Identity in the aesthetics of lowrider nostalgia

Abstract

This article will discuss the lowrider phenomenon, which involves the proprietor and their automobile from the year 1990 and before. Both reflect the identity of a group who share their nostalgia athrough a vehicle transformed in their own structure and aesthetic. The lowrider lifestyle involves being with the border community everyday sharing a geographical space. However, it is reviled by its poor origin and as a consequence as violent or dangerous, and labeled as second class. That for many it is unknown the rich identity which they possess. The lowrider preserves the history and dignity of the deprived, through the design in the murals of the cars and in their own bodies through tattoos, they present the conquered indigenous, the revolutionary mexican and the chicano transgressor, which defend the “Cul”. The culture which they understand and how they live it. In the border of the USA and Mexico, in the cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, the lowrider identity is found.

In the border, the edge or in the urban geographical limit, the low and slow phenomenon survives in nostalgia, in the aesthetic and in the identity, validated by the majority, we find it in the outskirts almost hidden, without acknowledgement, getting lost in the overwhelming modernity of  everyday life. The objective of this investigation is understanding the concepts of identity, aesthetic, and nostalgia that are forged in the affiliation of a group and its preservation through the modification and ornamentation of their mode of transport, which itself are objects. The methodology utilized is qualitative based on exercises of ethnographic observation and participatory interviews. The results are presented through the analysis of three representative groups which include, the modification of automobiles and motorcycles, bicycles and individuals with a lowrider lifestyle.