connected that some people don’t want to express. And I think then that’s where you see the adoption and collaboration, if you will, of input.
And I think that’s a big thing too with hip hop, is hip hop car culture, even car culture in general, music has always been synonymous with car culture, especially within Southern California. We have these thorough ways that we can drive, and there’s always a soundtrack to this movement. And I think that’s why there’s always this combination. So whether we see Eazy-E or especially Ice Cube in these ’63 and ’64 Impalas because we’re inhabiting the same place and time.
Yeah. It’s such a fascinating cultural studies project because you’re really looking at this intersection of human lives but at the power dynamics, how people are displaced but also recasting their culture, and rebranding, recreating, completely re-imagining the street, re-imagining cruising, and re-imagining low and slow. I think it’s really a fascinating example. And that’s why I really wanted to talk to you on our podcast, Alexis, because I feel like there’s so much that’s accessible to your research and scholarship and-
Yeah. I mean, I try to look at things. For my instance, when I look at small practical things that we do every day, so like for me, lowriding wasn’t an everyday kind of staple, it was something we saw on the weekends and you say, “Well, what’s amazing about this?” But also, why is it being attacked by authority? Why is it criminalized? When I look at hip hop or even that dance, why was it so demonized? Why do we look at this musical expression and say it’s bad for society? Is it because it’s critiquing society? Is it critiquing authority? What is it actually doing?
And I think that in the street cultures, it definitely, you start seeing this dynamic, whether it’s from fashion, to music, to cars, or even game culture, if you want to look at it, why are these developing cultures, what are they doing and how are they interacting with societal norms and authority? I think for lowriding in general, for me, I saw it as a way of pushing back, of reclaiming, especially with the tensions in regards to Southern California, and Mexican American and settler kind of narratives, it’s like the erasure of history, and I see it through lowriding. It’s like, not only do we reclaim land, we use the cars, the canvases to document history that’s been erased.
It’s like, how can I look at an airbrush mural and learn more history on a car than I did in high school about Mexican American contributions in the United States to different histories that isn’t covered? And so you use every mode or medium that you have to display this history. And I think that’s the kind of the big thing for me was in my field of study, what I try to do is what are things that I can do to help amplify voices that are forgotten or overlooked? And I think a lot of times those are the voices of the most vulnerable communities, and that tends to be communities of color.
And I love that because what you’re doing is your scholarship makes a lot of sense using this metaphor, looking at car culture as an extension, Mexican American or Chicano life in Southern California. And like you said, why when I Google, for example, Alexis, lowriders, the first question is, are lowriders illegal? And you said it, this idea of policing or dispossessing certain bodies from street culture from cruising. As someone who went to high school in San Diego, I’m very aware of the dynamics that happen between, let’s say, the coastal communities of San Diego and the Eastern communities of San Diego, and how they’re very, very different places based on histories of humans who are dispossessed.
Yeah. I talk about places. For me, it’s always been places. For me, growing up in the South Bay of San Diego, which is predominantly Mexican American, we have Filipino and African American communities, but we have this place, it’s Barrio Logan, Chicano Park, and you start seeing throughout history, we keep getting pushed or cut with expansion of upward mobility of this ideology of American exceptionalism. And so, we start seeing, how do we maneuver in these in this new age? And for me, it’s like you start looking at these aspects, why are we criminalized? And that’s the big thing. I think when I started looking at lowriding, especially within San Diego, there’s a predominant big strip, it’s called Highland in National City. It’s kind of like similar to Whittier here for LA, is that this is the place where majority of lowriders congregate and crews.
When I grew up, I got the tail end of it, and then it started getting where they shut it down. So it was kind of like you can get your car impounded, you can be sentenced to jail for six months for lowriding, so it was always this thing where when lowrider is taking that actual action, when they go to the street, even to today, that’s why I still call an outlaw movement is that there’s not a guarantee you come back with your car, you’re going to get ticketed, you can get pulled over, you can lose your car. So you’re always taking that risk in continuing this culture or continuing this lineage of protest.
