- 1 day ago
American Homeboy 2023
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00:28:55threat the zoo suitors might have had a more they had a more communal
00:28:59understanding of the representation of their neighborhood but when that evolved
00:29:04from Pachuco to Cholo that all changed and that became that's when the gang
00:29:10culture really spawned and it took on a whole new meaning so if you put your
00:29:13neighborhood on you you were gonna either live die or kill for that tattoo
00:29:17it was Pachuco but then it became eventually Cholo became a whole
00:29:21different way of doing things that nobody had done before
00:29:35after World War two technology had changed so black folks they went from
00:29:40doing jazz in swing to doing rock and roll you know to doing doo-wop the reason
00:29:48why black people and Mexicans interacted and started taking from each other was
00:29:52because they live in the coast a lot of people argue about the origins of low
00:29:57riding you know what we can agree upon is that low riding begins in the Mexican
00:30:04American experience in the southwestern part of the United States now remember
00:30:09during World War two Detroit is not making new cars right because Detroit has
00:30:15shift to wartime production so after the war right returning veterans they get a
00:30:21little bit of money to buy cars right also there's a turnover in secondhand cars
00:30:27because people after the war want new cars so I think what's really interesting
00:30:32about low riding is that you're sort of taking sort of these secondhand cars and
00:30:37turning it into something beautiful because all their cars nobody wanted them
00:30:42everybody wanted the new cars so old cars you could get an old car for like
00:30:46three hundred dollars and we would just modify them a little you know put rams
00:30:50lower them down and the hydraulics came because we used to lower these cars
00:30:55because it was cool and and the law was you couldn't have a lowered car so they
00:31:00would have it so that they would lift them up so they can be legal and then drop them
00:31:05down so they can be party you know I'm saying there was a surplus of aircraft
00:31:10parts and the hydraulic lifts so it just took the ingenuity and mechanical know-how to install
00:31:18those on a car in order to be able to raise up to a legal ride height we're the we're
00:31:24the I think the only you know culture that is identified by our cars where you see a car
00:31:32that's a 64 Impala with Virgen del Guadalupe airbrushed on it or the pin striping on the side and you
00:31:39go
00:31:39that's Chicano culture on wheels when you customize a car the whole goal is for you to assert your
00:31:47individuality you can have 10 64 Impalas lined up and they're all going to be different
00:31:53so
00:34:58Hello, thank you for tuning into Barrio Expressions, and tonight we have some information for you.
00:35:07Men are cool with us.
00:35:08They accept us.
00:35:09There's a lot of men that they congratulate us.
00:35:12They're happy for us.
00:35:12They're proud of us.
00:35:14And then there's the men that are quiet.
00:35:17You know, they kind of just like look at us like, you know, they give us the looks.
00:35:21I think what we're thinking about, whether it be hot rods or lowriders is how the car, particularly
00:35:28for men, right, becomes a way to express.
00:35:33To me, you know, the candy paint, the pinstriping, it's all just, you know, it takes time and effort and
00:35:40detail, you mean?
00:35:41Those cars, you can't drive that fast back then, you know?
00:35:44They're on 13-inch rims, they're on 13-inch rims, they're on 13-inch rims, the suspension's cut and it
00:35:49has hydraulics, like they're swaying all over the place.
00:35:51I think that we've always done things our way, so car customization is just one of the variables in the
00:36:01equation.
00:36:03Lowriding is an artistic and linguistic expression, and by default, it's political.
00:36:11If you follow the lifestyle and you're one of us, you are one, man.
00:36:15We don't look at you as color, you know, and we never did see them as color.
00:36:18Or my homeboy, my black homeboy, or my white homeboy, that was my homeboy regardless, you know?
00:36:23I didn't see them as a color.
00:36:25So we used to have two or three homeboys that were white, that were just homies.
00:36:29We never saw them as white.
00:36:30They talked pachuco too, cholo, they talked galo, you know, they talked our style.
00:36:35I've seen a lot of car events, lowrider events, where there was a lot of black and brown and everybody
00:36:42had nothing but love for each other.
00:36:44Any time you key in solely on race, you miss, you know, the big picture.
00:36:52You know, it's a very narrow view.
00:36:55Johnny Marvin is now in the hands of the law.
00:36:58This is the first time he's been caught, but his delinquent tendencies began long before in the conflicts of an
00:37:04unhappy home and in the hangout of the gang, which was his refuge.
