San Jose Low Riders 1979

we're having a concert ladies and gentlemen i would likely i would probably like to present to you la gente the lowrider ball number four give yourself a hand yay [Music] [Music] hey is [Music] it's [Music] just here for a while [Music] round white and black [Music] [Applause] [Music] you all know [Music] [Music] yeah go [Music] [Music] machines [Music] [Music] [Music] about your mainstream [Music] [Music] is [Music] yes officer this is our show we worked so hard so hard please consider that we paid our way and today we have this bad low riding machine [Music] they know [Music] no more drugs [Music] [Music] [Music] just got it [Music] machines [Music] is [Music] [Music] check them out they're here today [Music] just [Music] machines [Music] is [Music] oh all right i'll let you go this time because you're with my daughter hey [Music] like we said a little while ago we promised a few people here that we were going to do a certain song for them and it does have to be one of our favorites and it was it's one of our favorites because it brought in a whole hell of a lot of money you know and not only for this young lady and this one and all the rest but we want to dedicate this to all the wonderful and beautiful people in and around san jose california [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] as the wind blows i sit here wondering if you're still in love with me it's kind of funny i know [Music] we have something very special [Music] but we must keep our happiness [Music] together [Music] you're the one for me [Music] well [Music] girl you've gotten it you've got to listen [Music] [Applause] [Music] and as the forever blows you and i shall stay together [Music] you're the one for me [Music] thank you here we go [Music] listen to [Music] so come on everybody [Music] lovely girls they're dressed up [Music] [Music] get up and dance [Music] so [Music] [Music] we're gonna do it to you make you move on everybody [Music] do it to you [Music] we'll dance [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] one day at a time [Music] [Music] uh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is to live your life and take it slow [Music] that's how [Music] wow this magazine should have been out 40 50 years ago because it really tells you the way it is their culture you know it's expressed to the magazine but when you get down to the body you know the other magazines that are popping up now like low riders are happy okay eop department eop and his name is alan hernandez he also does a tv show for a radio show for kfrc okay why [Music] [Applause] [Music] bye [Music] [Music] washing up my ride with my homies out there [Music] [Music] [Music] cruising [Music] your mind [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] hey it's happening [Music] having some fun come on [Music] on some friday and saturday nights san jose's king and story roads area resembles a war zone with police lined up on one side and kids on the other the youth mostly chicano say they come to socialize to cruise in their cars to have a good time with their friends the police say the kids pelt them with rocks and bottles neighbors complain of fights and loud music merchants say their businesses are often vandalized and looted the king and story area is described as the site of a massive public party on weekends sometimes lasting until 5 a.m that party is often interrupted by police barricades violence sirens and arrests in the past the crowds mostly consisted of low riders cruising the boulevard in their cars according to the police the crowds are getting younger and younger spencer my mom doesn't get mad she cares but she won't get mad how old are 17. [Music] we're out here to um party and see all their friends and watch all the cars go by your parents know where you are yeah do they say anything no they said right they don't care what do i do your parents know where you're at yeah what do they say it's sweat stay out of the fight the city of san jose has long been trying to rid itself of the youth gatherings at king and story roads on weekends the kids complain of a severe lack of recreational facilities on the east side and say simply that there is no place else for them to go there's nothing else to do what do you know there's nothing else to do yeah it's you know it's a place to you know just party friends no drink make new friends eastside everything like that tell me why are you out here i'm out here just to have a good time in cruise man you do this all the time yeah just about every weekend once a weekend you know how come you guys don't go someplace else why starting king well if you go to a park they chase everybody away and if we go to you know like do a parking lot they still chase everywhere they really club them in their kings but out here it's going to be harder for them to get us you know so we're just out here to have a good time you know so you don't feel like you're doing anything wrong right do you see anything wrong right now nothing everybody's having a good time huh sweeping the street what about the merchants well they're never out there at night so we're not taking away their business i heard that guy wind chills likes it likes everybody feeling wrong because they give them business or something you know but you don't want nobody touching them on the prophecy you know some