Lowcura : the creation of family in Chicano lowrider car clubs / a film by Jazmin Ontiveros.

Format:

Video

Contributor:

Ontiveros, Jazmin, director, narrator.

Center for Visual Anthropology, production company.

Series:

Academic Video Online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Automobiles.

Lowriders.

Mexican Americans.

Genre:

Documentary films.

Ethnographic films.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (22 minutes)

Place of Publication:

Los Angeles, CA : University of Southern California, 2013.

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

video file

Summary:

Rooted in the post World War II era, a time when car ownership became one of the key components of the "American Dream" myth, the James Dean-inspired rebels "without a cause" of young White America rose their hot-rods off the ground and enhanced their speed. Echoing the greater push for economic efficiency, speed, and competition in the U.S., fast food drive-ins and fast-car drag races became symbolic features of hot-rod culture. For hot-rodders, the fastest car came out on top. Chicanos, on the other hand, refused this mainstream need-for-speed. With their chin up, their y que! (so what!) facial expression, and their carefully slicked-back hair, Chicanos cruised the concrete streets low and slow. Under warm California sunrays, Chicanos' candy-painted, gold-spoked lowriders dropped jaws and turned heads. Lowriders were not fast and competitive; they were slow and visible. Lowcura takes us on a ride into the present-day Bay Area's lowriding scene from the passenger seat of the Padrinos Car Club's lowriders. Through the lens of a car club member's younger sister, the passenger and filmmaker, we see the Padrinos' lowriders as mobile murals for the concrete streets to see. But once the ignitions are off and the lowriders are parked, we are introduced to a 30 year-old legacy of a brotherhood-or a second family-created in the streets of San Francisco. As lowriding has spread globally to places such as Japan and Brazil, the film provides a window into the ways in which the lowriding movement is always rooted in friendships, hometown pride, and, of course, the love of cruising.

Notes:

Title from resource description page (viewed April 18, 2018).

OCLC:

1035413515