Lowride 4 Lit

About 20 years ago, my dad bought a 1969 Chevy Impala Custom from a man who hired my dad to landscape his garden on a weekly basis. At the time, my dad only had a small pickup truck, and buying a "family car" was one of the several requirements he had to fulfill in order for us to have visitation rights with my dad after my parents' difficult divorce. He worked hard to fix the car, making it operable by rebuilding the radiator, doing a major tune-up, and investing in a few new parts for the suspension, braking system, and carburetor. The first day my dad picked us up in this sweet ride, I remember being excited by the possibilities it presented to us, to our relationship.

I imagined us working together, with my dad teaching me what he knew about cars, and us eventually turning it into a beautiful lowrider. I imagined us cruising the boulevards of North San Diego County in true Chicano style, bumping Curtis Mayfield's Superfly soundtrack on a booming sound system. My dad, however, being the humble man he is, never saw what I saw, and even if he did, he couldn't have afforded the costs associated with rebuilding a classic car into a show quality lowrider.

With time, the car came to be mine. When my younger brother started college, I gave my car at the time to him so that he could go to school and pick up our little sister, leaving me to take the bus to work. My dad, always the generous person he is, offered me the opportunity to take over the Impala. I gratefully accepted his offer, and the car became mine. For the past 12 years, this big, brown, 1969 Chevy Impala has been in my possession.

I've had the ability to cruise the car on occasion, investing in rebuilding the engine, keeping the car operable as best as I can; but between grad school, starting my own nonprofit, and other familial responsibilities, I've not been able to fully invest in my lowrider. And I'm okay with that.

Because of my passion for the arts, and my deep love for DSTL Arts in particular, I've decided to part ways with my Impala, offering the money I get from the sale of this prized family car as part of a down payment for a new vehicle that will serve as the basis for our future Mobile Art Lab. 

I'm putting in up to a combined $8,000 of my personal savings plus the sale of my 1969 Impala in support of the future of our programs. I encourage you to help me match my pledge to DSTL Arts and get us into a new SUV that will become the anchor vehicle for our Mobile Art Lab.