Custom Mambo

1992, 5 min. 13 sec.

"Manejar bajo (to drive low) is for the pride. And despacio (slow) is because we want to be seen”.

Crazy George from the "Viejitos" car club. 

Technology can have applications other than material, practical ones. For the Lowrider community, linguistics and aesthetics play a more important role than transportation. They fix their cars in the most incredible, excessive, baroque way ever imagined. Metal flake illustrated paint jobs, gold plated engines and brakes, velvet upholstery, disco lights, video systems and deafening stereos are some of the features that transform Chevies and other makes into shrines to be admired on the streets. Hydraulic systems are used to make the cars jump and dance and the beds of the trucks spin at more than 70 miles per hour. The car symbolizes the Californian way of life. Lowriders slow the freeways disrupting their efficient, pragmatic purpose, transforming them into a playground and meeting place. 

This early nineties video is the first I did about the subject. It doesn't pretend to coldly document this phenomenon but rather functions in a visually seductive way like the machines themselves using images, video technology and effects of dubious taste. The music composed by Xavier Alvarez is an electroacoustic piece that samples Perez Prado (the king of Mambo). Here again new technologies create rhythms and sounds that deal with the notion of "avant garde" and tradition at the same time. "You lower your car for the pride and if you drive too fast, people won't be able to check it out" says Crazy George from the Viejitos car club. These "rides" constitute an effort to be noticed in a society that doesn't want to see the people that ride them. I hope the video conveys the overwhelming experience of the Dyonisian "beauty" that escapes any notion of rationality and at the same time hints at some of the problems it raises.

a.k.a. BOOBOO

"I had a teradrop tattoed under my eye for all my lost homeboys and homegirls. A teardrop is from the heart. We've all lost someone or something in life. It's like wearing your pain on your face, but at the same time you're not letting your emotions out, they're on the inside."

-Cindy Martinez. a.k.a. BOOBOO

The overtly aestheticized “Vida Loca” has been a rich and attractive subject matter for photographers. Its fashion, tattoos, cars, music and culture in general give visibility to an otherwise invisible and disenfranchised inner city population. Cholos are models that pose to be seen and mark their territory. Their image seduces a marginalized youth and also Hollywood, the media, artists and an audience hungry for the spectacle of violence too. There are fantastic photographs of pachucos by Max Yavno, of home girls by Graciela Iturbide and of vatos by José Galvez. In fact the homies also make quite unique pictures and publish them in “Teen Angels” magazine. Photojournalists often make the most predictable, generic and stereotypical images of gangsters. East Side Stories by Joseph Rodriguez confirms the original mythology following the usual script more faithfully than any Hollywood film. Robert Yager has already documented all the expected territory and in fact has gone quite beyond.

A & I just published a.k.a. BOOBOO by Robert Yager. Going from the general to the specific Robert makes a portrait of Cindy Martinez more known as Boo Boo. The book drifts from the usual images in order to reveal a complex fifteen-year history of struggle inside and out of the gang. It is a story of motherhood, adaptation and survival. Yager states: “her story is more complex than my photos can show. They merely provide a window into her life.” Social documentary practices make less seducing pictures than the theatrical documentation of hand signs, weapons and cholo performance. This essay proves that moving beyond that spectacle has proven to be as difficult for photographers as for gang members. The book comes with a compelling introduction by legendary father Gregory Boyle. A portion of the book goes to Homeboy Industries.

Cameraman.

This is the original unedited version of a text I wrote for The Fader magazine about Robert Yager's gang photographs. “Robert Yager, The Playboys,” The Fader, the photography issue, no 30, May/June, New York, 2005, p. 123.

In 1847 Californios and other northern Mexicans had their land and property stolen by force. They formed gangs of bandits to defend themselves and to rob the invaders. This was the case of Joaquín Murrieta also known as “El Patrio.” Some see him as a Robin Hood while others consider him a criminal. Captain Harry Love, a former Texas Ranger was hired to kill the famous “bandido.” He traded the pickled heads of a couple of Mexicans for a $5000 reward but apparently he got the wrong ones.

During the Second World War uniformed sailors attacked the barrios of Los Angeles assaulting young Mexican “pachucos” and ripping their colorful zoot suits. The L.A.P.D. arrived to arrest the minority victims of the attack. The zoot suit was originally an African American youth fashion connected to jazz counterculture but marginalized Mexican American kids identified with it and made it theirs. The oversized suit was both an outrageous style and a statement of defiance. It was a form of self-expression that placed them in the public eye with a heavy price. Encouraged by sensationalistic news reports and the police department, a lot of people believed Mexican American youth were predisposed to criminality. With their particular dress code, “caló” (slang) and style, the “pachucos” were the predecessors of today’s “cholos.”

