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Latest for The Guardian

On a warm morning in March, a group of researchers entered an unassuming chop suey parlor in the Sacramento suburbs for a rare field trip.

The six history enthusiasts affiliated with the University of California, Davis, had gathered at the Chicago Cafe in Woodland, California, with one goal in mind: to determine the exact age of what may be the oldest Chinese restaurant in the country.

From cabinets underneath the diner counter, they excavated box after box of ephemera that formed a time capsule of 20th century Chinese immigrant experience. Among piles of letters, menus and tax receipts lay such relics as a vintage Chinese-English pocket dictionary, a 1976 Chinese edition California driver’s handbook and black and white polaroids of a newly crowned Miss Chinatown. To the experts’ trained eyes, seemingly any detail could reveal an artifact’s age, be it the digits of phone numbers, the typefaces on menus from decades past, or the clothing and makeup captured in photographs.

Three generations of the Fong family, hailing from an impoverished region in southern China, built the Chicago Cafe into a linchpin of Woodland civic life. Current owners Paul and Nancy Fong, who began working at the restaurant a half century ago, have been serving many of the same customers for decades. Some furnishings, like a pair of private booths and a wooden walk-in refrigerator, predate the couple’s employment, as do menu staples like the pork chow mein and chicken fried steak.

“Clearly, there’s a respect for history,” Jack Chin, a professor at the UC Davis school of law who’s leading the research into the Chicago Cafe, told his team as they perused the documents.

The words “SINCE 1903” are inked on a white board behind the counter, a sight that stayed with Chin on his many visits to eat at the restaurant over the years. In a research paper published in January, he and his scholars from UC Davis verified that the diner had been in operation since at least 1910. After analyzing historical records in the Yolo county archives, including business directories, newspaper clippings and fire insurance maps, they concluded that the Chicago Cafe might have opened earlier than Pekin Noodle Parlors in Butte, Montana, which is widely recognized as the oldest existing Chinese eatery in the US. (Claire Wang)

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Latest for The New York Times I photographed the Ai Pin, a $700 tiny computer featuring a virtual assistant pulling data from OpenAI (the research firm behind the ChatGPT chatbot), Google, Microsoft and others to answer questions and perform tasks.

The novel design of the Ai Pin, which was made by the start-up Humane, generated buzz when it was unveiled late last year. Companies including OpenAI, Microsoft and Salesforce have placed a bold bet — to the tune of $240 million in funding for Humane — that artificially intelligent hardware like the Ai Pin will become the next big thing after the smartphone. 

Humane said its goal with the Ai Pin was to offer technology that would help people avoid screens and maintain eye contact. (Brian Chen, The New York Times)

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Latest for the San Francisco Chronicle

Robb Roberts, a long-time Oakland A's Fan poses for a photo in front of his Oakland A’s baseball memorabilia collection in Galt, Calif. on April 3, 2024. The Oakland Athletics have struck a deal to temporarily move the team to Sacramento's Sutter Health Park for the 2025-27 seasons while the A's Las Vegas ballpark is being built.

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Louie L. Moreno Sr. 

1939 Buick 4 Dr. Sedan Special 

Duke’s Car Club 

My dad was a mechanic and always had a workshop. That's where I picked up working on cars and being a car guru, especially lowrider cars He had us all in the shop, working, helping him out, and working on our stuff. It was very exciting and busy. We made money. My dad was able to support all 10 of us. I have five sisters and five of us boys. It was a big family, and we were all productive. 

We were all involved in restoring cars. People thought we were loaded with cash because we drove nice cars to school. We didn't have any cash. We were poor. My dad taught us how to hustle, buy an old car, clean it up, and flip it. And that's what we did. People looked up to my whole family because we were good people. My mom made sure we would dress well and had nice cars. My sisters were the same way. Number one is respect. My mom was 100% solid, true spirit Catholic so she made sure we went to church every Sunday. 

I found a ’58 Impala on the sidewalk in front of this man's house and I went asked about it. The guy $100 and that was without a motor. He took the motor out to build Hot Rod. I went home and got my dad. We came back and we ended up buying it for $90, a ‘58 Impala with one dent on it. We went to You-Pull-It and bought all the drive train, motor, and exhaust system. I think we paid $250 And within four weeks I was driving that car to school. I put juice on it, and hydraulics on the back. I shaved the door handles, a little donut steering wheel, and Supreme wheels. 

