Barbara Lillian, a member of the Mile High Rollerz lowrider club, believes so strongly in that message that she carries it to the classroom, where she and her husband lecture on the history and cultural contributions of lowriders.
"There's nothing wrong with what these guys are doing," says Lillian, a native of Española, New Mexico, the lowrider mecca. "You can have a lowrider bike or a car without being part of a gang or selling drugs. Cruising is a way of going to say hi to your friends or seeing how things are going with other clubs. It's a get-together type thing. A tradition. They can try, but they won't stop it."
Brett Amole
Drive, he said: Bill Bernal has been cruising Federal Boulevard for 26 years.
Brett Amole
Vroom service: Sam Henry and his tangerine '81 Lincoln.
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Back on Federal Boulevard, near the end of the cruising circuit, Bernal stops at a traffic signal. Except that there hasn't been much traffic this September 16. Although he's spotted the occasional gold-rimmed pickup and low-slung sedan, most serious lowriders seem to have stayed at home. Even the wannabes are scarce.
It's the weather, he says. It's colder than usual. And Mexican Independence Day fell on a Thursday, while most cruisers prefer the weekends. And then there are the cops. Always the cops.
"A few years ago, this place would have been packed," he says. "It would have taken us an hour just to drive around once."
Bernal changes the subject.
"Did you notice that?"
"What?"
"Those girls in that car. They've been following us since we left the car wash."
When he was younger, he says, that sight would have given him whiplash. And now?
"I don't care, to tell you the truth," he says. "I know my car. I know what I've got."
And he knows something else. The police crackdown might have slowed cruising this year, but the lowriders will be back. If not this year, then the next one, or the one after that.
"They try to discourage us and scare us, but it's not going to stop it," Bernal says. "How are they going to stop it? If they close Federal, they'll just go somewhere else. They can't outlaw every place. Lowriding is going to be around for a long time."
As long as he has a classic sedan with gold-plated rims, leather interior and metal-flake paint, he'll be around, too.
"Some people say I'm too old, but what else am I going to do?" he asks. "You won't find me sitting in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe and going to sleep. I don't drink or smoke or anything else, so I have to do something. And this is what I do."
The light changes, and the purple Impala rolls on down the boulevard.