And so back in the day, in the ’70s, I was reading newspapers and news clippings from San Diego Union-Tribune, is that any given weekend, you can have 2000 lowriders occupy a five-mile strip in National City. And it’s like what it really tells you is, are they afraid of lowriders because of the disturbance they’re making with the disruption of traffic, or the white authority, are they really more concerned about that many brown bodies occupying the street? That coalition of mobility, I think that’s really what it starts coming at, is when you have that much power in mobilizing people onto a single avenue. I think it creates fear and I think that’s where the biggest thing is.
And it’s a misconception, it’s like this is this community’s joy, that thorough way, that highway was our Sol Foro. This is where we used to come down to our meeting place. And I think those are carrying on from our traditions in the past. I think that’s really what lowriding kind of does, it carries on these lineages that are chipped away through laws and through pressures from authority.
Most definitely. I see lowriders as like living exhibits. And for our audience, I’m looking at a map of Barrio Logan in San Diego. And I don’t know if a lot of people know where Barrio Logan is, but for all of us who are in San Diego, do you want to kind of paint a little picture of why, even if it’s on the water, that it is industrial. What does it mean to be a Chicano Park in San Diego?
Yeah. So I mean, Barrio Logan in general holds a spot. I think prior to the 5 Freeway and the Coronado Bridge, it was like the second largest Mexican American enclave in Southern California. And that’s big for San Diego saying that, [inaudible 00:19:29] California. So what ends up happening is the 5 Freeway comes through for expansion. This is that whole thing that always happens, that United States needs to be improving progress, but they choose certain neighborhoods to cut. So of course, Barrio Logan was one of neighborhoods that got cut by the 5 Freeway. And then later on, they created a bridge that connects downtown San Diego to Coronado Island, which is in San Diego Bay, and cuts again this community.
And when I say cut, I mean, you’re losing, I think it was like up to 2000 houses and businesses that were Mexicano. So when you’re losing that many houses and people in general, it creates this kind of rift in the community. It’s like, “Man, we found our place and even now, we don’t have a spot.” So we’re always in this movement of progress. And I think another thing too is they start moving residential zoning. So it’s becomes this mixed residential zoning which allows NASSCO and US… the US Navy has their shipyards right there. So before, previous, and this is prior to, I think the ’40s, ’50s, the community had access to the water. Well, that gets blocked, you can’t have those luxuries.
And then also too, we need your zoning for… I think they had a ship building, there was this kind of aluminum siding metal working there. So constantly, Barrio Logan in general has one of the worst air qualities in San Diego. And there’s studies showing about high spikes in asthma and other kinds of cancers, side effects from having that mixed residential and zoned. So what ends up kind of happening is divide of the 5 Freeway and the Coronado Bridge, there’s this bearing land underneath these overpasses.
So in the ’70s, the community kept asking for a park. “We want to park. We want a place where we can reside.” And the government at first says, “Yeah, we can give you the park.” And then all of a sudden, it kind of gets renamed, once again, another tree broken, another false promise and they want to build, it was a highway petrol substation in that spot. So the community said, “No, we’re done. We asked for a park, we wanted to place.” Just necessities of life, if we think about it. And so, what they did was they took it over. They took it over with the community themselves, young, old, and they occupied this land and he created a park, which is Chicano Park now. And occupied this place into where at least the government said, “Okay, we’re done, we’ll move our substation, we’re not going to build it here. You can have this space.”
So the community creates this, I like to call it, it’s a Sol Foro. It’s a place where I think not only Barrio Logan residents reside with, I think it’s a calling place for a lot of Mexican Americans in San Diego. What they did was they took these blades or these pillars that cut the community and then created these canvases, these outdoor murals of Mexican American life that brings the color because if you could think about it, these overpasses are these bland, gray muted colors that resemble a kind of, I would say, they’re symbols of trauma, of family members leaving, family members having to move, of forward progress cutting through a community, and then now being now a pillar of the community. They took those pillars and they flipped it. They flipped the narrative and they created a space for many Mexican Americans to come to.