In 1971 I was the first Chicano in Northside Sacramento with hydraulics. As far as I know, the first Mexican with juice. I would hit the surplus stores in town, out of town, out of state, and fill up the trunk with hydraulic stuff. It was cheap. I’d do my own or do somebody's hydraulics, sell them, whatever I had to do. But I was the man. If you want your car juiced, come and see Louie. 

My first cruise ride in a lowrider was in ‘68. One of my cousins had a '47 Dodge Snapback lowered with Dingle balls. We went riding with him, that was fun. We did a lot of cruising. I had a lot of friends and cousins and we would get together 10 deep sometimes. We’d cruise from North Sac to Roseville and West Sac. We go to the Mexican center downtown, hang out, show off, and try to get the girls' attention. 

My wife, she's my partner in crime. She's right there and she could wrench as good as anybody else. I taught her how to paint and she knows all the tools now. We have just about everything here to work on the cars and fabricate. Nothing crazy but it's enough to make my own motor mounts, transmission mounts, link suspension, install my hydraulics, put a motor in, and take a motor out. 

Time is moving fast, especially after I retired. We don't waste a lot of time. We have fun working on these cars because the reward is getting it done, test driving it, go have dinner, and playing our oldies and doo-wops. That's the reward. We're both on the same page. We just enjoy each other and building what we have here. 

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Olivia Fonseca 

1952 Chevy Deluxe 

“Huevo II” 

Compadres Car Club 

Let me tell you about my car. So it started back in 1973. Back in high school, there wasn't a way to get to school other than being taken by bus. Well, lucky me. I have a boyfriend who had a 1952 beige car and he was my bus driver. So he picked me up at the corner, not in front of my house because I wanted my mother to believe that I was getting on the bus. He took me to school. My boyfriend owned the ’52 and we cruised everywhere afterwards and on weekends. We lived in a little town with a lot of hills, and a lot of farmland, so we were always cruising along with our friends who also had their lowriders. But lo and behold, the car goes away. Our lives continue, we go on different paths. And then we reconnected. When I reconnected with my high school boyfriend, I kept telling him, you know what, I want a 1952 Chevy, I want to go back to our memory lane when we went to high school together in the car. It took five years to find the car. 

We purchased it and had an original six-bolt engine, not very fast, not very reliable. And we got stopped a couple of times because it wouldn't cross the road. We needed to modify it. I wanted the car to take me to San Diego, to San Francisco, to Reno, to Oregon, wherever. So we took it into a shop. They change everything underneath it. It's got a 350 engine has airbags, disc brakes, you name it, it's got AC, it got everything and it takes us everywhere we want to go. 

It’s so beautiful to not only look at it, but it's so beautiful to ride it. It's a different world once I get in the car, and I'm a passenger. I love being a passenger. Yes, I'd rather be a passenger than drive. But it's just a wonderful feeling that it takes you into mental happiness, it feels good. It's different when you're in your lowrider because it's low and slow. And I enjoy every moment of it. I like people's smiles as we're driving by their waves or thumbs-ups. It feels good to know that, you know we have a vehicle that makes us happy and other people too. Oh my gosh, we will be driving and kids are waving at us. It's almost like we're in a parade and I wave back. 

It’s an enjoyment that you can't replace with Tesla or BMW. You're getting in those and you're just driving. You get in this and all sudden you're enjoying the scenery and enjoying the ride. I look at it as an investment and it makes me happy. It's an investment to pass it on to my daughter so she can carry it, the legacy of cruising, the legacy of the car, the legacy of the year, the legacy of my memory. 

We've been out of state to car shows. And we always say, when we come back, man, Sacramento has beautiful cars, compared to what we saw. We miss seeing our cars because we love the people that drive them, and we know them and we get along. So that's why I enjoy riding my car, the family, and the camaraderie that makes us all happy to own a lowrider. 

