About the Book
The Lowrider Studies Reader: Culture, Resistance, Liberation, and Familia is the first book dedicated to lowrider studies in the world. This inaugural volume is a powerful groundbreaking book that is a collection of writings from brilliant scholar/practitioners speaking on lowrider history, pedagogy, culture, politics, society, justice, art, language, education, and their significance within the societal schema. Lowrider studies, influenced by beautifully painted hydraulic cars, bicycles with chrome, gold, murals and strolling slow and low, is a growing global field. This book is a must for all Latina/o/x/e studies, Chicana/o/x studies, ethnic studies, sociology, and cultural studies programs. This interdisciplinary and intersectional work emerged from of the 1st Annual International Lowrider Studies Conference, a public and no-cost grassroots effort organized by Save the Kids. Like Hip Hop, lowrider culture is a space and place to divert violence, promote peace, and build familia. Read this book slow and low.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments – Dedication – Frank Hernandez: Foreword – SelindaGuerrero: Preface – Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez/William A. Calvo-Quiros/Anthony J. Nocella II/Elizabeth G. Ramos: Introduction – John Ulloa: Cruising into the Classroom: Lowriding as a Pedagogical Practice – Ben Chappell: Aesthetics and the Battle for the Eastside: Google’s Lowrider, Chicano Park, and the Performance of Space – Daniel Osorio: East Side Hero – Xris Macias: Our Existence is Resistance – Lea Lani Kinikini/Marlena Wolfgramm: Maui the Lowrider: Healing the House of Trouble – Dionicio Miguel Garcia: Car Clubs to Cohorts – David Escobar: Lowriding as an Ancestral Healing Phenomena – Juan Roman-Medina: It’s Not a Hobby, It’s My Culture – Martín Morales Ramírez: El Campesino Project: Conciencia y las Raices de Tu Causa – ElizabethG. Ramos: Raza’s Membership in Lowrider Car Clubs – Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez: Lowriding Murals: Freeways, Automobiles and Mobility – Estella Inda/Kathryn Blackmer Reyes/Julia Curry Rodriguez: Exploring San José’s Lowrider Industries – Luis Alvarez: Afterword – Contributors’ Biographies.
About the Author :
Dr. Anthony J. Nocella II, scholar-activist, is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Salt Lake Community College. He is editor of the Peace Studies Journal, Director of Save the Kids, member of the DreamKeeperz Lowrider Club, and has published over forty books.
Review :
The Lowrider Studies Reader perfectly captures, articulates and speaks-to the power and potential of Lowrider culture as a liberatory conception. In doing so the book makes an original and extremely timely contribution to the literature, and should be an “essential read” for many critical scholars and activist communities alike.
—Dr. Richard J. White, Reader in Human Geography, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
“As an individual of Mexican descent who grew up adjacent to the Lowrider culture and not fully immersed in it, this book takes an interesting ride. Now that Anthony J. Nocella II, the co-founder of lowrider studies has decided to cruise his ranfla through the barrios of the mind, let us hope that this tentative car show just broadens the newly developed field.”
—Victor Mendoza, McNair Scholar, Texas Southern University
“Poetry in ese form, both of us blackened by the system this low ridin cry for freedom sheds light on the urgent need for solidarity.”
—Reece Graham-Bey, Director of Environmental Justice, Save the Kids
“The Lowrider Studies Reader ushers in an original subfield that intersects with many dominant disciplines--sociology, communication studies, performance studies, rhetoric, criminal justice and criminology, Lantinx and Chicana/o Studies, Cultural Studies, and so on. Full of thought provoking themes, the book views lowrider phenomena through wide-ranging issues of identity, power, culture, spirituality, resistance, and social justice. Get a copy and enjoy!”
—Dr. Jason Del Gandio, author of Rhetoric for Radicals: A Handbook for 21st Century Activists
“The Lowrider Studies Reader provides priceless depth in understanding the cultural significance of lowriders, both in their Chicanx/Cholx/Latinx communities of origin, and by extension, globally. Revealing their role as an expression of resistance, aesthetics, cultural reconnection and reclamation, community healing, and solidarity amongst the world's colonized and oppressed, Lowrider Studies is a powerful collection of voices speaking up for the value of this subculture–and about the critical need to protect it from corporate co-optation/exploitation and other forms of violence and erasure under globalized neo-colonial Capitalism.”
—Laura Schleifer, Co-founder of Plant the Land
“This groundbreaking book presents a wide overview of lowrider (counter) culture which combines identity politics with systemic activism. Particularly, contributors articulate and illustrate how lowriding is more than a hobby–more than just cars and even bikes–but a cultural expression and mode of healing that is multidimensional and multinational.”
—Nathan Poirier, Assistant Editor of Journal for Critical Animal Studies
“This edited collection is as innovative as it is timely. The growing field of Lowrider Studies–and scholars of social justice more broadly–will undeniably benefit from the contributors' diverse array of theories and stories.”
—Dr. S. Marek Muller, Assistant Professor of Rhetorical Studies Florida Atlantic University
“The Lowrider Studies Reader is a great introduction to the global, cultural, and political impact of lowriders. This inaugural book of the field shows how lowrider culture has both a liberatory effect for cholx, latinx, and chicanx communities while simultaneously being co-opted by oppressive cultures. This is a must read for anyone interested in the socio-political dynamics of lowrider culture.”
—Dr. Lauralea Banks Edwards, Assistant Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness, SUNY Delhi
“The Lowrider Studies Reader illustrates the history of youth and justice, with the development of a brilliant culture. It is a great primer for introducing the lowrider culture to students, as well as a needed compendium of contemporary literature.”
—Lucas Alan Dietsche, Adjunct Professor, Adams State University
“The book is a beautiful ride of healing through culture, values, and liberation with Cholx, Latinx, and Chicanx empowerment in the driver’s seat.”
—Brock M. Smith, Co-founder, FourLifers Incorporated
“At last a book that holistically illuminates the evolution of a vital facet of Chicanx and Mexican-Indigenous culture that has too long been ignored.”
—Isabella La Rocca González, artist and activist