And I think what’s the beauty about Chicano Park. It’s a lot of lowriders. National City, the Highland was the middle connecting avenue that connected South Bay to Chicano Park. And a lot of times, a lot of these cruises would end or start in Chicano Park, and they would use Highland as a way connecting to some of the southern communities of Southern California or San Diego, California like San Ysidro and Chula Vista. So it’s this meeting place, it’s where our Monarch butterflies come back to live.
Yeah. And Alexis just said it, when you look at the map, you can see a beautiful area along the water and it’s completely carved out by the 5 Freeway, we have the 15 Freeway coming in as well as the Coronado Bridge. For example, that would not happen in beach cities like Solana Beach, La Jolla, Del Mar, communities just north of that because of a lot of situations that we’ve been talking about around the history of access.
And I think too, is that we have to look at is when we talk about Coronado, it’s a wealthy island. This is where millionaires have their homes, Seeley, California, it’s also the naval base. And prior to the creation of the Coronado Bridge, it’s like there was only two ways to get off the island, you take the ferry cross into downtown, or you have to take the Silver Strand and you have to go through Imperial Beach, which is a brown community. So it kind of comes and looks at a different way, there’s a bridge representing a place of connecting two communities or is it a bridge that overpasses or goes past the community that many of these wealthy choose to look past, or don’t want to acknowledge? I think that’s really what the bridge, to me, represents, is this affluent community that wants a little more convenience for themselves, and while not looking, and basically driving over a community they don’t want to be a part of to get to [crosstalk 00:25:57]-
Yeah. And I would agree with that because as Coronado Bridge remember used to charge persons for crossing, and so they would actually make quite a profit. And as Alexis is talking about, that really is an exclusive community. Now, they no longer do that, but I would completely agree with you, it is erasing and displacing a population of people. And that’s why I wanted to talk to you about the lowrider culture that you’re studying because it really is a reflection of Chicano culture and history in San Diego around Barrio Logan, and the significance and importance to that, like you’re saying, it’s part of your culture.
Yeah. And I think that was the biggest thing for me. I think any grad student coming in and you’re trying to find your voice, you’re trying to find what interests you, I mean, I think that’s the hardest thing. You’re navigating grad school and it’s like you have to write these papers, but you’re like, “If I’m spending all this time in research, what draws me to this research?” And I think for me it was, I started looking at lowriding as something I liked in the beginning, something I do, I am a lowrider, but I didn’t realize what it does in society. So I started getting into these classes and I started looking at my passion and my love at a different angle and a different viewpoint of knowledge that I was gaining. And you start realizing like, “No, there’s a lot of nuance in this culture.”
And I think that’s one thing is describing it, it’s not a hobby, it’s a culture. And when you start looking at it as a culture, then you start realizing the nuances, and the intricacies in it, how does it evolve? Where does it come from? What is it doing in society? And I think that’s where I started getting hooked and I started realizing it. When I’m reading pieces like Stuart Hall or [Tree Low 00:28:07], and I start realizing, “Well, how’s it all? What is it really doing? How’s it pushing back against society?” And I think for me, that’s where I started realizing I can do something that I enjoy and love, and you look at it from a philosophical level from a different light, and different avenue, and elevator.
And it’s not to say that lowriding is an elevator to begin with. I think in our communities, we look at it and we hold it in the high esteem, or high regard, but it’s branching that crossover. And academics are saying like, “Hey, look at this culture, you guys are not noticing the beauty in it and the power in it.” And I think that’s what kind of gets me going when I start looking at or writing about lowriding. It’s like taking something I like and love and giving it some volume, I think that’s the biggest thing.
Oh yeah. When you presented in our history class, it really like turned a light bulb on in my head because the way you were able to share with us in class, that it’s a way of life, it does not separate from you and your lived experience. And that’s what’s really exciting about, in my opinion, your scholarship because you nailed it on the head. That’s what you are doing here and that’s what we’re all doing, is building on these cultural historians work and showcasing in our own way. For example, why lowrider culture is significant today, you’re able to contextualize it and I’m really interested in how you are analyzing it. So do you want to, I guess, add a little more?