00:37:10When I worked in East L.A., I wound up in the gang unit because I love working gangs.
00:37:14So then I went to Compton, I got to work my own neighborhood, Willowbrook, and I got known for being
00:37:20the guy who works gangs.
00:37:23I used to describe what I did as a police officer as being the referee at an incredibly violent hockey
00:37:30game.
00:37:31I came from Compton.
00:37:32I came from a very poor neighborhood.
00:37:34Some of my best friends became gang members.
00:37:36They became prison gang members.
00:37:39That could have been me.
00:37:41If circumstances were different, maybe I could have been one of them.
00:37:58In 1966, after I graduated from high school, I went into the military, and the military put me through a
00:38:06battery of tests.
00:38:07It was the military who decided that I should be a military policeman.
00:38:10When I came out of Vietnam, I went to Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
00:38:14I was by then a sergeant.
00:38:16And they had a program where you could get out of the military early if you enlisted in the LAPD
00:38:22or L.A. County Sheriff's Department.
00:38:24My mother and father were anti-Pachuco.
00:38:29My father, he was in the military in the 40s, and all my uncles, all my uncles.
00:38:36So this idea that it was a rite of passage and all Latinos, you know, were involved in this, no,
00:38:42no.
00:38:43Ninety percent of the Latinos in the communities I know, they joined the Army, they got jobs, they went to
00:38:52school, things like that.
00:38:54Some of the young people are doing bad things, but most of them are not.
00:38:57They're just grouping together.
00:38:58But eventually, if the police start messing with you and start detaining you, holding you for little things, eventually you
00:39:04start getting records, and pretty soon you become in the gang.
00:39:08Chicano culture, it came from youth.
00:39:10We have to understand that those Pachucos, they weren't like grown men and women, you know.
00:39:16They were kids, you know, so it came from kids.
00:39:20If you were there at that time, and you asked my uncles or my father, they're panderos.
00:39:27They're, my grandma called them marihuanos.
00:39:31You know, don't hang around with those pieces of trash.
00:39:35By the way, the zoot suit is a, is a, is a open sign of rebellion against the United States.
00:39:41Did everyone walk around, you know, oralece, you know, this kind of, no, they didn't.
00:39:47But there's no evidence.
00:39:48As a matter of fact, the play Zoot Suit, which revolves around the 30th Street kids, they didn't speak Kahlo.
00:39:56They didn't speak Spanish.
00:39:58These were Americanized Mexican-Americans.
00:40:07This is the 7.62 machine gun system, known in the Army as the XM6 kit.
00:40:16Good evening, my fellow Americans.
00:40:19I have asked for this television time tonight to report to you on our most difficult and urgent problem, the
00:40:26war in Vietnam.
00:40:27When I was there at Travis Air Base, I was there in the bed watching on August 29, 1970, those
00:40:33riots going on in L.A.
00:40:37Well, you know, being a soldier and, but my political thinking had changed, I said, oh, I know how to
00:40:46deal with those sheriffs.
00:40:47I know how to deal with them.
00:40:49Yeah, just give me a gun.
00:40:51I had, I changed.
00:40:53The war's at home.
00:40:54Now the war's here.
00:40:55And these people are attacking our people.
00:40:59So it's my duty to attack them.
00:41:01That was what I was thinking as a soldier.
00:41:11One of my friends in the Army, he grew up with me.
00:41:13He went into Ralph J. Bunche Jr. High School with me and all that.
00:41:16He's a lifer in the military.
00:41:18And then one day he came home on leave.
00:41:19And I went to go pick him up at the airport.
00:41:22And when he got in the car, I told him, hey, Johnny, I got a nine millimeter on my side.
00:41:28I got a 45 under my seat.
00:41:31And there's a 380 on my right leg.
00:41:34And there's a 38 in the glove box.
00:41:37And he looks at me and goes, Richard, you're paranoid.
00:41:42I was.
00:41:44Right.
00:41:44I was ready for that fight.
00:41:46If it was going to come, I was going to be ready.
00:42:18I was ready for that fight.
00:42:23Our communities were especially impacted.
00:42:26Poor white as well.
00:42:28Working class people were getting hit, really hit with Vietnam.
00:42:31Vietnam was a war that brought more conscience, I think, to those issues than any other war.
00:42:35You know, to me, especially as a Vietnam veteran, it's difficult for someone to admit that they fought for nothing.
00:42:45They fought for, we fought for nothing.
