Amongst over a hundred classic lowriders lined up on Loomis Street in the Pilsen neighborhood, on Chicago’s Lower West Side, for the Slow and Low Community Lowrider Festival, one baby blue 1950 Buick stood out.
While people lined up to try to capture the perfect picture with the car, a photograph of a young man smiling sat propped on the windshield.
It showed owner Michael Villanueva’s son, Michael Miguel Villanueva Jr., who passed away in a tragic car accident in 2011.
“He bought this car to give it to me as a present, I didn’t even know he had this car,” said Villanueva, who is the president of the Chingones Car Club of Chicago. “[After] he passed they brought the car to me,” he added.
Villanueva, who developed a love for the lowrider scene as a teen in Laredo, Texas thanks to his father, decided to restore the Buick to honor his son, and as a way of coping with the pain of his death, he said.
“It was kind of rusted and beat up, but I decided to fix it in memory of my son,” Villanueva said.
The father has attended the festival for five years, but this year’s edition, held in mid-August, has a special place in his heart. It was the first time he showcased his son’s Buick, Villanueva said with pride, as he showed an album of photos of his son.
The Buick is more than a beautiful car, Villanueva said, it represents his love for his son and his passion for the Chicano subculture of lowriding.
“My dad has a whole collection of Cadillacs in Texas, that’s where I got it from. It runs in the family, in the blood,” Villanueva said.
Unlike the frequent correlations of lowriding with gang culture seen in popular media, for Villanueva lowriding is a family tradition.
“There’s less gangs because of this. A lot of gangbangers want to have cars like us, but that’s not what it takes. It takes pride to work on these cars,” Villanueva said. “A lot of people think these cars are for cholos and gangbangers and that’s not true. It’s like a piece of art for us, to represent our culture, not the killings and the violence.”
Ernie Rodriguez, who recently got back into the lowrider scene and was excited to showcase his 1994 Chevy truck, called “Bandido de Amores”, agreed. He said that the lowrider lifestyle isn’t just about decked out cars, it’s about work ethic.
“We try to get the youngsters to understand, ‘hey instead of being on the corners and doing bad things this is what you should put your time into,'” Rodriguez said. “We try to keep them from going on the streets, doing drugs and gangbanging, and use their abilities to do art work and build what they can.”
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Lowrider culture dates back to early 1950s, said Ben Chappell, author of “Lowrider Space: Aesthetics and Politics of Mexican-American Custom Cars.”
“One thing they emphasize is that it is not a fad, it is a lifestyle,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “Owning a lowrider generally shows a lot of stability and responsibility,” he said. “You put in a lot of time and money into a car. You have to have your life in order and don’t want to put that at risk.”
The Chicago Urban Art Society (CUAS)
The festival is the only of its kind in Chicago. It has grown from showcasing 50 to over 200 cars. It’s mission is to eliminate the misconception of the creators behind the lowrider scene, and to exhibit and celebrate art culture of the Lowriders in Chicago. The Chicago Urban Art Society (CUAS) is a non-profit exhibition and creative-use space based in the industrial corridor of the Pilsen community.