Yeah. So I mean, I think for me, one of my classes, it’s like you have to… One of the big pushbacks when I was at one of my classes was dig deeper, get past the color divide or the brown, white kind of pushback and go forth, what is lowriding doing? And start looking at critique or society, and you start looking at how systems of power are created, and then how lowriding in general interacts with those systems of power. What does it do? When I say decolonizing space and time, how does it? And I think when you brought up low and slow, that’s the performance, that’s the protest. It’s we live in that society, when brown bodies interact in space and time it creates a different narrative for certain individuals. And I think that’s the big thing in how does it do that?
And then when you start looking at the canvas, when we look at it and it is art, these cars and vehicles are pieces of art. So how does art critique society? And so, when I look at, especially in cultures or communities that don’t have much funding or money, you just start looking at agility and adaptability. And I think lowriding in general just is a great example of overcoming one’s opposition. You have an objective and it’s how do you get there? Well, ingenuity, start tinkering, start seeing different possibilities. And it’s when you start looking at alternate possibilities or alternate realities for certain things, then it creates a new kind of opportunity.
So when lowriding at first, low and slow, they used to put cement bricks in the back to drop the suspension. It would cut coils, it was rudimentary how to get the car lower. And I mean, I’m talking about this is in the ’40s and ’50s. And then all of a sudden you start getting laws, laws get passed and say, “Hey, you can’t drive your car with a wheelbase under a certain level.” So then like, “Well, I’m a lowrider, I’m still going to ride low. We got to figure out how to get past this, how to get past this ticketing, how to get past this police presence.” And so, these people that worked on the World War II bomber said, “You know what, I think these hydraulic pumps of the World War II bombers that controlled their landing gear, will raise and lower the vehicle.” It was looking at things that are… And this is surplus, this is trash, because that time, ’50s and ’60s, those are out of date, all those parts are just sitting in a junkyard. And they say, “You know what, I think I can take this trash and create something new.”
And so, you start seeing those possibilities, and that’s the beauty kind of lowriding, it’s creating something out of nothing or forgotten things I think, which is the biggest thing, creating something out of something that’s forgotten or overlooked. And I think for a lot of people of color, we tend to be overlooked in society. So I think that that’s just kind of a metaphor too in general, is that we’re always overcoming obstacles through our culture. And I think that’s the biggest thing is why is culture always the thing that gets police so hardly. Whether it’s the ghost dance that was seen as a threat, talking about dancing.
… Break dancing in New York at the time. Why are these elements of culture so fearful for authority? And even now we see it with taking away certain history out of textbooks or wanting to for certain communities and certain states, because it shows and it paints a different history and light of America. When I say America and I mean the United States, not America, the continent, but the United States, it shows a different light of it. And I think that’s the biggest thing is when we’re preserving culture or highlighting culture, that’s forgotten, you start reshaping narratives. I mean, you reshape narratives is you create a new forward or new progress.
And I think that’s something we share in common, Alexis, is I’m going to start with what you began with, which really is looking at brown bodies, like someone like myself, who’s Columbian and Latinx and yourself Chicana. And the work that we’re doing to really recast public histories, really celebrating the agility, and the craftsmanship, the skilled labor, the wisdom and magic of lowrider culture, that, as we can acknowledge, can be looked at in one very simple way. But when you contextualize it, thank you, Alexis, and create avenues for us to analyze it, then it really widens our understanding of Southern California. And it widens our view of the freeways, it widens our view of the parks on Sundays, it expands our understanding of how art is criticizing and critiquing society and why certain people are overlooked.