00:42:47And we lost, and we lost a lot of people.
00:42:50And the Vietnamese lost a lot of people.
00:42:53Three million people.
00:42:54Forget about them.
00:43:17I don't recognize these streets.
00:43:21Streets.
00:43:23Streets.
00:43:25I used to call my own.
00:43:29Feel the days are getting longer.
00:43:32Remember, as the anger grows and grows.
00:43:41And I'm tired.
00:43:44I'm tired.
00:43:46I'm just so damn tired.
00:43:52You hear the people in the streets.
00:43:58The anti-war Chicano movement became a catalyst for other, or a rallying point for other causes, such as the
00:44:09black civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the hippies and all of that.
00:44:14You know, the counterculture movement.
00:44:17What I disliked was the agitators who would come into the community and agitate the locals.
00:44:23And when the time came when confrontation would occur, guess where they were?
00:44:27They were somewhere else.
00:44:28And you know what?
00:44:29They usually weren't from our neighborhood, right?
00:44:31They were some rich kid in college, you know, a privileged guy who was coming down to the neighborhood to
00:44:39create a problem and then leave.
00:44:40Some of these guys were backed by red China and Russia.
00:44:59So we're building that conference.
00:45:01And we're also hoping to invite all of you to come on Sunday at 3 p.m. at the corner
00:45:06of Clifton and Sherman at the George I. Sanchez Center.
00:45:08And again, I remind you that most of us will have to think about what this means, because it is
00:45:15true.
00:45:15I feel very much that they do not know the difference.
00:45:19They don't see a different thing when they look at Mexicano or Chicano.
00:45:23They see the same thing.
00:45:24And these two things are intricately tied together.
00:45:28In the 60s and 70s, there was a very clear distinction between Mexican-Americans and Chicanos.
00:45:36Chicanos were those who self-consciously embraced a politicized agenda and identity.
00:45:45And we made a very clear line between us Chicano and those Mexican-Americans.
00:45:50I would say Chicano was a term that was used a lot in my household.
00:45:54My pops, you know, growing up in that era, I would say, you know, being real young, in the 60s.
00:46:00To me, growing up, Chicano and Mexicano, I didn't even think, I didn't even know there was a different, there
00:46:05were two different words.
00:46:07We used them interchangeably.
00:46:11But then it became politicized.
00:46:14Chicanos, the term was already used in the streets.
00:46:16And I know even when I was growing up, growing up in Watts and eventually the east side, the San
00:46:22Gabriel Valley, before the Chicano movement, we were calling each other Chicanos.
00:46:27For me, Chicano growing up meant being two things at the same time and not enough of either one.
00:46:34Born in America with Mexican parts, right?
00:46:38So we're trying to be American, but we have this big influence of Mexico and our heritage, our relatives, trying
00:46:48to combine the two.
00:46:50I think now that we have social media is now you see how many homies really aren't Mexican.
00:46:57When I met my wife, she didn't know I was from Central America.
00:47:00I think she found out after we got married, or she found out maybe a few years after we actually
00:47:04were together.
00:47:05I consider myself Chicano, and there's nobody going to tell me different.
00:47:09If I would have never came out and said, hey, I'm from Honduras, you would assume, yeah, Gil's Mexican.
00:47:14There's a lot of us out there, but it's not that I'm trying to be Mexican.
00:47:16It's not that I'm trying to be anything else.
00:47:18I'm a guy from North Hollywood that, yeah, consider yourself Chicano because that's what I am.
00:47:22What do you think about the police who say that if you wear tattoos, that you're a potential gang member?
00:47:31I think that that was, like, one of the strongest people that I have tattoos don't belong to no gang.
00:47:35I don't think you should be, like, put in a different, like, group because you've got tattoos.
00:47:44You know, there's a lot of people who have tattoos.
00:47:47My father has tattoos, you know, he's 50 years old.
00:47:51Does that make him a gang member?
00:47:52No, this one's wrong.
00:47:53I think that that was, like, one of the strongest ways that they could say, no, look at me, you
00:47:59know, and I'm not going to go and hide, and I am proud of, because I remember getting my last
00:48:03name on my back when I was a kid.
00:48:05That was the first tat I got, and I went to school the next day, and I wore a slingshot.
00:48:10I wouldn't even wear a T-shirt because I wanted everybody to see that tat, Holmes.
00:48:14And, you know, the homeboys were like, orale, chooks, you know, you got tat at home, and that's firme.
