The California Lowriders: A Merging of Chicano Civil Rights and Culture

Title

The California Lowriders: A Merging of Chicano Civil Rights and Culture

Description

Cruising originally began in downtown San José until police diverted riders into the unincorporated Eastside, particularly near the intersection of Story and King Roads. According to Jesus Flores, a car club historian, low-riding crowds grew on the Eastside. Similarly, in Los Angeles low-riders had been pushed off of Whittier Boulevard by new restrictions. Many ethnic Mexican Angelenos faced similar obstacles to those in Santa Clara County. Lowriders cruised up to Eastside San José in numbers that resulted in the creation of “No Cruising” zones. Low riding culture went underground until the City of San José lifted the City’s low-riding restriction in 2022. According to Smithsonian curator Steve Velasquez, during the Chicano Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, car clubs took on a politically empowered perspective, inviting family involvement and undertaking community events such as fundraising for the United Farm Workers labor union and hosting health initiatives. The car-culture aspect of low-riding was 10 percent, while the social aspect was 90 percent.

Mexican veterans had utilized mechanical skills learned in the military to modify older models and lowered the rears of the cars with weights in order to stylishly cruise the roads. So it was no surprise when San José introduced the use of hydraulics in the low-riding scene. In 1977, San José State University students Larry Gonzalez, Sonny Madrid, and David Nunez pooled their money and published the first Low Rider Magazine in a small store front on Willow Street in San José. Just as the Chicano Movement utilized mythical Aztec artistic designs reminiscent of Diego Rivera murals, so did low-rider car artists. Velasquez noted that car artistic expression became a tool of resistance, calling the cars “mobile canvases.” As noted in Smithsonian Magazine, low-riding became “the nexus between art and activism.

Scholar Talk

https://library.sjsu.edu/sites/library.sjsu.edu/files/images/b4sv-tp6slide21-1080.jpg

Additional Online Information

East Side Revelations - Lowriding | San José Public Library

California Low Riders, San José, 1978

“San José’s History of Lowriding”

Low Riders in the Barrio 1979

The Vibrant History of Lowrider Car Culture in L.A. | Travel | Smithsonian Magazine

Cruising for Community: Youth Culture and Politics in Los Angeles, 1910-1970.

Identifier

B4SV Exhibit Topic Six: Slide 021