Alexis, I had a moment on campus where a lot of my research is about the displacement of the brown body and I’m friends with many people on campus and all the staff. And I wanted to take a selfie with my friend, Maria, who works on campus, helping in the janitor department. And I wanted to take her selfie with her and she looked at me and she’s like, “Eric Thomas, won’t you be embarrassed?” And I said, “Oh, no, I wouldn’t be embarrassed, but would you, would you mind?” And she said, “No, not at all.” But Alexis, in that moment, I acknowledged another brown human being who felt displaced. Even with the amount of hard work and skilled labor, that she feels overlooked in ways.
Yeah, in general, I think sometimes, coming from this background, especially people of color in the service industries, we get overlooked, we’re invisible. It’s weird, even in the pandemic, when we started looking at who is essential and all of a sudden these bodies that we deemed to overlook are now essential, whether it’s the fast-food workers who are predominantly people of color, to the farmworkers that are picking the food that can be sold in the grocery stores, it’s like all of a sudden, now they’re essential, now you look at these bodies and for some people who have been invisible their whole life, it is a shock.
And I think too, for us, as we progress in academics and academia, we’re traversing in a world that hasn’t seen us or not as much of us and it can be a shock to the system. But I think also, we look at it and we say, “We still have to acknowledge our brothers and sisters.” It’s like, we don’t go to [inaudible 00:38:06]… If my whole thing was for self-improvement, and be like, “I want to be a professor, I want to do this, I want to have this lifestyle.” But it’s like, no, I mean, there’s a lot of people that have contributed to my success into the lot in life where I’m at now, whether it’s financial support from family and friends.
I mean, I think that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned now when navigating this PhD life, is that it’s not just mine, it’s not just my accomplishment, solo, my accomplishment. It’s my brother helping me out, buying me stuff here and there, because you know how it is when you’re in grad school or especially in PhD departments, it’s like we’re not the most wealthy people, we’re kind of strapping it together and trying to get to this goal that we’re doing it for, especially for me, for the culture. I’m doing it for Chicano culture, for people of color that we’re trying to tip the balances of diversity in these upper echelons of higher education and it’s like you do have all these different people helping you.
And I think that’s the big thing. It’s like when you look at Maria, she’s an integral part of this academia that we just don’t get shined too, that we overlook or sometimes forget. And I think that’s the biggest thing, is like for me, that’s what I look at when I’m doing my writing or when I’m trying to do… My biggest things that I’m always trying to incorporate oral histories into my methodologies because you can only contextualize so much from an outsider’s point of view. And I think you need those voices of the community that was actually there. And especially of women of color, I think those are the voices that often, right now, are extremely overlooked and not giving their just praise, especially in lowriding culture. We look at it as a strictly male-dominated culture.
And it’s like, what if I told you there was I do believe it was two or three all-female lowrider clubs in San Diego. What power does that bring, especially being a person of color, to be a woman, to take up space, what is that doing in society? What is that showing? That’s a fight on multiple levels and multiple fronts that just by the act of pure cruising on a Sunday afternoon, what are they really doing? And I think that’s the biggest thing we have to look at is, especially as academics of color, is who we write for, what we write for? And I think that’s the big thing is keeping that in our voice, is not to forget where we come from and what inspires us. And I think that’s the biggest things we can do. I mean, that’s just something that I think should be something we keep in the back of our mind every time we write a piece or present somewhere.
Exactly, I’m constantly, Alexis, checking myself every 20 minutes, and you said it, for academics, like me and you, brown bodies, black bodies, Asian bodies, bodies who are minoritized, we are very aware who is on our side and in our corner. And it’s often women like Maria. And that we need to acknowledge how much they participate in our culture, in our success on campus and that, for a lot of us, when we look in Maria, we see ourselves. And that we don’t want to be overlooked and that we are not going to overlook those bodies on campus.
Yeah, I think, for me, it’s always-
There you go, that’s pushback, right?
That’s me pushing back, going, these are the bodies that are in my corner and on my team.
