Point At Issue: Appreciation or Appropriation?
In recent years, A-Listers like Kim Kardashian West have been under fire for cultural appropriation. In other words, these celebrities purposefully took aspects of another culture that they did not belong to for aesthetic, personal purposes. In 2018, Kim Kardashian West wore cornrows, a braiding style that originated from Black culture.
This Kardashian has sported cornrows to the Video Music Awards and other events, as well as posted herself in this hairstyle on her social media platforms. Although she has received backlash from fans and disappointed onlookers, Kim continues to wear these braids. In 2018, Kim Kardashian spoke out, saying that “I think as long as it comes from a place of love and you’re getting inspired, then it is okay.”
Is it?
Cultural appropriation is a many-headed beast that manifests itself historically and today. More importantly, cultural appropriation can happen to any culture and in any place - not just by Hollywood celebrities. It even happens in Japan.
Chicana/Chicano culture refers to the customs within the community of Mexican Americans. Although the term “Chicano” was considered derogatory, it became popular post the civil rights era as university students began to tokenize and take pride in the word. During the civil rights movement, Chicanos wanted to empower their identities as individuals of Mexican descent. Historically, those who identify themselves as Chicano are associated with the fierceness and rebellion that connotes to the impact they had in the 1940s and the 1950s.
(Chicano Park Murals/Credit: Kellinahandbasket)
Images of Chicano culture are stereotyped in movies like “Selena” and “La Bamba”, where characters are depicted riding in lowrider cars, adorned with bandanas, rosaries, and large hoop earrings, or surrounded by Guadalupe artwork.
Los Angeles is a hub for all aspects of the Chicano culture, as it is a community where the county alone makes up 4.9 million individuals who identify themselves as Chicano. Thus, Los Angeles is the largest Chicano-identifying community in the United States, as residents make up 9% of the entire nation’s population.
Yet, bits and pieces of Chicano culture manifest 5,623 miles away from Los Angeles and found in Nagoya, Japan. In Nagoya, Chicano music, fashion, artwork, and even transportation are coined by communities of Japanese men and women that are fascinated and inspired by Chicano culture.
Lowrider cars are a staple of Chicano life. They are customized cars with lowered bodies, historically associated with Chicano men from Texas and southern California. Oftentimes, lowriders are brightly and boldly colored, or adorned with religious symbols. As vehicles, they are a source of inspiration and a landscape for Chicanos, as they represent a rebellious interest in cars (lowriders are technically illegal in most states), and pride.
Although lowriders are often associated with the Chicano community, they also hold a space in the west coast rap community - popular songs like “Nuthin’ But A G Thang” and “Let Me Ride” by Dr. Dre are tunes which refer to and describe lowriders.
(Credit Kinya Hanada) Shimodaira art on display
In Nagoya, Japan, Chicano lowrider culture is king. In Nagoya, sometimes called the automotive capital of Japan, lowriders are popular in Nagoya, as are car clubs, partially due to a man named Junichi Shimodaira, who brought lowriders to Nagoya in the ‘80s. In a New York Times interview, Shimodaira shows off his store and workplace, as well as his history. He is the founder of one of the oldest car clubs in Nagoya: Pharoah’s Car Club.
Through imported magazines and Japanese journalists, lowrider culture flourished in Nagoya. Besides owning and selling lowriders, Shimodaira is inspired by Chicano symbols, clothing, and music. His workspace is embellished with the California state flag, as well as Día de Los Muertos statues like ornamental skulls. If his workplace was naked of these aspects of culture, Shimodaira says, “we are just some people who drive around in lowrider cars”.
Although Shimodaira is knowledgeable about Chicano culture, he has profited off Chicano culture and emblems of the gang scene for thirty years. But do his customers understand the political and social history of Chicano culture in America?
(Credit Bballchico) A low-rider, many question if Chicano inspired lowriders are insensitive to the culture that surrounds them
In a Refinery29 “Style Out There” special, host Connie Wang travels to Nagoya to explore Chicana culture in Japan. There, she meets Samina, a young Japanese woman employed by Junichi Shimodaira’s lowrider car shop, Paradise Road. Samina says that for the most part, lowrider culture and car repairs are seen as a man’s game - but not for her. After all, she is the only female mechanic working at Paradise Road. She says, “I do know that I am different from other girls...Lowriders get me pumped up.” In her lowrider Volkswagen Beatle, Samira decorates the inside with a chain steering wheel, bandanas, and rosaries - although she is not Catholic herself. She says, “I like to be surrounded by amazing and fun things.”
Through what Chicana culture offers Samina, she feels “I’m being true to myself and I live surrounded by my favorite things.” Thus, Chicano culture offers Samina comfort, pride, and confidence - even though the culture may not be geographically or culturally, her own.
Cultural appropriation is manipulating certain aspects of a culture for personal gain or aesthetics, without attempting to understand or educate others on the history of that culture. Simply put, it is looting aspects of another culture by someone who does not belong to that culture. In Junichi Shimodaira’s case, lowriders are something that he drives, uses, and sells because he likes the look of them and enjoys the aesthetics of the car itself.
Although he understands aspects of Chicano culture and was introduced to the lowrider culture by Chicanos he met in Los Angeles, he cannot guarantee that what he is doing is to wholly understand or historically appreciate the richness of Chicano culture. For Samina, lowriders and other Chicana symbols, like bandanas and rosaries, give her a sense of belonging. At the same time, Samina is not catholic and plays up stereotyped aspects of what may not apply to all Chicanas - gang-related bandanas or a belief in God.
On the other hand, while these individuals may not represent the motivations behind every man or woman emulating Chicana/Chicano culture in Japan, the line between appropriation and appreciation is a tough one to draw, as these individuals are, in a sense, honoring and learning about aspects of Chicano culture to drive a deeper sense of self and, in regard to Junichi Shimodaira, make business and friendship connections in east Los Angeles.
Are the appropriation and appreciation of different cultures always asynchronous? Is it possible that they can coexist in the cases of Junichi Shimodaira and Samina?
You decide.