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Bobby Basquez 

1954 Chevy wagon 

Boulevard Bombs Car Club 

I have always been fascinated by automobiles. It started with model cars. I started building model cars. That's where I got my painting skills from and how I learned to build a car. I built the car that I drive today myself in the garage. I like the year 1954 cars. I wanted to build something different. So that's what made me build a station wagon because I wanted to be different than everyone else because nobody takes a station wagon and puts all the bells and whistles in it. I brought the car home. I did surgery on it, took it all apart, and did the bodywork, paint job, and put it all back together again. And that's the result. It came out beautiful. 

Back then your daily driver was your lowrider. You drove that car everywhere you went and tried to work on it at the same time. We cruised in rain and fog. It wasn't just like a summer thing. We cruised all-year-long thing. 

The church has memories for me because we used to get harassed by the cops a lot. And I got pulled over right in front of the church for hitting my switches on the hydraulics on my 1954 Bel Air. And they cited me to remove all my hydraulic equipment. To get the tickets signed off we had to remove it. Then the following weekend we reinstalled it back in the car and cruised again until we got pulled over again. 

Back in the day, the Franklin Boulevard was just like a meet-up point for every Friday and Saturday night. It was a thing to do come out on the Boulevard and show off your ride. I had a pretty clean ride back then. Showing everybody your ride means a lot, especially when you do all that work on your car day and night just to come and cruise on the weekends. My main thing was coming down there and looking for the beautiful ladies. Actually, that's how I met my wife on the Boulevard. We were cruising. She had a 1957 Bel Air that she bought from her grandfather. 

Cruising today is way better because you're not looking over your shoulder like who's your enemy. In the old days, there were a lot of fights and a lot of shootings. Today, people are more mellow. Everybody's more kickback and it's more family-oriented. I can take my kids and my grandkids cruising with me. 

There's nothing different about lowriders other than we love automobiles. That's our passion is to drive works of art. 

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Daniel Moreno 

1940 Cadillac 62 Series Convertible 

5 Star Auto Interiors 

I do auto custom interiors for lowriders, hot rods, and muscle cars. I've been doing this for 46 years. I got this machine probably in ’95 so to me that's my first wife, 

I love doing the upholstery work but it is a dying art. It’s hard to find people who are really doing it for the workmanship and craftsmanship because you get a lot of guys who might want to do it just for a paycheck but not dedicate themselves to it. 

I love seeing my customers' faces when the project is done. And a year later, two years later, and they're still happy with it. And they're just so glad they brought it to me. 

I have three older brothers and they're all into lowriding. When I was 10 years old I used to stay up till one in the morning helping them with their hydraulics and their cars. One of my brothers does bodywork and is a painter and the other one's a mechanic. Growing up around cars it was just in our blood. 

When I was 12 years old. I had a ‘49 Chevy Fleetline. I worked on a customer's car and he gave me this car. I did my first interior job because my dad owned two wrecking yards. And we took all the interior out of a '64 Impala Supersport and put it inside my ‘49. 

I was 16 years old when I first started cruising. I had a ‘65 Supersport. It was primered and I would cruise that. We enjoy waking up early on Sunday morning, washing our cars getting ready to go cruise the parks. Before we hit Miller Park, before we hit William Land Park, you always got to hit Broadway first. 

Right now it's just blown up so big. There are a lot of spectators and husband and wife bringing their kids out cruising. It’s a beautiful environment. it's nice when the communities and families get involved. I come from a big family. I have nephews, grandchildren, uncles, and brothers that are all into it. 

Lowriding is whatever you desire for your car. For me, it's just low and slow and making the car look good. 

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Joe Dillingham 

1981 Cadillac Fleetwood 

“Blue Print” 

Stylistics Car Club 

The first time I saw a lowrider was back in 1979. My cousins down in Stockton, the Stallworth brothers, had a '64 Chevy Impala. Back in those days, they didn't have an electric dump. So you had a mechanical knob where you put the coat hanger on there, and you'd have to pull it to get the car to go back down. The first time I did that I was six years old. I said for the rest of my life, I'm going have something, it's always going be a part of my life. 