Yeah, and I think, it’s like when I see… For me, my father was a building maintenance, they call them building maintenance engineer but basically he is a building maintenance for the Sheriff’s department in the county of San Diego. So when I go onto these campuses, I look at those individuals, those building maintenance, I see my dad. I see my father working in these establishments, providing sustenance to his family [inaudible 00:42:37], I see that and I’m like, “Okay, I’m not too far removed per se, from that lifestyle and from that.” That’s where I start seeing… when you can start seeing your own self and your own reflection in the people around you. And I think that’s where you start being [inaudible 00:42:53], so it’s like when you see Maria, you’re like, “Hey.” They may see other professors or they see other people and students, like I said, students walk by them, or professors or staff walk by them. So when you sit there and you say, “Hey.” And you take that time to engage with them, it’s a new feeling and it’s also shown us like, “Hey, we’re part of this community. You’re you are us, we are gente, that we’re here.
Yeah, and for a lot of us, Alexis, like myself, we speak Spanish. And so, it’s empowering to have other people who value their culture, like Maria, who’s still are very in tune with her culture, and that she’s really not dispossessed in a lot of ways. And to bring back to that word, joy, that she brings joy to the campus and work. And that’s what kind of ties us back to the lowrider, that this is really about joy and that many people wouldn’t imagine that a Chicano woman would want to lowride, right?
But that’s her celebrating her culture and expressing who she is in many, many ways.
Yeah, and that brings me to one of the oral histories I did. I did an oral history of Chris Cano and she was one of the founding members of a female lowriding club called Ladies Pride.
Yeah. And just thinking about the name, Ladies Pride. And so, especially within lowriding culture, you have the plaque in the back of the car and it says Ladies Pride. This is a lady’s car and the power to, one, in dominant cultures and society saying… Because this was in late ’70s, saying, one, for some people, women didn’t have vehicles. Because vehicles to some extent, we see an upward mobility, but it’s a sense of freedom. So for an individual, for Chris to have our own lowrider, occupy the street, organize to even have these clubs, there’s a lot of organization that goes involved into these clubs, they would do fundraisers like Toys for Tots, one of their members became a detective, a female detective in San Diego PD. So it was kind of like these women are strong ladies, that need to get their-
It’s a network, like a network, right?
Yeah, and they need to get their shine and their… Because a lot of times when I get disheartened is when I read a lot of this history that’s written, it’s like, oh… And there was female lowriders, but they just went and started families. And it’s like, “Well, no, that’s not the whole story. If you can devote chapters about other clubs and the history of lowriding, but you can only give two or three pages of a blurb about the female lowrider clubs. And so I’m like, well, where’s the [inaudible 00:45:59] or the justice in that.”
And I think that’s the big thing that when I go in and I start doing these oral histories for women, these female lowriders, especially when you do oral histories, like you may want and just talk about lowriding, but you’re getting so much rich content about what it’s like to be a Chicana, navigating this world in the ’60s, and ’70s, or ’80s, depending on the timeframe. Or it was workplace, she used to work for a cannery and she was just like, “I couldn’t move up. It was just I couldn’t get up anywhere, they always want me in this one.” So she starts hitting the glass ceilings, you start hearing how proud she was when she was lowriding. She would tell me how, if she worked on a Friday night, or Friday, it would take her two hours because she wanted a cruise to get to her work and how her car was an extension of herself. So it’s kind of one of those things when you saw her a car, you saw her. It’s like having everything clean, presentable, crisp. These are powerful statements.
And for me, it’s just fascinating because I’m looking forward to the future of lowriding. My nieces in San Diego, if I could write them a letter in five years, what would I say? What would I hope for them? And how could they build on that and celebrate their lives in lowrider culture in San Diego?
I think for me, it’s to enjoy it. To get in there and see the history, be part of the history, be part of the change. I think that’s a misconception. So I think because a lot of these stories haven’t been told about all these female lowrider clubs, so a lot of those women that have wanted to be part of this culture. And it is a hard culture to break in sometimes. I’m not going to lie, you see some of the murals and they’re not necessarily inviting for women, especially in the day and age that we are now, but that we need to change, and I think the big change is having that female presence there. So to hold accountable their brothers and say, “Hey, guys, we need to be more inviting.” But to occupy that space too is to say, “Hey, we love cars just like you guys.” And get out there and enjoy it.
