Join Eric Ignacio Thomas and Alexis Paul Monroy’s conversation on the sights, sounds, and transformational power of the street for Latinx persons. As a lowrider Monroy’s goal is to spread a deeper consciousness and appreciation for street culture while amplifying the often-unheard voices which fill them. How does Cultural Studies allow for deeper analysis of the lowrider and the street? How can we reimagine lowriders in Southern California? For more information about the CGU Cultural Studies department, visit their website. TRANSCRIPT Eric Thomas: Good morning. Here we are on Latinx in the Inland Empire. This morning we're going to speak with Alexis Paul Monroy, who is currently a cultural studies doctoral student at Claremont Graduate University. He is a resident of National City, California. His work at CGU concentrates on the sights, sounds and transformational power of the street. As a lowrider, his goal is to spread a deeper consciousness and appreciation for street culture while amplifying the often-unheard voices which fill them. Alexis received his bachelor of arts in sociology from San Diego State University and a master of arts and cultural studies from Claremont Graduate University. Good morning, Alexis. Alexis Paul Monroy: Good morning, Eric Thomas. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Eric Thomas: Yeah. I got to know you in class last year in Dr. Poblete's class, and I was really interested in your burgeoning master's scholarship and research. And I know you've worked really hard on publishing scholarship around lowrider culture. So tell us, Alexis, what is lowrider culture? Alexis Paul Monroy: Oh, I mean, well, in its simplest form, I mean, you can think about it as the car culture, it's a form of American car culture but with a Latinx and a Chicanx flare. It's a culture that takes things that are forgotten or thrown away, revamps it, brings new life into it. And so, it encompasses everything, encompasses the religious aspects of Mexican American life with the combination of Mesoamerican origins, it's a culture that resist norms and push me back against white authority, but it's a vibrant life, it's full of color, and amusement, and wonderment, that's how I see it. Eric Thomas: Oh, most definitely. So let's talk about a little bit of the history of it, and then let's take it back to the context of National City lowrider culture today. So did lowrider culture begin in SoCal in the '40s or how did it begin? Talk [crosstalk 00:02:38]- Alexis Paul Monroy: Yeah. I mean, the major kind of conception of lowriding, it gets its roots in Southern California, it's car culture, post kind of World War II. What happens is, in general, the car in American culture has representing upward mobility, expansion, forward progress, it's that American dream. And for immigrants as well, for Mexican Americans coming to this land or already part of this land of the United States adopt that as well, but they bring their flare and their expertise with them. So it's kind of ironic, it's like the World War II provided the skillset necessary for these cars to be built. You take these instruments of war and you make it into a different weapon of identity, pushing back against norms of invisibility. Alexis Paul Monroy: So after the servicemen left World War II, they have the skillset of working on World War II bombers, the auto pool. And unfortunately, they couldn't afford the cars coming off the assembly lines of Detroit. So what they do is they're like, "Okay, we're going to take these old cars, these forgotten relics, and we're going to revive and bring a new identity to them." So they start backward engineering. Backyard engineering is pretty much what I call it, they kind of, "How can we get these cars running? It's not good just to have a car that runs, we want something with style and flare." And so, they start experimenting and starting to realize that if you drop the cars down, there's a different attitude, there's a different mobility of the car. Alexis Paul Monroy: And then, of course, the paint jobs was their way of kind of showing their identity, whether they're marked with Mesoamerican iconography, to religious elements, or even a Mexican American war icons like Emiliano Zapata or Pancho Villa, it was a canvas for them to express their identity. And so, yeah, there is this kind of connotation that it comes from Southern California, but I mean, it has its roots in so many different places, whether it be the American ideology of the automobile to its roots in Mexico with the caballeros who used to adorn their saddles with silver engravings and parade the streets. These are relics that are carried on and moved on in different forms through culture. Eric Thomas: Mm-hmm (affirmative), most definitely. I really liked how you spoke a lot about the significance and contribution by Mexican Americans and the Chicano culture. As someone who lives in the Inland Empire, there's many, many lowrider communities. And one thing I've learned is that one of their taglines is low and slow. And I wanted to ask you, Alexis, let's unpack