San Diego Lowriders

Alberto Lopez Pulido is a professor of ethnic studies at the University of San Diego and coordinator of the Logan Heights Documentation Project. He has taught at Arizona State University, Brown University, the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of Utah and Michigan State University. Alberto directed and coproduced the documentary Everything Comes from the Streets on San Diego lowrider culture. The film received first place at the Barrio Film Festival and the Remi Award at the Houston International Film Festival.Rigoberto (Rigo) Reyes has worked for Via International for the past thirty years, where he coordinates and implements community development projects and is responsible for developing and training leadership skills to people in marginal areas of the cities of Tijuana and San Diego. Rigo has been an active lowrider since 1975. He began as a member of the Casinos Car Club and then became a founding member and former president of Amigos Car Club. He is also cofounder of the San Diego Lowrider Council, established in 1979. In 2002, he coproduced the documentary Amigos Car Club for San Diego County TV and, in 2013, coproduced the award-winning documentary Everything Comes from the Streets. Rigo is a former board member of the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park and currently serves as a board member of the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center. He is currently a professor of practice at the University of San Diego, where he is teaching a course on immigration.

San Diego's unique lowrider culture and community has a long history of "low and slow." Cruising the streets from 1950 to 1985, twenty-eight lowrider car clubs made their marks in the San Diego neighborhoods of Logan Heights, Sherman Heights, National City, Old Town, San Ysidro and the adjoining border community of Tijuana, Mexico. Foundational clubs, including the Latin Lowriders, Brown Image and Chicano Brothers, helped transform marginalized youth into lowriders who modified their cars into elegant, stylized lowered vehicles with a strong Chicano influence. Despite being targeted by the police in the 1980s, club members defended their passion and succeeded in building a thriving scene of competitions and shows with a tradition of customization, close community and Chicano pride. Authors Alberto Lopez Pulido and Rigoberto "Rigo" Reyes follow the birth of lowrider culture to the present day.