Japan’s chicano subculture: cultural appropriation or appreciation or something in between?
A while back, two VICE and Refinery29 mini-documentaries, on the Chicano subculture in Japan appeared in my YouTube recommendations.
As a Mexican-American, this intrigued me. I didn’t know necessarily how to react based just off of the thumb-nail, but I wanted to keep myself open to the idea that other people can appreciate a subculture without appropriating it. But after watching both documentaries, the simplest answer that I can give is this: it’s complicated. And perhaps, maybe that much more interesting.
According to Junich Schimodaira, who runs the Paradise Road lowrider club in Japan’s Nagoya, stated that lowrider culture arrived in Japan apparently after a Japanese journalist went to Los Angeles in the early 1990s to cover a lowrider event and returned to Japan with photos and stories to share. Lowrider culture reflects a community with an affinity for lowrider cars, outfits with intricate designs, multicolored lights and heavily tinted windows that can be traced in Southern California as far back as the 1940s .
The owner of La Puerta shop in Japan says he loves and respects the culture. He takes trips to LA and imports clothes to sell when back home in Japan. However, the clothing he chooses depicts lots of the more violent, gang-affiliated aspects of the chicano subculture.
Night the Funskta is an artist that takes a different approach. He tries to depict images of unity in the culture.
The look has many political roots as it precipitated out of the desire for young Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles during the 1960s where they felt rejected by both Americans and Mexicans.
Through further inspection, both documentaries asserted that there’s something in Japanese culture that these followers are not connecting to and so they choose to find liberation in other cultures. For the women, they say they want to rebel from the domicile, submissive roles that are often prescribed to women in Asian households. They love the idea that Chicana women represent, strength, rebellion, and boldness. They wear bold lipstick and heavy eyeliner, and opt for Nike cortezes. They drive low-riders. They wear their hair slicked back in low buns and have spanish tattoos. They sing in spanish and even have shrines dedicated to La Virgencita Maria, the Virgin Mary that many Catholic Mexicans venerate. When asked if they were Catholic themselves, the Japanese women said ‘no’ but they like the cultural symbolism and fashion statement behind the image.
Honestly, I felt weird seeing the Virgencita image in the car for the sake of making a fashion statement BUT at the same time, the idea that these people find comfort in an image so sacred to my culture, made me feel good. And I really loved how they felt empowered by people in my culture, as opposed to feel threatened by them. I just think that perhaps they can do a better job at presenting the culture, that’s all. I think that older folks in my family would be flattered by the adoption of this subculture, but then again, I understand that everyone feels differently about this type of thing.
