California Lifts Decades-Old Ban on Lowrider Cruising

Episode Transcript

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Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Hey, it’s Ericka. Quick little note. The bay is looking for an intern. This is a 16 hour a week paid opportunity to help us make this show. The internship runs from January through June of 2024. So if you’ve got love for local news, the Bay Area and podcasting. Let’s chat. The deadline to apply is November 17th. We’ll give you a link to the application in our show notes. All right. Here’s the show.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to The Bay; local news to keep you rooted. California is the birthplace of lowrider culture. That cool procession of candy colored vintage cars modified to bump up and down thanks to advanced hydraulics. Driving slowly so you could get a good look at the details, the rims, the leather seats, the drip. It’s a decades old tradition, an art form really celebrated mostly by California’s Latino community. And while born here, it wasn’t always accepted here.

David Polanco: I mean, I grew up in San Jose, born and raised and being a young Chicano driving through the cities, even before the cruising ban was in place. You know, I got pulled over so many times.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: For years, statewide bans on cruising and low riding have led to a criminalization of the culture. But now those bands are being lifted. Today I talk with KQED’s Latinx engagement producer Paloma Yaritza Abarca about a new law that lifts decades old bans on lowriders and cruising and the communities in the Bay Area who fought to make it happen.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: This car culture dates back to the forties with Chicanos, Latinos and other cultures alike. They’re heavily modified classic cars that have hydraulic systems that allow them to bounce, they lower them, lift them. When I was young, my dad had a late nineties Ford F-150. It was a burgundy, like shiny color, had like velvet seats inside, you know, like all these very, like, unique details.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: The music that you tend to hear is usually oldies. Lowriders also tend to bump cumbia, Spanish or English.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: When it comes to, like, the aesthetic, white tee khakis. You know, Cortez’s zoot suits were also a very big part of this culture, you know, And it’s a whole lifestyle.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I know you talked with folks here in the Bay Area who are part of this community. Can you introduce me to David Polanco and tell me who he is and where he’s from?

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: David is the president of the United Lowrider Council of San Jose.

David Polanco: I think really heavily influenced by lowrider. I see them every day.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: He grew up around lowriders and not just because of it being big in San Jose, but because two of his best friend’s parents owned car shops.

David Polanco: We were given the opportunity to work on cars and help paint cars and put wire and tire tires and wheels on em and in lowriders and the body shop.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: And his dad didn’t own a lowrider himself, but his dad took pride in his car.

David Polanco: We grew up poor, you know, and our cars that we have was in windows. Got to be clean, tires got to be clean. So it was kind of like lowrider mentality of from him back when he was doing it, when he was younger.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: And David kind of like held on to that.

David Polanco: Every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, you know, there’d be a lowrider parked in the front yard or something of a cousin or an uncle or somebody, you know, with the stereo blaring. We didn’t have boomboxes back then, Right? What you had was your cousin’s Impala with six paintings in the trunk open as an equalizer.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: And it was cool to also learn that he actually still has one of his old school Chevelle cars that was actually gifted to him by his father in law. And that’s a car that he still has and to this day.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, how does he talk about the role that cruising and also the cruising community has played in his life?

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: He did share that, you know, being a young Chicano in the city even before, like the cruising ban was placed. The unfortunate thing is that he grew up around a time where folks were getting targeted.

David Polanco: That’s that’s what the cruising was all about. The police chief and other police have all said it was a tool to, you know, really just to profile you.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: He also has these memories where, you know, he kept on getting stopped. He kept on getting profiled.

David Polanco: And we always called his shopping. You know, he fit the profile around. You got four guys in the same car. You know, you’re young. You got a mustache.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: You know, he kept on getting stopped. He kept on getting profiled.

David Polanco: Got pulled over so many times. And and to be honest, no tickets to my trip, my first ticket till I was, like, 37 years old.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, let’s talk about that idea a little bit more, because as much as this is about art and community, this is a community that’s been very stigmatized in California, as you were just talking about. Can you tell me a little bit more about that history of how this culture of cruising became sort of stigmatized and criminalized in California?

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: The purpose of law writing, you know, it’s to be cruising and, you know, as slow as possible, exhibiting your customized vehicles, showing off your culture, everything you put into your car. But it has been associated with street racing and gang members, especially through movies.