that. I think there's a lot to say there that touches on a lot of communities that we'd spoken about and what they're trying to do when they're doing that low and slow. Alexis Paul Monroy: Yeah. So I mean, low and slow in its form, it's a performance. It's a performance of being seen. So first when they dropped the car, they saw that it became an exaggerated, just the optics of it. So when someone lowers their car, it creates a new line, it creates length of the car, the vehicle, you can see different aspect of it, but it's an attitude, it's a form of being seen. So when you're doing that low and slow, it's just how do we elongate this time? How do we elongate this act of lowriding? Alexis Paul Monroy: And it's a contrast. So in Southern California, you can kind of had two scenes. You had the lowrider scene and you had the hot rod scene. So predominantly the hot rod scene is an Anglo kind of culture that wants to go fast, "We want to go as quickly as possible, it's all about speed." Where the lowrider flips that axis. It's not about going fast or going point A to point B, it's how do we elongate this performance? I want to be seen. And it comes to a lot of different things. It comes from being in a culture where, especially in Los Angeles or even where I'm from in San Diego during the '40s and '50s is that invisibility where we're supposed to be not seen. It's that survival tactic, don't be seen, don't be heard, that's how you're going to get to the next day. Alexis Paul Monroy: Well, lowriding says, "No, I'm not invisible anymore. You're going to have to see me. You're going to have to deal with my bravado, and I'm going to be here, and I'm going to be occupying space and time." So that lowriding low and slow is that occupation, it's that retaking or reclaiming space and time. So it's more than just actions, I think that's what kind of drive me into researching lowriding. It's like, you grow up around this aesthetic, and you grow around this culture, and you enjoy it as a youth. Alexis Paul Monroy: And then when you get to kind of where I'm at now, and you start saying, "Well, what is it really doing? What does lowriding do? Why is it such a stigma criminalization? Why is it a criminal act in some aspects, because it's in a lot of cities throughout California." And you want to know what is it doing to authority? And I think the biggest thing is saying that we're here and we're not going anywhere. You're going to see me; you're going to have to deal with me. And I think that's the big thing, it's a disruptor of authority and of hegemony. Eric Thomas: Yeah. As someone who appreciates lowride culture and went to Berkeley during the 1990s, I was really informed, like most of us in the '90s, by the West Coast hip hop, G-funk culture. Dre, Snoop Dogg, how they kind of featured that as part of kind of a music kind of vibe too and the relevance of street culture for a lot of us who want to be seen. And- Alexis Paul Monroy: Yeah. And I think the big thing too as well is that lowriding is not all just a Mexican American creation. It has its roots there, but it also expanded way beyond the Barrio. And I think too, we have to come to realization is that we, and when I say we, me, myself as Mexican American Chicano, that we occupy the same places and spaces as our black and African American brothers, we have the same obstacles. And so, a lot of things that draws to lowriding is because we're occupying the same space in place, that we're more connected that some people don't want to express. And I think then that's where you see the adoption and collaboration, if you will, of input. Alexis Paul Monroy: And I think that's a big thing too with hip hop, is hip hop car culture, even car culture in general, music has always been synonymous with car culture, especially within Southern California. We have these thorough ways that we can drive, and there's always a soundtrack to this movement. And I think that's why there's always this combination. So whether we see Eazy-E or especially Ice Cube in these '63 and '64 Impalas because we're inhabiting the same place and time. Eric Thomas: Yeah. It's such a fascinating cultural studies project because you're really looking at this intersection of human lives but at the power dynamics, how people are displaced but also recasting their culture, and rebranding, recreating, completely re-imagining the street, re-imagining cruising, and re-imagining low and slow. I think it's really a fascinating example. And that's why I really wanted to talk to you on our podcast, Alexis, because I feel like there's so much that's accessible to your research and scholarship and- Alexis Paul Monroy: Yeah. I mean, I try to look at things. For my instance, when I look at small practical things that we do every day, so like for me, lowriding wasn't an everyday kind of staple, it was something we saw on the weekends and you say, "Well, what's amazing about this?" But also, why is it being attacked by authority? Why is it criminalized? When I look at hip hop or even that dance, why was it so demonized? Why do we look at this musical