merchants like it i guess okay come out of the cruise you know because uh we don't get nothing to do go to the parks and they just they kick us out of the parks you know so we try to find somewhere to go and i guess it's the only place we could have to go to you know their wrestlers they want us to move it you know get out of the parking lots well not really we're just cruising you know just minding their own business just driving around talking to people you know meeting our friends out here and everything you feel like there's any injustice out here well maybe they're a little bit too hard on us you know because we don't do nothing to them and they just come they start well the problems exist but if they if they don't leave then we have to take some type of enforcement action to clear the laws and and in those situations sometimes arrests are made not unusual at all for us to confiscate a number of firearms as well as a number of you know knives last weekend there were two handguns and i believe one weapon was is called an m14 which is a semi-automatic rifle with loaded banana clips the weekend before that was a sawed-off shotgun which was about 18 inches long and there have been a number of handguns that have been confiscated normally every weekend it also attracts a lot of younger people from 12 to 18 years old the the individuals that don't have vehicles you know the young youth groups and they tend to congregate in the same area because they're attracted uh you know by the by the fancy vehicles and and the low riders and generally has been our experience throughout this summer that it's the younger element that causes most of the problems as far as the gang violence amongst themselves [Music] i cannot condone anywhere for any kids whether they be high riders or low riders to sit out in public drinking smoking pot having sex and raising hell destroying buildings and property no i can't condone that i've seen kids sneak up on officers and douse them with beer cokes throw hamburgers at them pelt them with bottles throw bottles underneath wheels of the automobiles that the police do operate i've seen them throw stuff into the automobiles and it amazes me the fact that these officers have the patience they do i've been out there when i when it's when a truck driver unloading gas at 1 30 at night was mugged and beat up they won't deliver gas anymore out there i've been out there the night that they knifed and killed a gas station attendant was out there the night they picked up an attendant threw them through a window i was out there the night were a bunch of them because it got so rough a jack in a box they decided to close down for an hour or so where the kids picked up beer bottles and threw them through the window and cut up the manager and the assistant manager would they like if i came up to one of their beautiful cars and took a spray can and sprayed the side of their car or a i smashed in one of their windows or i opened the door and went in and urinated in their car would they like that no they wouldn't so why are they doing it to our properties [Music] just [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] some individual members who will commit crimes is in any group of these 14 there's still only one group this group is located in the seventh trees area of san jose what we have found out is that a lot of these kids are joining groups to find women and these groups we have found we've identified approximately 14 youth groups so far within the city of san jose how old are these kids the kids range in age from 11 or 12 years old on up into their early 20s you know in los angeles they've had a tremendous amount of homicides for example about 175 or so a year attributed to gangs the trend is drifting north towards san jose and san francisco we're getting a lot of the styles a lot of the gang type of activities and so forth that were originating down in los angeles we've been we've even borrowed from some of the los angeles gang names some of the kids who go in institutions down in los angeles or who have resided in los angeles area bring this information up to up to our community often the proliferation of more sophisticated weapons such as shotguns and things like this find their way to to youth gangs not because young people are uh just easily obtaining them but they are being brought in to the young people by groups like this groups like prison prison gangs people say gangs but they're i feel there is no gangs i feel there are a lot of clubs there's a lot of barrio clubs a lot of little clicks but actually they are not gangs like let's say maybe an la you know but here they are not they are just a group of kids they're like social in a sense clubs trying to build unities within the different terms starting starting from starting north from south you have one of the biggest values that right now happen to develop going north your body your foot heels then you're going back from east to west you have uh uh prosecco then like you then uh going and say they have two different areas in town which they have a south side the count and they have a knee sight you can count then you have going down present area uh oh in the kitchen what do you work on all right [Music] just you know creating little ripples you know and then you say why you know and then you look at it and you see hey yeah