00:48:19But I saw teachers and other people, and they looked down their nose at that marking on my back that
00:48:24meant so much to me.
00:48:28And I just remember thinking, you know what?
00:48:31I don't care, man.
00:48:32Like, this emblem, this badge of armor that I'm wearing right now, it's way, way, way more magnetic and powerful
00:48:39to me than their opinion of what they think I am.
00:48:42I was brought up as a Catholic because of my grandmother, you know, as a child.
00:48:48So that always has a meaning to me where religion is who I am, you know.
00:48:53And culture, and I guess family, I mean, that's who you love, you know, that's the closest thing to you.
00:49:01Your ethnicity, your family, you know, or your culture, and these are the things that will never change.
00:49:07And these are, like, the core of our representation when it comes to tattooing.
00:49:11If you look at any true vato from that lifestyle, look at the image they wear.
00:49:15They're all similar.
00:49:43I think that going back to the 70s,
00:49:48and certainly the presence of Good Time Charlie's Tattoo Shop on Whittier Boulevard,
00:49:58that Chicano-style black and gray tattooing moves to the shop where historically it was a prison experience.
00:50:10The plaquiasos, you know, the graffiti, you know, Chicanos have a very distinct style of graffiti.
00:50:17It wasn't just tagging.
00:50:19The Chicanos were creating these really large, elaborate pieces.
00:50:23A lot of it came from the YAs, you know, the YA system, you know,
00:50:28this is where Freddy and the Gritty and all these people come in.
00:50:31It's because they started in there, and I know the people that were in there with him.
00:50:35And they would do it for the guys wouldn't, you know, start any fights or violence.
00:50:41They would let them, okay, you guys could tattoo each other or whatever, you know,
00:50:44just stay out of trouble, you know.
00:50:45So they would start practicing it on each other,
00:50:48and those patterns start turning into collages and stuff, you know.
00:50:59I'll never live this down.
00:51:01My peers are going to kill me.
00:51:05Okay, working in a prison is...
00:51:06Okay, let's take a beat for two seconds.
00:51:09Okay.
00:51:11Working in a prison is not always what people think or what the community thinks.
00:51:16We like to have the community come and tour the prison,
00:51:19so they don't have the idea that we are the old stereotype James Cagney-type prison guards.
00:51:25We're professionals.
00:51:27Well, all the traditional gang dress from the 60s and 70s all came out of prison.
00:51:35So, like you said, a shirt folded neatly over the arm, the white T-shirt, the khakis, the white tennis
00:51:42shoes.
00:51:43All that stuff was county issue or state issue.
00:51:48So a guy walking down the street who deliberately was dressing in that way was telling everybody,
00:51:55hey, I just got out of the jail, you know, or I got out of the joint.
00:52:09It was completely different, and there was a big awe.
00:52:13It was like, I don't even know how to describe it.
00:52:16And I just knew when I was in kindergarten, when I was in first grade,
00:52:20all I wanted to do was be a cholo, you know what I mean?
00:52:22The cholo style became very khaki, iron, certain shoes that can allow you to run but also be cool.
00:52:29The baggy pants, the Nike Cortez, dark lipstick, the sharpie eyebrows.
00:52:35Pants were perfectly creased, and you couldn't have a wrinkle on your shirt, you know,
00:52:40you couldn't have a hole on your jeans, you couldn't have a scuff on your shoes.
00:52:43White tees eventually became the thing that Chicanos made big, you know,
00:52:48the wool caps and then pendletons, you know, and then keeping buttoned.
00:52:52Two, because it actually flared out a certain way if you had two buttons up here.
00:53:00They started stylizing everything, just like the Pachucos did.
00:53:04They were still wearing their pants like they did with the zoot suits, except they were replaced
00:53:11more so by clothing that reflected their social conditions.
00:53:15So I would say three different things.
00:53:17One is the military.
00:53:19Two is labor.
00:53:21And then three is the pinta.
00:53:40I ran a teen center program in Willowbrook for troubled kids under the Catholic Youth Organization
00:53:47and the War on Poverty.
00:53:48So if you would have saw me then, you would say he's an activist, a liberal, a Chicano, right?
00:53:53That's what I was.
00:53:55But when you become a policeman, you get to see things from the other side.
00:54:04I got committed in 91 for shooting at some cops and you shoot at some, obviously I didn't
00:54:09like the cops for a certain point in my life, right?
