LOS ANGELES — From the color of the body to the hydraulic system, every single detail is carefully checked for near perfection by Alejandro “Chino” Vega before it hits the streets of the San Fernando Valley.
“This is what I was telling you about details,” said Vega, pointing to a glistening green and gold 1962 Chevrolet Impala. “You’re going to see something like this, but you don’t build that overnight.”
Chino Vega — as he is known in the lowrider community — owns C&L Customs in Sylmar. He has decorated his shop with various titles for lowriders he’s created. Before Vega lived for lowriders, he arrived in the San Fernando Valley in the 1980s as a teenager who only knew about fishing off the coasts of Jalisco in Mexico.
It was a candy apple red Cadillac lowrider that rolled low and slow in front of Vega that made him fall in love with lowriders.
“I love everything that I do,” said Vega. “Everything that I do is about lowriders. My wife gets pissed off because even our vacations are about lowriders.”
Vega’s lowriders have been around the world. They’ve sat inside galleries near the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and have been in numerous exhibits at the Petersen Auto Museum. They’re in the garages of celebrities like Mexican singer Ramon Ayala and actor Danny Trejo. It’s a huge contrast for Vega, who remembers that as they rode low and slow, lowriders gained notoriety and were deemed a societal menace.
“Back in the days, they weren’t putting ‘lowrider’ in anything because of the whole stereotype that we are nothing but drug dealers, gang members,” said Vega.
In the 90s, as an undergrad at Berkley and in between the folds of a copy of Lowrider Magazine, CSUN Chicano studies professor Dr. Denise Sandoval found curiosity to answer one question: What does it mean to ride “bajito y suavecito,” or low and slow?
“It’s honor, respect, it’s pride, it’s familia, it’s brotherhood, it’s sisterhood, it’s hard work,” said Sandoval.
Sandoval’s curiosity about lowriders started the day a canary yellow lowrider cruised by the playground at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in La Puente.
“I have this image of seeing that [lowrider] on Friday morning,” said Dr. Sandoval. “The kids were all like, ‘Ooh,’ and the nuns were all like, ‘Don’t look!’”
Decades of research led to numerous lowrider exhibits, works published and even the nickname “lowrider chick.” In her fifth exhibit, now open at CSU Northridge’s Library, Sandoval explores “The Politics of Low and Slow” through more than 400 contributed historical artifacts and artwork by Mister Cartoon, Esteban Oriol and Frank Romero.
Contributors like Vega tell the stories of a rich culture that brought the community to use space in order to create place.
“People collect these artifacts because they are part of their history,” said Sandoval. “They are part of their story.”
The exhibit is just one more effort to submerge outsiders into the rich culture of lowriders while also giving respect to those like Chino Vega, who will never stop riding low and slow.
“When those people come into our culture, we get more respect because now we are not only talking to the regular Latino,” said Vega.