‘Tokyo: Living La Vida Lowrider’ by Luis J. Rodríguez

luisnewA row of bald-headed, broad-shouldered young men stand together in the middle of a small smoky dance club called Sound Base. They wear well pressed Dickies pants, Locs (wrap-around shades), extra-long flannel shirts or long cotton athletic shirts in black and gray. A few had T-shirts with images of lowrider cars as well as cholas and cholos. In the club’s parking lot, adjacent to a lumberyard, several lowered 1950s and 1960s Detroit-built cars display airbrushed murals and shiny chrome, the one exception being a caramel brown 1941 Chevy truck.

Click here for POCHO’s review of Lowriting, from which this special sneak preview is excerpted.

On the stage are two members of Quetzal, one of East Los Angeles’ most popular bands: Quetzal Flores and his long-time companion, Martha Gonzalez. Flores strums a jarana, a traditional stringed instrument from the Mexican Gulf port state of Veracruz. Gonzalez is seated astride a cajon, also used extensively in the Son Jarocho tradition of that state, and thumps with her hands and fingers a driving cadenced beat as she sings in Spanish and English, words heavily tinged with Mexican/Xicano cultural and political significance.

Mas…‘Tokyo: Living La Vida Lowrider’ by Luis J. Rodríguez

Lowriting: Shots, Rides & Stories from the Chicano Soul [book review]

lowriting_COVEREvery once in awhile, a book comes out that inspires us to take a trip down memory lane. Such a book asks us to reflect on what was and will never be again. If we only knew then what we know now, things would be different we are fond of saying often as we look back at those past moments we now cherish forever in our hearts. These types of books bring tears of joy and even sadness as we remember both the endless hours of laughter and the heartbreaks that at one time encapsulated who were in our lives.

Even so, rare is the book that also reminds us that we do not need to look back in melancholia, but we should use the past to redefine our present and build for the future. At the same time, these occasional books help to break down accepted mainstream narratives or paradigms while urging us to reclaim both our historical space, and our cultural motifs in order to recover our collective memories of who we are as a people.

Mas…Lowriting: Shots, Rides & Stories from the Chicano Soul [book review]