The first lowrider I ever had was a 1979 Cadillac Fleetwood. Believe it or not, it was my mom's car. I was getting ready to go to college. My mom made a deal with me that if I graduated I could have the ‘79. And that was my motivation because I knew I had a car waiting for me 

For me, it starts the morning of when I start wiping the car down. You start feeling that excitement, you start getting pumped for it. You pull the car out of the garage, you hit the switch the first time, the music is playing, and you just know you're ready. That's the ultimate relaxation. I can't really describe the feeling because until you have it and you hit the switch the first time in your car. It's hard to describe, but you know when it's right. The car is ready when the music is right. The first one on my playlist is Earth Wind and Fire, Loves Holiday. When that comes on, it’s on 

The way I relax is to go in the garage and work on my car, be around my buddies, and help them work on their cars. For me, that's the part that a lot of people don't see is the amount of time it takes to put a car together. We rally around each other. Wherever you are in your process and your build, we'll get together we'll go out and help whoever's in the club. I wouldn't have the circle of friends that I have right now. And I'm not even sure where I wouldn't be without them. 

I can't say enough about the club that I'm in because they make it fun. And that's the reason I've been here going on 27 years because it's a family. It's not just something we do but the friendships and the brotherhood. We've watched people get married, and have kids go off to school. All of that. It's more than just cars. It's deeper than cars. 

I'm a lowrider. I'm always going to be a lowrider, all my life and the rest of my life. 

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Johnny “Poor Boy”  Larios 

1951 Chevy Styleline 

Solo Rider 

I started driving when I was 15. I'm almost 70 years old now and I'm still lowriding. It started all out at an early age of cruising downtown, J Street, K Street, and L Street with all the hot rods. And that's what got me going into wanting to do what I have now. 

It's in the blood. A lowrider first of all would be a passion. Something that you built entirely different than a hotrod. You want to go low and slow for people to look at, and enjoy. Everybody loves it. It's different for a lot of people because they don't know what it is. And when they find out. They fall in love. 

Throughout my entire life of lowriding, I've been offered many opportunities to join car clubs but I never did. I became a solo rider. I've been that way all my life. I hang around with car clubs because I know everybody. But as far as joining the car club, no, because I want the freedom to go when I want, and come when I want, and meet people. And I love it, it's freedom to me. 

I call my car “Poor Boy” because I wanted to give a different impression of a lowrider, something that was built back in the 50s from the ghetto. Back then people weren't rich and didn't have a lot of money. So I built this one to make it look like it was put together from a junkyard, piece here and piece there. I built a wreck into a beautiful car. 

Back then when you cruised a lowrider you looked like a criminal to the police. They always harassed you. You didn't want the harassment so you go home. But that gave us more time to work on our cars because our day will come. We got our freedom for the streets again. Now we're cruising. And it's legal. They can't say anything to us. We're not breaking the law. We just go low and slow. 

We've fought to get our streets back don’t disrespect our fight. We fought hard to get it. We don't need you to destroy it. Because then all of us would be a little upset. 

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 ShaVolla Rodriguez 

1939 Limited Buick Touring 90 Series 

Duke’s Car Club 

My love of cars started at a young age, I can remember back to three years old, going to different events and car shows. I can remember as a kid with my dad, he always had some car or motorcycle in the garage, listening to old school funk, and oldies, and having all his friends in the garage till late hours of the night working on stuff. And then on the weekends, it was time to have fun and we'd get in the car and go cruise. 

When I was young I did not see many women lowriders. They were always the wives or the girlfriends or the half-naked girls on the cars. I hear a lot of older women talk about how they saved up and bought their cars. They had to wait until their kids were grown because as women we had to put our family, kids, and household first. And then whatever's left is what you can work with. I have two girls myself, and I'm always telling them never to be afraid to be different. If the boys are doing it, I'm going to do it too. Don't take it as this for the men because there's a lot of women out here doing it, if not as good but better. 

As I got older, I went away from it for a little while and started a family. Me and my husband decided this is something that has always just been in my heart. And we got back into lowriding and bought our first car, the ‘47 Buick. When we got that car, it had no backseat, no headliner, no stereo, and we cruised around in that car with comforters for the backseat. We put our phone in the lip of the headliner area and that was our music. But we were having the time of our lives. And that's how our kids grew up. It was really about us making those memories for our kids, things that I remember as a kid, the smell of the car, the music, the wind in your hair, just that free feeling. As I got to be an adult and we got our car, it just took me back to my childhood and being with my dad. And now here we are. 