And I see it, I have one of my cousins, she has an El Camino and she’s out there. I’m starting to see more women lowriders, which is great, it shows a [inaudible 00:48:37]. And also too, is because these passions aren’t just relegated to the boys and men, I mean-
Mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly.
Women enjoy cars too, and enjoy this culture too, and they have so much input to give on this culture. And I see it as a new progressing, I think like culture in general, it evolves. And I think that’s the next evolution for me or I want to see it with lowriding is seeing this dominant female presence in it, to see that it’s all-inclusive, to have more voices. And I mean, if lowriders can go to Japan and have this great extension to Japan, where the Japanese communities out there are embracing Chicanx culture and lowriding, if lowriding can cross continents, we can have a space for female lowriders in there. And I think that’s the beauty, to see the different elements, to see the different styles that even brings to the cars, different colors and different murals and different ways of seeing how lowriding can be, it’s exciting.
Yeah, I think [inaudible 00:49:46]. I’m very fascinated in how you’re uncovering the equity that is available to Chicanos, and Chicanas, and Mexican American people. But that it’s often siloed, like, “Oh, it’s just about the brothers, it’s just about the guys.” Or the cholos or these misconceptions of brown, and Mexican, and Latinx bodies. But I’m really glad that you’re going to really build on this because I know, from my lived experience in San Diego, that there are so many women who participate in it and that no one has taken the time, as you’ve said, to rewrite that history, to collect that history and to put it in a context so that more people, like you said, can go to the library and go, “Oh my gosh, no wonder I’m a lowrider. I’m building on this. This is part of my culture.”
Yeah, and I think [crosstalk 00:50:58]-
Part of my community and I should have pride.
Yeah, and I think the biggest thing for us as academics is in who and where we write for and what is our intentions. So for me, it’s like when I write pieces, do I write it for the ivory tower or do I write it for the community that I live in and serve? And I think that’s the biggest thing for me, is finding those accessible avenues to share my work and show that I’m writing at this level as well, I’m writing in this academic level, but that it’s for these communities and it’s successful for these communities. So whether that’s kind of thinking about do I write the piece in a different magazine or do I have to present it in a journal? Can I write a piece that says… And that’s my next kind of thing is, can I document lowrider history and say put it in a car magazine, so that different communities see our extension or our progress to the automotive industry.
Because it’s kind of like when you see hydraulics, hydraulic systems are now used in a lot of cars. Sports cars use hydraulic systems. So it’s kind of like, “Where do they get that from?” “Oh, you know what, it’s funny, it came out of the Barrio” And I think that’s the biggest thing, is you start looking at these little pieces that have been used in different avenues, but you got to give them their just shine, and you have to give them their honor that they deserve. And it comes to us as academics it’s like, “Where do I present work?” And I think that’s the biggest thing, where do present and whom do I present it for?
Yeah, I mean, I can already see it, Alexis, as you’re building on a dissertation for you. How would you apply a digital humanities, an omega exhibit? How could you incorporate your oral history into a digital platform, because so much of lowrider is very visual and artistic, and so I can definitely see how you’re cooking on all cylinders, right?
Yeah, definitely, I mean, I had that experience in the last-
Yeah, you want your scholarship to shine and-
Yeah, I definitely had a last… We had a group project and we did that. We wrote about lowriding, and I said to my group and I just said, “It’s such a visual culture.” So writing a paper in black and white does not give it justice. And that’s when as a group, we decided to create kind of like a mock… well, I won’t say mock it’s a kind of homage to Lowrider Magazine and we created our own magazine, a critique issue. And we started to make a magazine that looked at how lowrider critiqued society, and how it is an element for critique, but doing in a medium that lowriders would know. When you saw that Lowrider Magazine on a shelf, you would see that, you’d know that.