00:54:12When you become a gang member, a lot of people believe that off the bat, they're just killers
00:54:17and, you know, they're just, they're cold-blooded individuals.
00:54:20And that can be the farthest thing from the truth.
00:54:25It has a lot to do with prison.
00:54:27Prison has had a huge influence over us in a negative way.
00:54:33It's made us believe that that's where we want to go.
00:54:41I think we're the only culture that strives to go to prison.
00:54:48African-Americans don't do it.
00:54:50Irish never did it.
00:54:51Italians never did it.
00:54:53No other race has ever said, I want to go to the joint.
00:54:56Us, as kids, even now, I want to go to the joint because we glamorize the hell out of it.
00:55:12Why do you think the cops are doing this?
00:55:15Basically, I don't think they like too many Chicanos crowded around at one time.
00:55:19So they see that and then they get afraid.
00:55:23They're afraid that we're all congregating in one.
00:55:27See, we don't have adequate facilities down here for the use around this neighborhood.
00:55:30I think it would be a good idea if they can get some money together to provide for them,
00:55:34to have some place to go, so they would stay off the streets, like a little clubhouse.
00:55:38There's plenty of vacant buildings around here, which can be leased out, you know,
00:55:42on the government funds or what have you, and put the money to use, you know,
00:55:45rather than take it from us and not use it for nuclear weapons or what have they, you know.
00:55:50Use it for the community, you know.
00:55:51Use it for the kids so they can have some place to go,
00:55:53so they don't hang around like they always are, and then they won't be harassed.
00:56:08They don't have no right talking about the way you dress.
00:56:11You know, the police think that La Raza is a big gang.
00:56:14You know, we just come to have fun, meet new people, and everything like that.
00:56:18You know, we're in a gang.
00:56:20We just, people like to have fun.
00:56:34Nicholas Rosenberg here, Punching Back.
00:56:39I'm a private criminal defense attorney in the Los Angeles and Southern California area.
00:56:44I'm considered to be a certified specialist in criminal law,
00:56:48and I tend to do a lot of cases with gang allegations and serious and violent felonies.
00:56:56There's a lot of racial profiling that happens around the gangs,
00:57:00and if you see somebody, you know, 5'8", 20s, 20-year-old, HMA, bald head, big white t-shirt,
00:57:10baggy pants,
00:57:11then someone's going to say, hey, I think that guy might be a gangster.
00:57:15So law enforcement can initiate contact with that person.
00:57:20Well, you know, everybody profiles.
00:57:23We see a car.
00:57:24It's driving erratically.
00:57:26It's got a busted taillight.
00:57:27You know, and we pull the car over, but we didn't profile whether he was black or white or Hispanic.
00:57:34We profiled the car and the way it acted.
00:57:40To just blame police officers for all our issues?
00:57:43No.
00:57:44At this point in time, we already know.
00:57:46You're going to sell drugs?
00:57:47You're going to go to jail, homie.
00:57:48You're going to carry a gun?
00:57:49You're going to go to jail, homie.
00:57:51You're going to shoot and kill somebody?
00:57:52You're going to go to jail, homie.
00:57:54You're going to try to pull a gun on a cop?
00:57:56You're going to get shot.
00:57:57It's like, these are basic gang-banging one-on-one rules, homie.
00:58:02You're going to do this stupid shit?
00:58:03Stupid shit's going to happen to you.
00:58:04But it seems like society is so woke, streets ain't woke.
00:58:09You're going to get shot and killed.
00:58:10When they first started those gang injunctions, I said, no, that's not good.
00:58:15That's not a good thing.
00:58:17Everybody got mad at me and they said, well, these injunctions are working.
00:58:22I said, if you tell a gang member that he can't associate with other gang members, who's he going to
00:58:27associate with?
00:58:28Rival gang members?
00:58:30If he can't hang out with his cousin, if he can't make a phone call, if he can't live in
00:58:36his own neighborhood?
00:58:38A gang injunction is basically a civil public nuisance order, and it's designed to prevent them from associating together.
00:58:46It can prevent them from wearing clothes, for example, Dallas cowboy jersey.
00:58:51It can impose a curfew on, quote, known gang members.
00:58:55And it really can be disruptive to the community because you might have a cousin or a family member who's
00:59:02also served the gang injunction, and now you can't associate with that person.
00:59:07Once that gang injunction went into place, you can kind of tell it became more like a patrolled state environment.
