“It’s Like Inheriting Someone’s House”: Lowriding as Memory at the Festival and Beyond

Since its inception nearly a century ago, lowriding has evolved into a universe of its own. The practice began as a direct response to the systems of white supremacy and police brutality that infiltrated Mexican American communities throughout the American Southwest after World War II. Lowered suspensions and hydraulic modifications animated everyday cars, turning Chevys into mouthpieces for the grievances of the Chicano public. Over time, the lowrider grew into a medium of self-determination, offering new forms of artistic expression and opportunities for building spatial and mechanical knowledge.

Yet, while chrome rims and candy colors have always symbolized the spectacular and transformative capabilities of classic cars, lowriding also serves a quieter and more personal purpose: remembering those who are no longer with us. As sounds of laughter, scents of shared meals, and pieces of advice seep into their metal bodies, lowriders become extensions of the people who drive them—and retain their memory long after they are gone.

At the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, these archival and interpersonal dimensions of lowrider culture were echoed and brought to light by participants from all over the world. Whether channeled into the cars or carried into relationships forged in the lowrider atmosphere, our Streetwise crew brought pieces of their own histories onto the National Mall.

Christopher and Erik Erazo, from the Olathe Leadership Lowrider Bike Club, shared the value of mentorship and documentation in sustaining Kansas lowrider communities. The Rodriguez family—ShaVolla, Carlos, and their daughter Nayeli from the Sacramento Academic and Vocational Academy—emphasized the importance of pouring pride and integrity into the vehicles they build and futures they create. Cecelia Perez, known artistically as Hey Ruca, paid homage in her live mural to the people and places that shaped her connections to cars and Chicanismo. Artisans from SWEDA, a Javanese silversmithing brand, demonstrated the possibilities of traditional craft that emerge where ancestry meets “low and slow” innovation.

By engaging with these culture bearers and their stories, I was reminded of the familial, intimate elements of lowrider culture that exist within and beyond the garage—and felt inspired to revisit my own.

Classic cars have carried the life and love of my family for generations. In every sunset cruise and weekday trip to the grocery store, the meticulous upholsteries of our California lowriders have worn deeper with memories. For my grandparents and my father, my tíos and our neighbors, friends and spouses, our cars have always been more than vehicles: they’ve been heirlooms and vessels of family history.

On the back of my arm, I wear a tattoo of a 1966 Chevrolet Impala. It belonged to my uncle, my tío Lorenzo, who once loved listening to Los Bukis and tinkering in the garage. At his funeral, my father dipped the stem of a long white rose in its oil and buried it alongside him so that they could rest together forever. Today, the car’s bright yellow paint ages quietly in the driveway of his La Habra family home, peering at the asphalt of Orange County suburbia that it seldom drives anymore but remembers well. Now, they’ve both become a permanent part of me.

Inspired by this summer’s Youth and the Future of Culture program, I interviewed my cousin Vicente Galindo and his wife, Justine Vibanco Galindo, a few days after the Festival ended to learn more about how they’re keeping our lowrider culture in their own lives.

Together, Justine and Vicente own 3 Generations, a lowrider community and apparel brand that brings the meaning of the barrio to car shows and swap meets throughout California. Boasting the motto “True to our roots from generation to generation,” the pair embodies the ethos of lowriding as lineage—even when the pieces are not fully put together.

Vicente: If you think about it, [these cars] are the last pieces we have of some of the people we love. My truck was my grandpa’s. I didn’t even really know him. He died when I was two. So, the only way I could connect with him is through this truck. With Justine, she has her grandpa’s car tatted on her arm. They are literally heirlooms; they just happen to be on wheels. It’s more than just a vehicle. It carries an energy. It’s like you inherited someone’s house.

Justine: And it’s like the house was given to you with just the studs. You have to respect it and rebuild it and preserve the feeling of the person who owned it before. And eventually, when they pass, you kind of owe it to them to make sure the car goes with them. When my uncle Eddie died, we drove his casket to the funeral home in his old Suburban.

While these cars are certainly beautiful and meant to be seen as they cruise the neighborhood, part of the homage ingrained in lowriding is to embrace the unglamorous parts of their histories too.

Justine: My family loved to fish, and a big part of my childhood was cruising to the beach in our classics. All the cars and trucks looked like they could be show cars, but, no, we used them to carry the fishing poles and the bikes and everything. They would make us stick our hands in the buckets of live bait, and we’d catch stuff to bring home and cook. Fresh fish, dirty hands, all that thrown in the back of these cars that some people, I’m sure, would just keep in their garage and roll out for shows.

Vicente: I remember one time when someone in the neighborhood lit my dad’s car on fire in our driveway. My parents were bringing your dad home one day, and that was the first thing they saw when they arrived—all the fire trucks and everyone trying to put out the car. But that car was so special to my dad that he just kept the front end and the back end. They were there in the garage for so long, for what felt like no reason. Your dad would be in the garage, tattooing right next to a burnt-up front end and back end of an Impala. It was like a shrine.

Experiencing lowriding as a multigenerational practice not only allows young people to learn from those who pioneered it, but it also illuminates the ways in which it has evolved over time.

Vicente: At one point it was frowned upon. People judged you a certain way based off the fact that you lowride, assume that you bought it with drug money or whatever. Just like tattoos became more “normal,” it really is our generation with social media and these ideas of self-expression that helped change that narrative. I also believe that people our age are the first to be able to build this culture out of love. Our parents and grandparents started lowriding out of spite. They felt rejected by society and wanted to create something new. But we can just embrace it as something that makes us feel good.

Justine: It’s interesting for me, too, to think about women who lowride. I mean, my tías and my grandma and my siblings and I all grew up working on our own cars and loving the culture and being loved back by the culture. But I know that’s not always the case for everyone, and there’s definitely a lot of spaces where men dominate.

I think a big thing that stays the same, no matter how the styles or size or types of people change, is that our lowrider culture ties back to family and helping our community. My tías just started an all-female car club here called Classic Lady’s, and all of their cruises and car shows have been fundraisers and drives for different things. Helping each other out is as important as the cars are. It’s what we learned as kids, and what we still try to do now [with 3 Generations].

Ultimately, as the landscape of lowriding in the United States and around the world continues to expand and diversify, the principles of remembrance, tradition, and family remain at the forefront. The names and faces of those who share in this love for lowriding are baked into the mission of cruising and felt in the air of community spaces, and as we bury them or lose touch, their memory grows stronger.

Today, we cruise in honor of Lorenzo Loera and Jimmie M. Jaques.

Angelina Rios-Galindo is a Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives intern, supported by the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the National Museum of the American Latino, and a graduate in statistics and education studies from Brown University. Her 2025 Festival program internship received federal support from the American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.