And so, one of the things too, I’m kind of grasping is I want to do these oral histories, but I also want to create an element. We live in the day and age where social media is so relevant, it’s how we engage and interact with people. So it’s creating kind of like an online platform, where we have the women lowriders shot how they want to be shot, taking advantage of how they want to be presented with their cars, with links to their oral histories. So I think that’s for me, that stance. Because I think so many times in lowriding is, we see the lowrider model and it’s kind of men telling you how women should interact with cars. And I think it’s a time where we start realizing women have a voice and they can show us how they want to be with their vehicles. And I think that’s a powerful statement and especially if you can link that to the oral histories. So I think that’s something I’m kind of delving with and seeing what I can do with [crosstalk 00:55:00]-
That is really exciting because I could see you also come collaborating with these women, so that let’s say you would curate a digital humanities archive. Imagine collaborating with these women on primary sources, secondary sources, like you said, being able to share clips of oral histories. I can see it already, Alexis, and I think it’s a really exciting project and I celebrate all of the work that you’ve accomplished. You’ve worked really hard. And I do want to have a follow-up on this, but I know we’re kind of getting towards an hour, so I wanted to thank you, Alexis. Is there anything else that you’re working on that you would like to talk about?
Oh, yeah. Actually, I mean, just real quick, I know because we’re even pressed for time. I think one thing I’ve kind of started with my brother is a nonprofit that we’re looking to start is that, during this COVID time, so during this time of pandemic, access to the arts have become very strained. And so, my brother has actually with his abilities, he’s purchased pieces of art from Simón Silva, which is an artist here in California, in that we kind of want to create these mobile art exhibits for the vulnerable communities to visit because if accessibility to museums are becoming stretched. Although we’re starting to create digital platforms, we’re assuming communities that are strapped for cash have access to internet and to these technology, we’re assuming that, and that’s not the case sometimes.
So I think is creating this high-level of art being shown in some of these communities that don’t have access to it, I think is something that me and my brother have been kind of pitching back and forth and trying to get and purchasing art as well from these up and coming artists and established artists, so we can have kind of a mobile gallery for vulnerable communities to come and visit.
That is really, really cool. I just Googled Simón Silva, because I did not know him, and he’s from Mexicali, so kind of a border town in San Diego.
Yeah, and so [crosstalk 00:57:40]-
Is there something you’re cooking on or can we follow you somewhere or-
Not yet, I mean, it’s in kind of the infancy pages. We purchased some art that we want to display. One’s actually low writer piece, it’s a Batman and Robin piece that’s in, I believe a 1960s Impala. But one thing we’re trying to get, was especially with CGU being open now is I think I’m trying to first see if we can start displaying them here at the university, that’s kind of our next step-
So just to have it around and seeing that. And then the next is kind of getting going on with the nonprofit and writing our statements and stuff. Because I think the biggest thing right now is culture and the arts, creating an outlet and the ability to maneuver in some of these obstacles and times, it’s just that hope. And I think that’s the biggest thing, is that we need to foster the arts and we need to foster… Definitely, for me, I found in cultural study, I pivoted from sociology to cultural studies, and you start seeing how culture helps a lot of oppressed societies. So I think for me, and I think sharing art is a big thing, I think fostering creativity, especially within the youth. And creativity can be used not only in art but in sciences, math. You still need to have that creative aspect when you’re delving in those subjects, and I think that’s the biggest thing is how do you create that or foster that mindset?
Oh, most definitely. I really like that because that is what really lowride culture is about. Creativity, art, fostering, nurturing, caring for, celebrating, being low and slow.
And it’s that perfect segue between art and engineering. We look at automotives and it’s a lot of engineering that goes on there, so it’s the combination of art and science, I think, is kind of what I look at lowriding, it’s that perfect combination.
Well, thank you so much, Alexis. You left us with so many questions and ideas. it’s going to be a really fantastic fall, I look forward to seeing you on campus. From studio B3 at Claremont Graduate University, this is Latinx in the Inland Empire.