This car was one of my dream cars. I've always liked things that are different that not everyone else has. I also wanted a car that would fit all of my family so it kind of worked out. I almost pulled the trigger a couple of times because I didn't think I was going to find what I wanted. Luckily, I waited because this car popped up, and it was pretty much love at first sight. When she came off that trailer, just to see her in person was amazing. 

We hit all the fun spots. We make our rounds, we hit Old Sac, we hit K Street, we go to William Land Park, and stop and talk to friends there. If it's on a cruise night, you can catch us on Broadway or Franklin. There's so much going on now so you just want to make sure that we support all the clubs. It’s really good to see our community thriving. The community of Sacramento has been amazing. Everyone has been so open and welcoming. It is like a big family even though there are a lot of car clubs. 

I want people to understand this is our connection to our family. These are things we're able to pass down to our kids, the love that we have for the cars, for the culture, and doing these things together. Sometimes it's not always about the car. It's just really about being together. I would like to see our lowriding culture more respected. We've been around for a very long time. To this point, we've proven ourselves through all of the community events and all the positive things for the city. We should be recognized and have a place where there's no harassment or judgment. The lifting of the no cruising ordinance was just the start and it will not end until we have a place of our own. 

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 Lina J. Moreno 

1967 Chevy Impala Convertible 

Solo Rider 

The earliest picture I have of myself, I was six years old in my brother's ‘66 Impala in front of my mom and dad's house. All my siblings in the family always had a low rider and there was always some type of low rider in our driveway. Growing up, my brother would always let me drive his cars. This car was my 18th birthday/graduation present from my brother. 

When my brother gave me those keys to the car I would just go from North Gate to Norwood and then back. Those cars were huge and I was still young. Then I got braver and started going to downtown, Broadway, and Old Sac. 

I've been lowriding for a long time. I've never had anyone disrespect me for being a female lowrider. I've had nothing but respect and love from a lot of people out here. I'm just truly blessed that I have the support from everybody in Sacramento. 

It's amazing. It's like, all your worries go away. I love it. You feel like you're in a different world. If I'm stressed out or I just want to go listen to some music and just enjoy the day, I just go hop in the car and we just roll out. It’s normal for my kids. They know on Sunday we're going to go Lowride, we’re going to cruise, we’re going to go to the park. We're going to end up somewhere, but it's going to be in a lowrider. 

Everywhere you go, you see families gathering, and everyone gets along, especially in Sacramento. It doesn’t matter what car club you're in. It's like a big big ol’ family. You see everyone with their kids, it's just a good environment. When you're out there. It's just like you are an extended family. It's no more gang stuff. It's none of that anymore. It's just spending time with your family, enjoying everybody's company and just having a good time and talking about cars and eating a good barbecue. 

The unity is great. I just hope that it becomes more united, I still see a little bit of division. And I just hope that it gets better because everything that's going on, it's just for the good of the community. It's for my kids when they get older, and they're able to Lowride. 

I Lowride because it's my life. There wouldn't be any Lena without lowriding. 

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 Carlos “Gato” Gamino 

1967 Chevy Caprice 

Lo-Lystics Car Club 

Back in the 70s after the Vietnam War, there was a lot of movement in politics with Raza and Cesar Chavez. There was a lot of racism. A lot of races didn't have too much. Mexicans, African Americans, and even Filipinos were all Zoot Suiters. Everybody seemed to develop their style to get away from things. They built their own culture, which is how the lowriding culture was adopted. As a young kid, that was like our little door to hold on to something. We can say that's what I want to do. And I want to be part of that. When you're young and you don't belong to anything, it was something that I claimed as my own, and I clinched to it. 

Watching the older guys, they were like our heroes, the Brown Berets, The Royal Chicano Air Force. These are older cats that were political. But every time they have political gatherings, you see the lowriders, the unity, the people. You learned that there's something bigger than just existing. We were a part of something. We were doing big things. It came out at a high cost. But we did it. I come from Mexico, so being in another country and seeing other people in the struggle, really made me feel this is where I want to be. 

