Ask any longtime Santa Rosan about the cruising scene in town, and they’re likely to reminisce about the bustling weekend-night cruise strip of their teen years. It might have been Fourth Street between Courthouse Square and the Eat ‘n’ Run drive-in, or Mendocino Avenue between Long’s Drugs and downtown.
As it happened, my younger years coincided with Santa Rosa’s first anti-cruising ordinance (PDF). Perhaps not so coincidentally, it wasn’t enacted until Chicano lowrider culture became prominent on the city’s cruise strip, with hydraulics and large speakers. On Saturday nights, skateboarding on the sidewalk while custom Cadillacs and mini-trucks showed out in the street, I regularly witnessed cops pulling over these drivers, most of them Black or Latino.
Change came slowly. After 37 years on the books, Santa Rosa’s cruising ban was finally repealed in 2023, thanks in part to the city’s first-ever council member from the largely Latino Roseland neighborhood, who knew his constituents’ frustration and decided to do something about it.
Even at age 11, my skater friends and I could sense that laws like Santa Rosa’s cruising ordinance were discriminatory and unjust. Cruisin’, an exhibition at the Museum of Sonoma County on display through Nov. 24, is a giant step toward understanding rather than persecuting lowrider culture.
Filled with the artwork and custom designs of Sonoma County car clubs, Cruisin’ shows the familial bonds forged in the lowrider community, and the unceasing dedication and creativity of the scene. With the cooperation of local riders, artists and archivists, along with members from the Sonoma County Lowrider Council, the exhibition gathers all the material evidence of lowrider life: meticulously painted car hoods. A reimagined upholstery panel. Airbrushed T-shirts. Sixteen different jackets and 19 custom car plaques. A large chassis with hydraulics.
Two vintage cars form the centerpiece of the show. Neto Longoria’s 1938 Plymouth was first lowered in the 1960s; it’s said to be the longest running lowrider in Sonoma County. And Bill Llamas’ 1940 Chevrolet Business Coupe reveals new incredible details with each close inspection.
“We’re members of a car club, not a gang,” says one interviewee in a looping video that’s worth watching in full. Filmed in the early 1980s through a community access-style county program, it includes footage of cruises along Santa Rosa Avenue near City Hall and Juilliard Park, and interviews about the issues lowriders face: prejudice, selective enforcement and unlawful searches of their cars.
“A lowrider has dignity, self-respect, self-esteem,” says another interview subject. “They don’t have to show anybody how bad they are. They’re proud of who they are when they get dressed in the morning, they’re dressed clean and neat. They take pride in their car, themselves, their family, their friends. That’s what it means to me.”
Alfonso Dominguez’s Twisted Obsession lowrider bike, which won Lowrider magazine’s 1995 Bike of the Year, is on display, as is Jose Fausto’s customized 2001 Harley-Davidson, Aztlán, combining Native American and Chicano aesthetics. There’s even a full-size piñata rendition of a 1964 Impala by mixed-media artist Justin Favela.
Throughout the exhibit, it’s made clear that this is a street-level culture. Vintage photos prove that the lowrider footprint in Sonoma County stretched as far as Duncans Mills, out near the coast. Sonja Vasquez’s incredible portraits capture lowriders’ determination and pride. And a wall of hand-drawn artwork depicts fantastical dreams alongside daily life, such as a red pencil illustration from Anthony “Chuko” Garduño that includes a paleta cart and a Dollar Tree.
No single museum exhibit can thoroughly capture Sonoma County’s entire lowrider scene, which includes hundreds of families — sometimes stretching back generations — and 21 different car clubs. But because of the museum’s decision to work directly with the community for this exhibit, Cruisin’ is undoubtedly what every lowrider aspires to be: authentic.
‘Cruisin’’ is on view at the Museum of Sonoma County in Santa Rosa through Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. Details here.