there is a need you know if there is a need most of that most of our our older uh folks you know the grandparents um they've always said hey you know so you know leave it alone you know you can't do nothing body all this or vadio that uh uh that in fact has a has a whole name and as there is in fact uh that signifies the mexican mafia then you have the vadio horseshoe last time we were here you knew all about vicky's town huh back to work that's a typical response here the graffiti on the walls here that you see signify maybe two or three of the active groupings or gangs that are located in this specific area as you notice on the wall people want to have an escape you know somewhere to go and maybe get rid of their problems or you know have a good time if we had a place to go and maybe be more freer it'd probably be all right you know probably less less things would happen i'm still tired [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] shall we [Music] now your queens [Music] how can i be with you [Music] it is the history and legends of mexico back to the earliest times and it's spray painted on a supermarket in the barrio in san jose california it's a reminder to the mexican americans who live here of their past their heritage it is bright and it is bold and it's there for all to see there's a lot of bright bold art in this barrio it's just not the kind you would expect [Music] it is a full-sized car with under-sized tires as often as not it has a custom paint job and it always has a tiny steering wheel often welded chain and its owner is mexican-american with hydraulic lifts he can make the front end go up in the air and as far as that goes by using the hydraulic controls inside the car he can make the front end go down down far enough that it scrapes the roadway [Applause] the car is called a low rider or a ride it can have lifts just in front or all around a fancy low rider is called a bad ride and is the pride of the california chicano who owns it he'll do anything to make it the best bad ride around [Music] the east side of san diego is a barrio there are 600 000 people in san jose and 22 of them are chicano all but a handful live on the east side san jose has always had a large mexican-american community originally they came to work on the farms now they work when there is work in construction or industrial plants and they have made san jose the low-riding capital of northern california the term lowrider refers to the car and the driver and there is nothing a low rider wants more than for his bad ride to be noticed and admired for the last 18 months low riders have had their own magazine published from a small office just off the san jose state campus called low rider it has a circulation of 30 000 and that is going up the editor is sunny madrid in the u.s it's supposed to be like a melting pot and so everybody just blends in right but like with the chicano community and probably with mexico being so close it hasn't really been that way they've kind of tried to um they create their own style their own fashion who lowers their cars what makes them who paints their cars the way with all the flashy paint jobs but you know the young chicano like what where'd the style all come from i blame the indians i blame the mayas the aztecas they were the very first pachucas they were the first low riders in those days they customized their bodies and like nowadays customizing their cars lowriders have been around since after world war ii but they are just beginning to organize into clubs and the clubs are just beginning to organize what they call happenings like this one in los angeles lowrider clubs are usually rivals but they have been talked into cooperating by other chicanos who can't see any sense in fighting among themselves after all they share the same memories dennis eagleson i remember i used to stay many nights outside of my mom's house or outside of one of the boulevards in the neighborhood and just look at cars going by and kind of make believe in my mind that that's my next car coming here this is my car of course i didn't have a job i didn't have the money to finance a car but i always kept my mind occupied on the status symbol of a shiny automobile what i'm trying to do is to create a feeling of uh hey pride like hey i have my car here why not you know i have a group of guys i'm with why not why not dress the zoot suit part you know low riding is not a teenage fad it is a chicano social event involving men and women of all ages families go for low rider picnics and sunday afternoon drives caravans of them all of them going as they describe it low and slow so they'll be noticed and admired [Music] low riders have their own music a classic among them is titled let's take a cruise down whittier boulevard it was written and recorded by willie g he used to be a mechanic he is now a musician who some years ago had a national hit called land of a thousand dances willie g complete the zoot suit is a low rider and he says music led to low riding that's what started me in it music and uh the people around it we're the action ones they kept this display of moving art on the road constantly everywhere there was a place where people could come together and get it get it together admire each other so to speak and say yeah man i want to be like that i want to do that i want to have that before i