((PKG)) LOWRIDERS OF LOS ANGELES
((TRT: 05:22))
((Topic Banner: Lowriders of Los Angeles))
((Reporter/Camera/Editor: Genia Dulot))
((Map: Los Angeles, California))
((Main characters: 1 female; 1 male))
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Miguel
Owner, “Town2Envy” Lowrider))
It’s a ‘95 Town Car and I bought it from the first owner and I bought it all original, original stock, rims. The first thing I wanted to do is I took it to One Way Hydraulics in LA and they put hydraulics and I had to stock rims. When I was 19, 20 years old, I bought this one and I’ve been fixing it since then.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Denise M. Sandoval, Ph.D.
Lowriding started post World War II, when men in the United States really began this love affair with the American car. Hot rodding actually began a lot sooner, like in the 1930s. And hot rods were cars that were built off the ground to go fast. So, lowriding in post-World War II America, it was the opposite esthetics. Instead of being high and fast like hot rods, which, you know, represent Americana, it was oppositional esthetics and they took it low to the ground and it was about going slow.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Miguel
Owner, “Town2Envy” Lowrider))
Once you change the tires from original size, next you lower the car and it has small rims, so it’s definitely going to go to the ground.
((Miguel
Owner, “Town2Envy” Lowrider))
People would just drop the car. So, they’ll drop it and if a cop seen them, they’ll get pulled over. So, little by little, people started inventing the hydraulics and they started putting the hydraulics. So, I guess every time they see a police officer, they’ll raise up the car, so they wouldn’t get pulled over and get a ticket.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Denise M. Sandoval, Ph.D.
Professor, California State University, Northridge))
There was a California law that your car couldn’t be any lower than the bottom of the wheel rim. Hydraulics did allow, sort of, lowriders to go from illegal to street legal but yes, a police officer could still write you a ticket for, you know, having hydraulics too low but typically they don’t.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Miguel
Owner, “Town2Envy” Lowrider))
Little by little, cops started seeing that, “Okay, you know what? This guy is just a lowrider guy.” So now, they just see me, they just wave. Back then, I guess they just wanted to check, make sure I wasn’t gang-related. Make sure I didn’t have guns in the car. Because, like I said, they just stereotype. First thing they see lowrider there and think, “Oh, it’s a gang member.”
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Miguel
Owner, “Town2Envy” Lowrider))
I am not going to say it’s safe. It’s not safe because once you’re up in the air, you pretty much have no control of the front wheel. So, you can’t turn it. Once you come down on the floor, there is so much pressure that anything could break. Like you can see. Right now, I am working on it because I was hopping it last weekend. I was having too much fun. That’s what happens. You burn stuff.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Denise M. Sandoval, Ph.D.
Professor, California State University, Northridge))
When you talk to lowriders about their car, they say, you know, with the car, they want their car, you know, looking clean. They want, you know, their favorite music blasting and a girlfriend by their side, right. So, I think that it’s also, this love affair you see in American movies as well in that time period, post-World War II, of like a mating ritual, right, for youth. How cruising, you know, becomes another expression of that.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Miguel
Owner, “Town2Envy” Lowrider))
When I took it to the mural guy, I just told him “Hey, I just want girls. I want girls, money and weed.” I just let the author to use his imagination and this is what he came up with.
((NATS))
((Denise M. Sandoval, Ph.D.
Professor, California State University, Northridge))
The car becomes like an art object, right. It literally becomes an art object. To me, it becomes a moving mural. And I think we have to think about these cars as art objects as well. They have that practicality, right. Able to get you to cruise the boulevard, right. Or get you where you need to go as a car. But then they are also art.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Denise M. Sandoval, Ph.D.
Professor, California State University, Northridge))
Lowriding culture today is very diverse. It’s not just Chicano. There’s African American. There’s White. There’s Asian. Lowriding is in Brazil. It’s in Japan. Lowriding, I think, is something that obviously started in the United States, represents sort of American culture. But other cultures around the world are using lowriding to express their identity.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Miguel
Owner, “Town2Envy” Lowrider))
If I were to sell it, I would want more than 20k [$20,000]. But honestly, like I said, I prefer not to sell it because I prefer just to pass it on to my kids and have them enjoy it.
((NATS/MUSIC))