00:59:17A lot of homies started dwindling down.
00:59:19They were getting incarcerated for hanging out with each other.
00:59:21And I'm talking about cousins and brothers and siblings, family.
00:59:25Another thing I didn't like that we were doing was called gang sweeps.
00:59:30You know, you go into a neighborhood, and you find out everybody has a warrant or a suspect in something,
00:59:36and then you arrest 200 gang members, and you seize 500 guns.
00:59:42Those things are not effective.
00:59:44That's a Band-Aid.
00:59:45That's a force show for the 5 o'clock news.
00:59:48But that doesn't really affect the gang member.
00:59:51What affects the gang members is when you catch the guy who actually did the shooting.
00:59:56You bring him before the court, and he gets sentenced and goes to jail.
00:59:59Then the neighborhood knows they're not just picking on us because we're Hispanic.
01:00:03I think I went to prison at a time when even a lot of prisoners that, you know, that's their
01:00:10home at the end of the day.
01:00:11You know, they've been in there for a long time, some of the OGs.
01:00:13And I think I went to prison during a time when a lot of Chicanos inside prison were becoming political
01:00:19conscious,
01:00:20or at least it was being broadcasted to the public that we're no longer just going to sit back and
01:00:25accept the state's, what the state called rehabilitation,
01:00:29because there is no rehabilitation in there.
01:00:31If anybody's giving us rehabilitation, it's going to be ourselves.
01:00:34When it came to getting released, and I would go to court, I would tell the judge I didn't want
01:00:38to go home.
01:00:40I wanted to stay in there.
01:00:41You know, and they were looking at me like, this guy wants to stay here?
01:00:44I go, I actually did, because they were like my, those were like my brothers there now.
01:00:49You know what I mean?
01:00:50I kind of, I had a bond with these guys, you know.
01:00:53Typically, when somebody's incarcerated in a prison environment where everyone else is already convicted,
01:00:59if they're offered the opportunity for rehabilitation, then their chances, their likelihood of reoffending goes down.
01:01:07What are they going to do when they're out of prison?
01:01:09How are you going to help them?
01:01:10How are you going to give them the knowledge and the skills and whatever they need to make it?
01:01:14I think most of these guys, and I've talked to a lot of them, thousands and thousands of guys in
01:01:18prison, want help.
01:01:21They just can't get it.
01:01:25I'm sitting on the beach, and Corona Del Mar Beach, my favorite one, in between Laguna and Newport Beach.
01:01:34I have my little cooler, my Chardonnay.
01:01:38I have my New York Review of Books to read.
01:01:42And I saw these three or four white dudes that look like teachers or coaches,
01:01:49and they come down to the beach from the, there's a little hill you have to walk down.
01:01:55They come down to the beach with about 40 or 50 kids in shorts.
01:02:01Most of them were Mexican.
01:02:04And I found out, I found out they were part of a juvenile group.
01:02:10These guys were kept in the house separate from the jail and were training them and teaching them.
01:02:16And I started crying.
01:02:18I started crying because I said, that's all our kids need, man.
01:02:23Just get them.
01:02:23If they want to act bad, come on.
01:02:25We'll get you in an organization.
01:02:27We'll supervise you.
01:02:29We'll feed you.
01:02:30Act bad that way.
01:02:32You know, learn ways of acting that you're not going to kill yourself with drugs or alcohol
01:02:38or kill somebody else, some innocent person.
01:02:41Sometimes, I think as Chicanos, I think what destroyed a lot of us is,
01:02:46sometimes when you have too much pride, pride destroys, and you start killing each other.
01:02:52You know, too much pride is bad.
01:02:55You know, we're kind of out of so much.
01:03:46Hip hop, by the way, was always black and brown.
01:03:49It was the Puerto Ricans that helped create hip hop, all five aspects of it.
01:03:53And then the Mexicans right away got into it.
01:03:56We started getting wind of punk rock and hip hop.
01:04:01And at that time, the skateboarding, break dancing, that whole scene was real big.
01:04:06I remember in the late 70s and early 80s, when Mexicans were already doing break dancing.
01:04:13Before anybody saw it, nobody did break dancing in L.A., except Mexicans.
01:04:17It wasn't even black people.
01:04:23One of my earliest memories as a person, not even as a lowrider, but one of my earliest childhood memories,
01:04:32was seeing the Gypsy Rose come across the screen on TV in the opening Chico and the Man credits.