have to leave along with its own music low riding has its own art these were done by teen angel a low rider in san jose but low riding is not all aesthetics but considerable part of it is economics but like the music and the art the economics are somewhat different the economics dictate just what kind of a low rider you're going to be and so you do that but now there's like a reverse going on in that it's a very unfashionable thing to get the old car if you're the usual car owner these cars may look like junk to you something you'd pay somebody five dollars just to tow away you shouldn't do that this is a 1950 ford it was running when joe lemonis bought it for about four hundred dollars now he's making a low rider out of it and when he's through it will sell for not quite three times what it was worth when it was sold brand new and it was sold brand new for 1539.86 joe got it from the original owner complete with owner's manual and sales invoice [Applause] however much it costs buying a car can be the cheap part this dash here is going to be ripped off right here we're going to install a television in here but make all this blend down with padding all the way down to the floor make it look like one piece you won't see no metal in here the whole interior is going to be what you call a custom job to the max something like this i would say it run close to three thousand dollars the 3000 is for the inside a custom paint job on the outside a good one will cost another sixteen hundred and to repair a scratch could cost six hundred dollars then there are the hydraulic lifts you can't have a bad ride without them preferably all around we're gonna start out with the pump that's the main main part of the setup lifting all the way around there's gonna need two of these pumps run about one 130 each and they're used to pump the fluid into the car then you need your cylinders take four of them for all the way around if you come in and buy the whole complete setup you have a real sweet deal if you come coming by piece by piece you know you're going to be spinning like right around the ground for front and back naturally uh the majority of the people they don't have very customized card to the max and they just got probably uh chain steering wheel even though maybe they don't have all the accessories and they can't afford the elaborate paint job they'll pull but that's enough to identify yeah they're easier to handle simone perez bought his 54 chevy for 300 and has spent 1500 more on it not all bad rides are designed to be driven low and slow some are designed for the low riders favorite sport hopping earlier this year the staff of low rider magazine neighbors friends and the curious watched a hopping test the car has a permanently raised rear end so when it travels on the road it goes by truck but it does have an engine engines don't play much of a part in low riding anyway but they don't count at all in hopping ralphie douglas whose brother owns a hydraulic shop knows what does count bouncing the front end in the air using the front end hydraulic lifts the object is to get the front wheel as high off the ground as possible ralphies goes high enough that one week after this test he won 3 300 by duplicating this feat standing the car on its rear bumper [Music] at least once a week usually saturday afternoon low riders go to a do-it-yourself car wash crank up the music and clean up the cars there are probably no cleaner automobiles anywhere in the country after all if you're going low and slow on saturday night other people may notice you but they won't admire a dirty car whatever they do washing the cars or cruising the streets low riders do together and that causes problems motorists complain that they block traffic shopping center owners say they congregate on the parking lots at night leaving trash and disorder behind the lowrider clubs admit that there has been trouble on the other hand they say no one has ever given them a chance to do it right [Music] the events the car clubs do organize usually go off without a hitch this disco party in san jose was sponsored by the chicanos pride car club the members all came in their low riders many of the men in zoot suits [Music] [Music] [Music] vince chavez president of the club [Music] it was a good night for him his club's dance was a success and he was wearing his first suit i was broke and i sold some hubcaps for five bucks and that's how i ended up getting a suit [Music] and the panther jacket was 1.25 and the tie was 35 cents you know so i made out all right you know that's looking pretty good it looked like a 50 suit you know i was pretty proud of the first suit i ever had in my life you know i've been low riding since i guess i was about 16 when i've got my first car [Music] you know with your ride that's your that's your identity that's how people know you you could be anywhere a lot of people don't have jobs they don't have the the money you know to uh you know to uh be going skiing or um you try to you know do one thing and a lot of people especially chicanos they they get into their cars [Music] you know it's it's pretty nice you have your car that's your ride when you go out you know that's what you call you that's your

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Length: 54min 28sec (3268 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 14 2022