A lot of the OGs, the veterans, you know, they're gone now They taught me a lot, you know, didn't just teach me how to work on cars, or how to do certain things. They taught me about life. And that's one of the things that I appreciated. And I applied it. 

I had a lot of buckets, cheap paint jobs, and just rushing everything. Doing it the cheap way and the fast way is more expensive in the end. So that's one of the things that I printed in their head. I said you know what, if you're going to be in the Lo-Lystics, your primered job better be straight right before the paint because I would rather see you with a clean primered job than a wavy paint job. We got some nice rides. We have a reputation. We don't have the best but we're clean. 

Back in those days. There were some traditional hoppers but they didn't hop very high. If you were hopping 8 inches you were doing big things. Now my homeboy hits 64 inches with a single pump. Sometimes we used to take the pumps from the garbage trucks and make battery boxes out of wood. I got to experience all that. You're so eager to want to do these things. And luckily later on in life, we gave a lot back to the community. But you know, as youngsters, sometimes you live and learn, but those are the people that you see. You meet a lot of good people, you meet more good people than bad. 

I just want to let everybody know that we have come a long way. And people need to appreciate everything that was done that was fought for. The cruising signs are down. Everybody needs to get together and come together as people. 

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 Antonio “OG” Cardenas 

1954 Bel Air 

The Originals Car Club 

I am from an old car club, the first one in Sacramento called The Originals. I've been cruising for over 54 years. And something I love to do. It started many years ago back in the 60s. My brother was a Pachuco and he had a ‘51 Deluxe. Back in them days we used to primer our cars and he primered them black. And my brother was an artist so he started pinstriping it and fixing the car up. Then on a dashboard, he put a bunch of beautiful roses. I fell in love with that car. And that's where it all started from. 

My first car was a ‘60 Chevy. I fixed it all up. I put rims on it. And I took that out there to the boulevard. I lowered it, heated the springs so the car would go down, and threw some batteries back there. Whatever I had to do to make that car low. Back then there was no hydraulics. But we put stuff in our trunks to lower our cars. We cruised on Friday and Saturday and Sunday morning we went to the park. Then Sunday night we take all the stuff out of the trunk and go back to work in the same car. 

Scott’s is a hamburger stand that makes some of the best burgers and fries ever. We used to park there on Friday and wait for everybody. The girls back then used to wrap their hair up high. And they used that hairspray called Aqua Net. They put one to two cans of Aqua Net in their hair just to make it stand up like that. Some girl did her hair like that and she went to light a cigarette when she lit that cigarette her whole hairdo went poof and lit up the whole parking lot. Everybody was throwing jackets on her head, slapping her head and everything. It was hella funny. I mean, it wasn't funny because she could’ve got burned. But it was just funny when it happened 

I'm still out there cruising with everybody else I got my I got my lowrider here ‘54 Chevy as my cruiser right there and I get out there and support all the clubs. it's a passion for the cars and for the paint jobs and rims, it’s like moving art. 

Little kids are amazed at lowriders. They see a low rider I always see them pointing “Look at that lowrider Mom!” There's something that excites me when I see little kids do that. Because then it reminds me that was me when I was little. That’s why I'm still doing it. It's something I love and I got a passion for and I'd be doing it to the day I die. 

When you're cruising, you're like in another world, you just get into it. There's nothing like playing a good oldies, and reminiscing, talking to my head. When you're cruising, you’re thinking about all the girls that are out there, the ones you used to be with, and the ones you want to be with. It is just beautiful. And that's what I think about when I'm cruising, man. I just love the music. I love the environment. I love the lifestyle. It's our culture and I'm glad that I'm here doing it. 

