Like their white counterparts, Mexican American veterans were also purchasing cars with the money they were earning from their service in World War II. This was especially true in southern California where families began purchasing cars in order to adapt to the expanded cities of the new, post-war urban landscape. trace all the way back to the 1940s, when car culture was beginning to take hold across America. Gypsy Rose, Imperials Car Club, Hawaiian Gardens, CA, July 12, 2015
When she eventually moved to L.A., one of the first things she set out to find was the Silver Dollar Café, the site in East L.A. Despite the fact that these figures were culturally and geographically far away, they were always in “the back of my head,” says Bedford. Growing up in Washington, D.C., Bedford’s father, political filmmaker and activist Chris Bedford, raised her with an awareness of, and appreciation for, iconic Chicano activists like Cesar Chavez and Ruben Salazar, a journalist with the Los Angeles Times from 1959 to 1970 and the first Mexican American to write about Chicanos. The result is a series of photos that, like the cars themselves, tell a visual story of how lowriders-the term refers to both the cars and their owners-have used customization as a means of resisting a homogenizing American society that too often suppresses the creativity and pride of its minorities.īedford’s interest in the nexus between art and activism originated at an early age. For the project, she spent five years immersing herself in Mexican American lowriding clubs in East Los Angeles, attending all of the events she was invited to-weddings, funerals and quinceañeras-where the members would display their cars. These are words that could only describe the famous lowriders belonging to L.A.’s Chicano community, which are the subject of photographer Kristin Bedford’s new book, Cruise Night. The names “Purple Rain” and “Erotic City” gleaming from the lacquered frames. Bouncing hydraulics cruising low and slow. Candy paint jobs with glimmering specks of metallics.
0 kommentar(er)
