CHICAGO– For Luis Martinez, competing in lowriding bike and car competitions is about more than just fame and bragging rights. The Chicago area lowrider clubs have become one big family and a source of mutual support.
“It just starts with the metal,” said Martinez, who was introduced to lowrider culture when his mother took him to a flea market. He got his first bicycle when he was twelve.
“For me, it’s about expressing my art and what I can do with my own hands,” Martinez told The Associated Press as he polished a shiny red bicycle at his home in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Lowriding, a movement of expression that originated in Mexican American and Chicano communities, is an aspect of Latino history in the U.S. in which people show pride, honor family, and elevate culture. But misrepresentation of the culture in entertainment and media has often linked the lowriding motto to gang culture.
Yet, decades since its emergence, and as the Hispanic population in the U.S. increases, lowriding has boomed, as evidenced by an increase in the number of car shows and conventions across the country.
Lowriding involves customizing a vehicle – from the tires to the sound system – with vibrant designs and colors. Unlike hot rods or muscle cars, which are often modified to have big tires and go at high speeds, the lowrider community has modified the cars and bikes to go “low and slow,” says Alberto Pulido, president from the University of San Diego Department of Ethnic Studies.
“It was a way to speak with an identity and a presence, and it was done with few resources,” says Pulido, who also directed the award-winning documentary “Lowriding: Everything Comes From the Streets.”
“Our community didn’t have a lot of money,” he said. “They might have had a little bit of disposable income to buy a car, but then they were kind of on their own to make their vehicles. We call that Chicano ingenuity.”
According to Pulido, lowriding originated in the Southwest, although there are disagreements about where exactly it first appeared. Pulido said lowriders in Los Angeles would like to claim they were the first, while those in San Diego want their undeniable influence in the culture recognized.
The culture can be traced back to after World War II, when veterans came home with disposable income. And with the growth of highways and freeways in California, people wanted to customize their vehicles, Pulido said.
Today, conventions draw enthusiasts from all over the US. Last month, what was once a small showcase with just 40 lowriders at Lincoln Park in El Paso, Texas, grew to more than 300 lowriders from clubs across the US.
Hector Gonzalez, of the Lincoln Park Conservation Committee, said the car clubs help members travel to all the showcases around the country. In the 1970s and 1980s, lowrider clubs became a representation of the community and helped provide assistance and resources when local government couldn’t or wouldn’t, Gonzalez said.
“It’s something that’s passed down from generation to generation,” says Gonzalez, who, like most lowriders, was introduced to the community at age 13 with a bicycle. He has passed on his love for lowriding to his own children, nieces and nephews
“Kids grow up seeing the cars, they pick it up and continue the tradition,” Gonzalez said.
Lauren Pacheco, co-founder and co-curator of the Slow and Low Chicago Low Rider Festival, described lowriding as a global phenomenon of self-expression and innovation worth billions.
“It’s a marvel of mechanical innovation,” Pacheco said. “It is the beautiful artistry in the creative practice of muralism, storytelling and upholstery.”
Over the past decade, lowrider conventions have grown so much that they have found their way to Japan. In Nagoya, Japanese lowriders have customized their cars, formed clubs and even come to events at San Diego’s Chicano Park.
Appreciation for lowriding has increased in recent years, enthusiasts say. But that wasn’t always the case.
In the beginning, lowriding was associated with harmful stereotypes about Latinos as gangsters, Pulido said. Because the culture primarily involved Latino participants, lowriding became racialized, overshadowing the artistic and service aspects of the movement.
The 1979 thriller-drama “Boulevard Nights” also helped to perpetuate lowriders as a gangster trope. The film’s protagonist, Raymond Avila, played by Richard Yñiguez, tried to avoid being lured into the violent street gangs of East Los Angeles. Lowriding vehicles and the lowrider “cholo” aesthetic were featured throughout the film.
Although the perception of lowriding has improved since then, Pulido said he has been to lowriding car shows where police showed up immediately.
Martinez, the Indiana lowrider, said misconceptions about lowriding increased in the Chicago area because community members were tattooed in ways often associated with gang affiliation. Pacheco said the Chicago festival aims to dispel these misconceptions.
“We’re really not trying to create a space that glorifies or romanticizes gang culture,” she said. “It really is a celebration of creativity, innovation and family.”
Gonzalez, the organizer of the Texas lowriding showcase, said the culture’s focus on wheels, hydraulic systems and accessories has made lowriding a booming industry.
In El Paso, people have opened small businesses aimed at the lowriding community. At least 25 new businesses have opened in recent years, including auto body shops, furniture stores and clothing stores, Gonzalez said.
“It has become a mainstream business,” he says. “In the seventies and eighties it was more of a local thing. Everyone helps each other to do things themselves. Now there are all kinds of options to purchase things and have things done to your car.”
Martinez, originally from Dallas, Texas, said he would buy the parts he needed from a man in his neighborhood who would buy them in bulk from Lowrider magazine. He said the unfortunate thing about lowriding becoming so big is that parts are now mass produced from China instead of being made in Mexico.
But lowriding isn’t just about the often expensive task of customizing cars, Pulido said. It’s about building a community that is always there for each other, across generations, he said.
“We have grandparents who are lowriders and their children and grandchildren are already in tune with each other,” Pulido said.
It’s a legacy Sonia Gomez wants for her 8-year-old son, Daniel Marquez. His late father, Alberto Marquez, had been a member of a lowrider club in Chicago. Daniel is too young to drive the car his father left him and has a lowriding bike that is more of a memorial to his father.
“The bike is what he does to build it up,” Gomez said.
The family will hold an ofrenda, a display often associated with Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos celebrations, when local lowriding festivals are held. As part of the ofrenda, Daniel takes a photo he has with his father on a lowriding bike and places it next to his actual bike, which he named “Wishing on a Star.”
“We either went on a lowriding cruise with my uncle or we went to real car shows,” Daniel recalled recently, as he sat behind the wheel of his father’s lowriding car parked in the driveway of their Frankfort home . Illinois.
“My mother would be there,” he said, pointing to the passenger seat. “And I would have been completely squashed there.”
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