01:04:47When it came on, Chico and the Man, we're on TV.
01:04:51It was like that car was representing us, all of us.
01:04:54When I seen that thing, it was like, you got goosebumps.
01:04:57Like, man, we're on TV, you know?
01:04:59And I think that's what made that car so famous, is because it was the first car to break that
01:05:05barrier.
01:05:05At that point, I realized that lowriding was much bigger than what I knew it to be on the street
01:05:15or in the park.
01:05:19Lowrider magazine was such an important sort of product that really visualized lowrider culture around the world, right?
01:05:30And it played a very big role in sort of the marketing and dissemination of lowrider culture.
01:05:46You know, they took something that was there and they innovated and they looked at it with a different perspective.
01:05:53And so, Sonny Madrid had started Lowrider magazine.
01:05:56He's originally from Sanjo, but I think it's also important to know that he was also an activist.
01:06:01So, he was heavily involved with the Chicano movement.
01:06:06When it started, you know, in 1977, it was a magazine by Sonny Madrid, Ryan Larry Gonzalez.
01:06:12It was a magazine for Chicanos, by Chicanos.
01:06:15And it was for the Chicano community.
01:06:17And that just created a big old explosion because this is the first time you could open a book, a
01:06:22magazine.
01:06:22You could see our people as we are in our neighborhoods and communities, you know.
01:06:37The onset of gangsta rap in the 90s, you know, and that's where we really see, like, the global exposure
01:06:45to lowriding was through the channels of the early 90s gangsta rap videos.
01:06:54You see it in hip-hop, right?
01:06:56I see it with lowriding Chicano culture, where, like, because of globalization and because of the Internet, people are learning
01:07:05about our culture through the screen.
01:07:19I tell you, when I was in Japan, and, you know, there's a big cholo lowriding culture there.
01:07:26It's a subculture.
01:07:27I was very amazed how respectful the Japanese were, because part of me was saying, oh, they're appropriating our culture.
01:07:33You know, part of me is, like, they're using us.
01:07:37I didn't get that.
01:07:38They totally love the culture, and they give it props.
01:07:42They say, this is Chicano.
01:07:43A lot of people take the culture and don't say that.
01:07:46And so they said this, and they really emulate it so good.
01:07:49They followed it.
01:07:50And so I began to respect them for respecting us.
01:07:58Yeah, like, Japan does everything incredible.
01:08:02Like, anything, like, artistically or technically, you know, they're like masters.
01:08:10When they jump into a culture, they go 100% in.
01:08:14And does one sole group have ownership over lowriding?
01:08:18That, in and of itself, is debatable, right?
01:08:21So, you know, it's like when I talk about lowriding in Japan, and people that don't know any better go,
01:08:27lowriding in Japan, that's crazy.
01:08:29I'm like, is it?
01:08:32What about a little white kid in suburban America who's taking karate lessons, who's counting in Japanese?
01:08:40Is that crazy?
01:08:42But one thing I noticed, they were all into the culture of beautiful tattoos and everything, but they're not gangster.
01:08:49They're not killing each other.
01:08:51And I'm saying, they kind of picked up the beauty of it, and not picked up the ugneness.
01:08:57Sir, any of you have any questions about body of warfare, about the conference that's going to be taking place
01:09:03this Saturday at Mission High School in San Francisco?
01:09:05Feel free to give us a call at 754917.
01:09:08The thing that worries me, though, is the Mario warfare.
01:09:15You know, like, I'm a gringo, and it kind of worries me, because I'm in the South, in the Hayward.
01:09:21And I know you're half, but what about all the other dudes that's riding around, you know, looking for some
01:09:28happenings?
01:09:29You know, some action?
01:09:31Okay, before anybody keeps calling, I want to make some points clear.
01:09:35There's a lot of youths, there's a lot of raza that are being murdered.
01:09:39We got to stop.
01:09:40We got to stop and realize that those persons, regardless of their color, regardless of their race, are human beings.
01:09:51There still are a lot of us who live that lifestyle, and I've seen my share of war, and I'm
01:09:56over it.
01:09:57I've been over it, Holmes.
01:09:58Aggression, anger, and violence on any level.
01:10:01Hey, Holmes, I am a retired tough guy, for reals.
01:10:05You know what I mean?
01:10:05I did all that, but to me, the strongest gesture I can make in this point in my life is
01:10:12to totally move in a different direction, because it solves nothing.