Easy access to guns and drugs have created a competitive market and a level of self destructive violence that derailed the original purpose of the gangs which was to defend the barrio. Nevertheless the overtly aesthetic “vida loca” (crazy life) and the power it represents effectively seduces the marginalized youth from their expected dead end jobs at the command of others. Quite often it seduces Hollywood, the media and an audience hungry for the spectacle of violence too.

The early nineties were tough times for the city. Police brutality and racial profiling lead to riots and once again the barrios and the hoods where left unprotected. Robert Yager had come from London via Mexico City to Los Angeles. Wanting to be a photojournalist he decided to document the closest war he had available. He got into his graffiti spray painted 1976 Chevy Impala and drove to the Pico Union barrio. His experience in Latin America and his Spanish helped him to develop the trust and a relationship with the local gang “The Playboys.” Since then he embarked on an odyssey where he has photographed them getting and removing tattoos, having sex, getting married, divorced and remarried, getting addictions and fighting them, jumping into the gang and leaving it to join the army, etc. In other words he has the biggest visual record ever produced on how they live, grow and how they die. His images have become an epical narrative about life in a West that is still very wild. He became their friend and personal photographer. He became known as “Cameraman.”

He has learned that the seduction of these images comes with all sorts of problems. In 1995 he was taking photos of the homies at a party when the Rampart Crash Unit broke in. The cops started beating them and when they noticed Robert photographing they pushed him and hit him. They grabbed his camera and broke it. They took out the film and exposed it. They took him into a patrol and accused him of assaulting an officer. He lost his press pass. He went to court and eventually recovered it once they dropped the charges. Seven cops lied arguing that the camera opened accidentally. Once the film was developed it was all exposed proving it was all taken out. A couple of years later the same Rampart Crash Unit was involved in a scandal over allegations of abuse and corruption.

These images have bothered conservatives that still get surprised of a supposed Latino “invasion” that actually precedes the creation of the United States and Anglo settlements in the American continent. They see them as proof of the savagery of the other. The truth is that the gangs are not coming to the U.S. but actually expanding from here to Latin America. They have also bothered liberals that see them as an exploitative stereotypical construction and would rather see another more positive and sanitized construction devoid of violence. They have bothered Anglos and Latinos alike. These images happened to be the most complete and powerful essay of this particular American dream gone amok. A reality that perhaps seen in its entirety might be understood better.

Rinkeby Svenska

Texto escrito en 2000. Publicado en: Curare, no 17, enero/junio, 2001, Mexico, pp. 147-150.

RINKEBY SVENSKA.

Alrededor del año 1000 el capitán vikingo Leif Ericson, siguiendo el sol hacia el oeste desde las frías tierras de Groenlandia llegó a un territorio desconocido al que llamó "Vinlandia", habitado por un grupo de gentes a las que llamó "Skraellings". "Skraellings" quiere decir hombres feos.

"Vinlandia" resultó ser lo que ahora conocemos como los lítorales del Labrador, la boca del río San Lorenzo e incluso la costa del cabo Cod en Massachussets. De este primer encuentro entre Europeos y Americanos solo quedaron una saga, algunas evidencias arqueológicas y un mapa. Probablemente los hombres a los que Ericson consideró feos, eran los nativos americanos que posteriormente Colón confundiría con hindúes.

"Svarstkallar" quiere decir en sueco cabeza negra y es un adjetivo que se utiliza para hablar de los "extranjeros". En relación a los suecos hasta los finlandeses resultan ser menos rubios. Durante los años setentas el gobierno socialdemócrata de Ollof Palme sirvió como santuario para los refugiados políticos que escaparon de las dictaduras militares sudamericanas y posteriormente de las guerras en Europa y el medio oriente. Estos asilados se tuvieron que adaptar a una nueva realidad y a un nuevo idioma. En muchos casos perdieron sus trabajos especializados y debido a sus limitaciones para hablar la lengua local y acabaron trabajando en la industria de servicios.

Para resolver el problema urbano y demográfico los arquitectos modernos tuvieron una oportunidad mas de crear su versión de la útopia lejos del centro de Estocolmo. Así pués crearon unidades multifamiliares modelo en las que se integrarían las diferentes culturas recién inmigradas a la sociedad sueca modelo de la asistencia social. Si bien es cierto que esta versión nórdica de Tlatelolco no funciona tan armónicamente como lo esperado al menos no ha vivido los desastres naturales y sociales que la plaza de las tan solo tres culturas. En las nuevas urbes norteamericanas el pasado y la historia son sinónimo de lo indeseable. El centro histórico de ciudades como Los Ángeles conocido también como "downtown" o "inner city" ha pasado a ser un ghetto poblado por los inmigrantes recientes y las minorías afroamericanas. La clase media (principalmente anglosajona) ha ido colonizando nuevos territorios poblando los suburbios como Simi Valley y Orange County. En Europa sucede lo opuesto. Los suburbios como Rinkeby y Alby en Estocolmo han pasado a ser barrios poblados principalmente por inmigrantes chilenos, uruguayos, griegos, serbios, finlandeses, turcos, afrocaribeños, africanos etc. mientras en el centro de la ciudad encontramos los palacios de la realeza sueca. Estos inmigrantes hablan mal el sueco y lo mezclan con sus lenguas de origen creando un híbrido pocho conocido como Rinkeby Svenska. Los grises y monótonos edificios rectangulares ahora están adornados por coloridos graffitis, posters de grupos de salsa y caligrafía árabe.