We have so many cars here in Sacramento, beautiful cars. The atmosphere is beautiful. We go out there, show off our cars, and play our music. But now we kick it down and we stop at an earlier time. We try to respect people's wishes because we want to come back and cruise again. We want to do it another day. We didn't want to lose our Boulevards like we did before. We want to keep them so now we pick up after ourselves. We don't we don't tolerate all that throwing cans and burnouts and all that. If you come to one of our events have some respect 

I waited 32 years for us to get the streets back. I was so happy the day that happened. It was like something was lifted off my shoulders. We had that black cloud over us all the time. We couldn't go cruising because they would mess with us all the time and it was really sad. What I want the new generation to do now is respect our wishes, clean up after themselves, and stop doing burnouts. Just as easy as they gave us a street back they could take them just as fast. They did it to me they could do it to you. Cherish what we got man. And enjoy yourself and have a good time, be kind to people, and be respectful. Treat people the way you want to be treated. 

To the people who don't know anything about us, don't be scared to come say hello. Talk to us and get to know us. You'll be surprised how nice we are. And some people have this image of us that we do drive-bys and we fight and stab people, those are the movies. let you sit in my car. I’ll turn the oldies up and I'll take you for a ride if you want to go for rides. We are people with big hearts and we love to give and we love to be nice to other people, treat people the way you want to be treated and that's how we're going to treat you. 

[andritambunan]

Latest for Road & Track Magazine

The Young Mechanics Building the Lowrider of the Future

A crew of California high schoolers are transforming a ’64 Chevy Impala into an electric lolux.

How does a teacher get high-school students to show up early and wait at the door, eager for class to begin? This is how.

“It all started in this room,” says Galen Hartman, 57, a veteran collision body-shop owner turned high-school teacher. We’re in his auto shop on a campus of the Sacramento Academic and Vocational Academy (SAVA) charter school, and Hartman’s nine teenage students have gathered in a semicircle. Behind him is a candy-­apple-red 1964 Chevy Impala, with its engine, other guts, and most of its interior removed.

A year ago, Rodriguez’s mother, ShaVolla, was in the classroom and had the idea for the shop students build a lowrider. And not just any lowrider. Kids need to learn skills for tomorrow’s workforce. So why not build an electric lowrider? One with all the traditional lowrider features—a car that can hydraulically hop and ride on three wheels, with custom art all over it. Only no combustion chambers and no gears. A lowrider with a fully electric powertrain.

Therein lies a truth about automotive passion, one that gets talked about a lot in this class. Working on cars—whether it’s an EV lowrider, grandpa’s Silverado, or a Spec Miata readying for race day—is about learning, but it’s also about family, friendship, leadership, and community. About making memories.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a46078157/young-mechanics-building-the-lowrider-of-the-future/

[andritambunan]

Lowriders are cars that express social, cultural, and aesthetic identities. These cars have been a vehicle of choice for cruising, a popular pastime in many American communities since the mid-twentieth century. Lowriding puts both the cars and their riders on display.

Unfortunately, Lowriders and cruising are often viewed in a negative light, associated with street gangs and criminal activity. In the 1980s, the California Legislature adopted a definition of cruising and gave municipalities the power to prohibit it. This ordinance was “discriminatory in nature” and the police department has historically used it as a tool to monitor gangs and regulate other illegal activities such as sideshows and speed exhibitions. Recently, the "No Cruising" ordinance was overturned by the Sacramento City Council.

"We're not just about lowriders. We're about the people. When you write the word, 'lowrider' everyone thinks of the car. It's not the car— it's the Men and Women, the Family, the People, la Cultura.”

The Sacramento area is home to more than 40 car clubs. Cruising and the Lowrider communities are important parts of the city’s culture and history. The Lowrider community is rich with personalities and men and women who are passionate about their cars. The cars and Lowriding culture resonated across gender and racial lines and the face of Lowriding is evolving.

The spirit of Lowriding has transcended generations. For many in the Lowrider community, customizing cars has become a family affair, a chance to banter and bond and pass knowledge and skill sets down to the younger generations. Not only is the Lowrider a visual statement but it is an expression of a way of living.

These photographs highlight the rich tapestry of the Lowrider community in Sacramento. Lowriders are much more than cool cars. They are a celebration of heritage, culture, and self-identity, an expression of art, personal values, pride, and the solidarity of community and family.

[andritambunan]

Latest for the San Francisco Chronicle, I photographed Opening Day at Mr. Rose Ski in Reno, Nevada.

Mt. Rose is the first Tahoe area resort to open for skiing for the 2023-2024 season.