01:10:16It never did and never will.
01:10:19Unless you want to change, you're never going to change.
01:10:23It all comes from you, man.
01:10:24You've got to want to change, you know?
01:10:26Once you change yourself, things will change with you, man.
01:10:32Hey, homie, I was wrong.
01:10:34I'm still on my hood, but now when I see the homies, instead of, you know, trying to give them
01:10:37a strap, I try to give them, you know, some advice, work, get a holly, do this.
01:10:41This is gangster, homie.
01:10:42People get upset at me sometimes.
01:10:43That's just being a man.
01:10:44That's maybe to you, but I'm trying to change the narrative.
01:10:46Being gangster now is going to work, taking care of your family, putting food on the plate, man, put a
01:10:50roof on top of the kid's head.
01:10:52We have a beautiful culture.
01:10:56Spanish, Indian, you know, it's a beautiful culture.
01:11:02But they didn't want us to be gangsters.
01:11:06That's not what they wanted, right?
01:11:09They built Los Angeles.
01:11:12Anybody can go down to the Placita and look under that big tree at the plaque of the founding families
01:11:19that founded Los Angeles.
01:11:21There they are.
01:11:22Their names are there.
01:11:24That's the kind of people we want to be, making life better.
01:11:28And they were mestizos.
01:11:31You know, they were Spaniards.
01:11:33They were Indians.
01:11:34Mulattos.
01:11:35Whatever they were.
01:11:36But they all worked together.
01:11:38And we founded Los Angeles and it became a great city.
01:11:42We need that.
01:11:43We need that again.
01:11:44We need that again.
01:11:45We need that again.
01:11:47We need that again.
01:11:50We need that again.
01:11:51We need that again.
01:11:55We need that again.
01:11:58We need that again.
01:12:00We need that again.
01:12:03We need that again.
01:12:04We need that again.
01:12:04We need that again.
01:12:04We need that again.
01:12:04We need that again.
01:12:04We need that again.
01:12:05We need that again.
01:12:05We need that again.
01:12:06We need that again.
01:12:06We need that again.
01:12:06We need that again.
01:12:08We need that again.
01:12:09We need that again.
01:15:12You know, Howard Zinn said you can't be neutral on a moving train, and I think that that's
01:15:17also true for lowriding.
01:15:18It's one of those things that elicits a reaction one way or the other.
01:15:27It's tough to kind of just be like, yeah, you know, use it for commercials, use it to look
01:15:33cute, because, you know, it means a lot more to certain people.
01:15:38And, you know, but then me, I just feel like, you know what, though?
01:15:42At the end of the day, are we there still?
01:15:46Well, you know, let's make the best of it.
01:15:47Well, you know, culture changes, culture changes, you know, and that's, I wouldn't say it's
01:15:56not necessarily good or bad, but we just have to understand why and how it's changing.
01:16:00I think that I've substituted that hatred and the segregation for a true love for our people.
01:16:09And I just see it for what it is, the cultural and how strong and how amazing, you know, our
01:16:15thing really is.
01:16:15And so to see it tainted or harmed by anything, you know, to me, it don't sit right with me.
01:16:21This place has given me the opportunity to raise my family, to be a successful person from being a gangbanger,
01:16:29from doing six years in YA, all that stuff, and I'm still here and I'm winning.
01:16:34Why? Because America gives me that opportunity.
01:16:37America's not going to just hand it to you.
01:16:39You got to work for it.
01:16:41We all swim in this economic, political, cultural matrix that is America.
01:16:47You can't separate yourself from that.
01:16:50And I think over time, it became clear that those dreams of kind of creating our own autonomy is just
01:16:58not doable.
01:16:59And so what you're left with is then are the aesthetics, because that is doable.
01:17:04That you can do.
01:17:07All that being said, those were all good times, even the negative times, you know?
01:17:16Like, they're, they made cool stories now, you know?
01:17:20As much as I don't think pachucos were a good thing, you got to admit, it was cool.
01:17:52I don't think pachucos were a good thing, you got to admit, it was cool.
01:17:55I don't think pachucos were a good thing, you got to admit, it was cool.
01:18:06Bye.
01:18:06Bye.
01:18:07Bye.
01:18:12Bye.
01:18:14Bye.
01:18:15Bye.
01:18:18Bye.
01:18:19Bye.
01:18:19Bye.
01:18:22Bye.
01:18:23Bye.
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