La mayor parte de los suecos habla inglés y es frecuente ver programación en este idioma en la programación regular de la televisión. La presencia cultural norteamericana es muy grande y no parece ser muy cuestionada. El hip hop es muy popular y no es sorprendente que el rap chicano es la música preferida de los jóvenes inmigrantes de primera o segunda generación. El grupo mas popular de rap sueco son los Latin Kings. Los Latin Kings son: Dogge, Rode, Chepe y Salla. Dogge es de origen venezolano y sueco y el resto de los integrantes son chilenos de nacimiento. En los coros los acompaña el afrocaribeño Daddy Boastin de la isla de San Vicente que por cierto habla español mejor que el cantante Dogge. Tienen dos cd's en el mercado: uno en Rinkeby Svenska para el mercado sueco llamado "Valkommen till Fororten" y otro en un intento de español con acento chileno y vocabulario fronterizo/chicano dirigido a un supuesto mercado latino llamado "Bienvenido a mi Barrio". El diseño gráfico y algunas de las canciones varían en ambos. Uno hace referencia a los suburbios de Estocolmo y el otro enfatiza la estética chola.

El cantante Dogge colecciona gorras de béisbol con slogans en sueco escritos en letra gótica. Anteriormente vestía ropa Adidas como los raperos "old school" de la costa este. Cuando fué al Sur centro de Los Angeles fué adoptado por la pandilla "Florence 13" que inmediatamente lo transformó. Lo raparon y lo vistieron con la camiseta blanca, los típicos pantalones "Dickies" de talla gigante y lentes oscuros. Todo esto fué filmado para la televisión sueca que realizó un documental del viaje a los E.U. de Dogge. Cuando salieron a pasear (cruising) con los cholos fueron inmediatamente arrestados como de costumbre por la policia de Los Angeles.

Oficial del L.A.P.D.-What's your name son?-
Dogge.-Dogge-
Oficial del L.A.P.D.-Doggy?-
Dogge-No, Dogge-
Oficial del L.A.P.D.-What the hell is that? Where are you from?-
Dogge-Stockholm-
Oficial del L.A.P.D.-Where?-
Dogge-Stockholm, Sweden-
Oficial del L.A.P.D.-Yeah?, so what the hell are you doing here?
Dogge-I am on vacation-
Oficial del L.A.P.D.-On vacation in South Central L.A.?-

En otra escena del documental vemos a Dogge en una cancha de basketball en una escuela convenciendo a unos jóvenes afroamericanos de que el es cantante de rap. Ellos lo retan a improvisar, el lo hace pero en sueco desconcertando al público presente que desde luego no puede reconocer nada de lo que dice.

Recientemente se dió en Estocolmo el primer caso de un asesinato masivo. A un joven de origen chileno se le negó la entrada a una discoteque y se le acusó de "svartskallar". Después regresó con un amigo sueco armado de una ametralladora que disparó matando a varias personas. El latino fué inmediatamente arrestado a pesar de que aparentemente el no fué el que disparó. Grupos de skinheads que escuchan grupos de heavy metal racistas que incorporan mitologías vikingas como Ultimatula confrontan violentamente a árabes, latinos y africanos. Aunque los problemas de drogas, graffiti y racismo en los proyectos habitacionales de Rinkeby y Alby desde luego no se comparan con los problemas que se viven en el este y el surcentro de Los Angeles para los Latin Kings es importante hablar de esto pues como dice Dogge: "no queremos llegar a eso".

El rock sueco graba en inglés en busca de un mercado mayor y de una internacionalización. Un ejemplo de esto es el famosísimo grupo Abba que nos hizo el honor también de grabar un par de hits en español como Chiquitita y Fernando. Otro ejemplo mas actual sería Ace of Base. En Suecia los Latin Kings han pasado de ser una curiosidad a uno de los grupos mas populares. Es paradójico que estos inmigrantes finalmente representan mas la realidad específica de Estocolmo que los otros grupos suecos, resultando mas suecos que los mismos suecos en cierto sentido. Es paradójico también que el rap chicano haya tenido mas impacto en estas gélidas latitudes que en las calles de la ciudad de México donde el heavy metal, el gótico y otras expresiones culturalmente mas monolíticas son preferidas.