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Local car clubs -- Amor Latino, Orgullo Latino, and the Midwest Lowrider Car Club -- take pride in their rides, their families, and their efforts in work and school. Participating in the Fiesta Parade, hosting annual shows for nearly 20 years, club members consider their cars works of art and expressions of Latino culture. In Summer 2000 and 2001, lowriders drove their cars and bikes across the Rock River to Lawrence Park, to display the colors, sounds, and movements of their art against a backdrop of green trees, flowing water, and the smoke stacks of the steel mill.
MIDWEST LOWRIDER SHOW - LAWRENCE PARK - SUMMER 2000
Like mural art, lowrider cars symbolize transnational and transhistorical connections across the Americas: from los Aztecas to la Virgen de Guadalupe or the Last Supper; from Benito Juarez to Emiliano Zapata; from Charras in typical Jalisco riding gear, to wild cartoon characters. Lowrider cars cross time and space with originality and glowing colors.
Humor, social critique, and unity are all evident on the club signs, emblems, and placas -- specialized Midwest license plates. Like norteņo corridos played on Chicago radio stations, the placas poke fun at the idea of border crossings. Combining Spanish and English phrases, the signs celebrate barrio unity, "lo nuestro" -- "our thing" ... the cultural mixings that Latinos bring to the heartland. Classic cars and emblems recall pachuco styles from the 1940s, and lowrider beginnings in the 50s and 60s.
SEE: Midwest Lowrider's Show SUMMER 2001
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