Moderator: AJ Kluth, Case Western Reserve University
Dianne Violeta Mausfeld, “‘Cholo Style’: Origin, Commercialization, and Appropriation of Urban Chicano Hip-Hop Fashion in Los Angeles”
Chicano rap evolved in the late 1980s and early 1990s in L.A. and other urban centers in
Southern California. The predominantly male, second-generation Latino and Chicano rappers,
DJs, and producers uniquely translated their urban migratory background to Spanglish rhymes
over beats that sampled lowrider oldies, funk, and soul. The musical subculture is deeply
intertwined with Chicano gang culture as many of the artists were gang members and/or grew up
in gang infested areas which is particularly visible in the subject matters, artists’ name patterns,
and their clothing style. This so-called “cholo” style entailed baggy khakis, Nike Cortez tennis
shoes, Pendleton flannel shirts, white t-shirts, and bandanas, as well as residual elements of zoot
suit culture such as fedoras. The style was criminalized by schools and law enforcement in the
context of gang injunctions which only contributed to it becoming a signifier of Brown pride and
resistance. At the same time, the portrayal of Chicano youth as “cholos” in the media moved
between authenticity and stereotype. Over time, the meaning of certain style elements changed
through their commercialization and appropriation by non-Chicano youth of color, yet cholo
aesthetics are intrinsically linked with Chicano rap. The style has been appropriated by African
American rappers on the West Coast since at least the 1980s which has led to its popularization
and the misconception that it derived from Black culture. Thus, the style’s history and importance
for L.A. hip-hop and urban Chicano culture at large cannot be overstated.
Drawing on ethnographic interviews with Chicano rap artists and contemporaries from
2019–2023 and critical source evaluation of album artwork, music videos, lifestyle magazines, and
motion pictures, this paper aims to carve out the history, meaning, and commercialization of
urban Chicano clothing styles in L.A. hip hop and popular culture from the late 1980s until today.
Aneliza Ruiz, “Querida América: Willy Chavarria and the Echoes of Latinx Feeling”
This paper examines Willy Chavarria’s fashion show, “América,” at New York Fashion Week
and closely reads the performance of “Querida” by Yahritza y Su Esencia at the show’s opening
in addition to specific looks from Chavarria’s collection. By closely reading the lyrical and
affective qualities of the musical performance and the historical references made in the design
choices of Chavarria’s collection, I suggest that Chavarria is making specific claims about Latinx
labor, desire, and belonging in the United States. Specifically, I trace Chavarria’s designs to the
historical figure of the Pachuco/a, or Zoot Suiter, who emerged during World War II when high
numbers of Latinx youth were employed by factories to manufacture war supplies. In present
contexts, the Pachuco/a is a symbol of ethnic pride and political refusal that emphasizes the
right to beauty and belonging for Chicano and Latinx folks. I argue that Chavarria references
this figure and their style, among other working-class jobs and aesthetics inhabited by Latines,
to demonstrate the echo of calls for justice by previous generations whose feelings are still
relevant in the present. I suggest that Chavarria seeks to add to this echo not only through his
designs but also through his decision to have Yahritza y Su Esencia perform “Querida,” a song
directed at a lost lover where the singer is asking for their sadness, loneliness, and suffering to
be acknowledged. By using the metaphor of the echo, I ultimately demonstrate how these small
traces of history are mobilized in the present to negotiate feelings and continue to imagine what
liberation might look like.
Jacob Sunshine, “Contrabandas y Estampadas: Screen-Printed T-shirts and the Reproduction
of Visual Culture in the Sound Systems of Barranquilla”
Picós are the ribcage rattling outdoor sound systems that animate parties in the largely Afro-
Colombian working-class neighborhoods of Barranquilla and other parts of the Caribbean Coast
of Colombia. Though picós have acquired their reputation in part for playing exclusive, rare
vinyl records of West and Central African guitar music that the audiences on La Costa favor,
since 1967, picós have also fostered a unique visual culture centered around elaborate
paintings on the picós speaker baffles in Day-Glo paint, oftentimes featuring mythical creatures
(El Dragón), enigmatic figures found on the cover of Salsa records (El Gran Pijuan), or war
heroes (El Gran Fidel). This visual aesthetic has launched the fame of artists like William
Gutierrez and Belismath whose visual motifs, unlike the “threatening” sounds that their art
accompanies, have crossed over into elite neighborhoods and have become ubiquitous aspects
of the city’s landscape, appearing everywhere from murals to high fashion. This paper draws
from 14 months of ethnographic research and oral history interviews in Barranquilla and
Cartagena, Colombia. It focuses specifically on the presence of contraband estampados, screen-
printed T-shirts, polo shirts, baseball caps and soccer jerseys fabricated by members of the
scene in Barranquilla’s central market. Donning these t-shirts at events becomes a way for
fanatics to indicate their support for a popular picó. But local celebrities and DJs will also sport
photos of their own faces, boosting their own presence in public space. This paper explores
how this practice of fabricating estampados performs the labor of reclaiming emblems in an
unequal city. This persistent copying of images follows a similar logic to the work that
Champeta producers do in marketing unlicensed, shoddy reissues of African music. In both
cases, the farther the crude copies get from the original, the stronger the allure, and in turn the
social value ascribed to the originals.
Jose Torres, “A Phenomenology of Mexico’s Traje de Charro and its Role in Mariachi Musicality
Music is typically conceived of as solely an auditory experience, with sound perceived as
the central role in how aesthetic meaning is attached. However, in a live performance (or visual
media), a musical body possesses equal potential to generate aesthetic qualities that along with
sound amplify perceptual experience. Embodied qualities of music being are often bound up in
objects like clothing and instruments. The way a musician’s body is stylized and clothed, along
with the vocal/instrumental technical execution, constitutes a “stance relationship” to the
expressive culture of a performance (Berger 2009). In Mexico, the traje de charro (charro suit),
the symbolic attire worn by mariachi musicians, is an insignia steeped in profound images of the
charro figure who exists on two levels. First, as a historic, real participant in the nation’s history
and second, as a re-imagined caricature of nationalist popular culture. Though often conflated,
these deeply entwined dualisms in part materialize a charro ethos (Geertz), made manifest in its
garb by a “semiotic ideology” (Keane 2005:191) mediating the kinds of acted-upon objects of
the habitus (Bourdieu 1984).
Mariachi practitioners in Mexico cite respect for the charro suit as a primary authentic
trait of being “un mariachi digno” (a dignified mariachi). In a musical performance, mariachi
attire, captures the aesthetic totality of Mexico’s historic charro, construed not only by its
materiality, but also in its symbolic amalgam of associated orientations, both real and imagined.
This paper presents a phenomenology of the charro suit, illustrating its role in structuring
socialized cultural imaginari