David Polanco: We always go back to what’s the average person know about their and how are they going to know about law writing this? There’s nothing really positive out there for it.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: That’s not to say that gang members weren’t riding in these cars. I don’t want to say that at all, because they were. And David shared that himself. But that’s not the whole community. And what the cops were doing here is that they were stigmatizing the community as a whole and making it seem like just anyone riding in a lowrider was a gang member or was associated with something negative, which wasn’t the case.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Eventually the stigma against low riding manifested into laws. In the 1980s, California began allowing cities and towns to place bans on cruising, citing concerns about traffic congestion and gang violence, and even made it illegal to modify cars to make them low. San Jose implemented its own ban in 1986. So now, in addition to police harassment, low riders face the threat of fines, fees and even having their cars towed. But the culture never went away. And in more recent years, things have started to change. And it all started at the local level. After the break, we’re going to talk about an effort to decriminalize low riders in San Jose and how the movement expanded from there. Stay with us.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: You know, Paloma, we’re talking about this community because in recent years there have actually been pushes across the state to lift these bands that we were just talking about on cruising, including in San Jose. What have people like David been doing to try and change the narrative around cruising?

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: So to change the narrative around low riding, you know, there’s been a lot more community events happening with these low riders. For example, there was a time where a whole bunch of low riders got together to protest for farm workers rights. There was another moment in San Francisco where the Lowrider Council from San Francisco, which is ran by Roberto Hernandez, who is also the founder of Mission Food Hub. They pulled up one day to a community event that the Mission Food Hub was having, which is a place that tends to give groceries and food to local community members. Lowriders pulled up to this event and helped pass out groceries, and so Lowriders have been trying to do a lot more community work to show that they are part of the community, that it’s not just gang members and all this negativity.

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Paloma Yaritza: Abarca Raul Peralez, who is a former San Jose council member and he is now a San Jose police officer, has been pushing for this change heavily because he also has had this kind of experience.

Raul Peralez: I always remained respectful and often engaged with the officers asking why I was being detained in such a manner.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Last year, law enforcement officials pushed back on the idea of lifting San Jose’s ban, proposing to only let lowriders cruise during police sanctioned events. But the city ultimately decided to lift the bans entirely and voted to end fees and fines associated with cruising. And this year, advocates for low riders took this fight statewide. Some of that organizing that was happening locally in San Jose eventually turned into a broader statewide movement in the form of a bill known as AB 436. It actually passed in the legislature and has since been signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. What does this law do exactly?

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: This repeals the statewide ban on cruising, and it was introduced by Assembly member David Alvarez. The changes that come with it depend on the county, for one. We know that lowriders won’t be targeted for driving down a certain block. We also know that no cruising signs are going to be removed if they haven’t yet from certain blocks. And now it’s when communities and county and counties are working together even more to make this a successful rollout so they can have resources for traffic. And so this has passed. But now it’s when like the work is going to start even more.

Lorraine Quiñones: So how do we all come together to make AB 436 a successful rollout?

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: Lorraine Quiñones is a very big advocate for the Lowrider community coming out of Los Angeles. And she played a very big role in making sure that a lot of signatures were collected from the community for a be for 36 to make sure that it passed and to also make sure that the governor just saw that, you know, there was members that wanted this to happen.

Lorraine Quiñones: It’s an empowering move that, okay, I did this, what else can I do for my community? What else can we do together?

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: What do you think the lifting of this ban could mean for the future of low riding and cruising.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: That folks are going to be able to be out in the streets, you know, of course, with regulations and resources, but they’ll be out in the streets and community comfortably. And San Jose’s actually has been a hub for low riding since the 1940s. In January of 1977, San Jose State University students Sonny Madrid, Larry Gonzalez and David Nunez published the first issue of the Lowrider magazine, which is a very popular magazine within the Lowrider community that showcases lowriders Showcases are it has their own models, you know, and that’s that’s something that came out of here from San Jose. And so there’s history here.

AJ Noriega: I just I think it’s important to make people feel that they’re important. I see you.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: AJ Noriega, she is the founder and president of Chicano Dreams, which is this brand new low riding club from San Jose.

AJ Noriega: When I was in high school, I was talking to my friend and I was like, you know, one day I’m going to buy a lowrider. I’m going to start my own club. There’s going to be all females.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: It’s funny because when I actually went to go interview her, there was already kids around there, you know, in their little lowrider bikes.

AJ Noriega: When I think of the future, I think of my nieces. I think of like the other young girls in the community, like stepping up and owning their place. And I hope that I can be that person that inspires them to to really just, go for it.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: So, yeah, it’s it’s going to continue to get passed down. And if this law sticks around, it’s going to be a smoother process for them going forward.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, Paloma, thank you so much for talking about this with me. I really appreciate it.

Paloma Yaritza Abarca: And of course, thank you for having me.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: That was Paloma Yaritza Abarca, a Latinx engagement producer at KQED. This conversation with Paloma was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Maria Esquinca is our producer, she scored this episode and added all the tape. Additional production support from me. Shout out as well to the rest of our podcast team here at KQED. That’s Jen Chien, our director of podcasts, Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager. Cesar Saldana, our engagement producer, Maha Sanad, our engagement intern, and Holly Kiernan, our chief content officer. The Bay is a production of member supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.