Austin, TX
‘An extension of who we are.’ Texas lowriders cruise with pride in family, Latino culture
Austin lowrider Steve Guzman bought his first rig, a candy-apple red Chevy pickup, when he was 22. He’d just come home from serving in Vietnam. Back then, Guzman said, Austin’s lowriders fought bitterly.
His friend, Manuel Medina, lived in Montopolis, across the river from Guzman’s East Austin neighborhood. Neither would drive across the bridge.
“We had different parts of town,” said Austin rider James Sanchez, and the attitude was, “Don’t come to my side.”
But as Guzman, Medina and Sanchez grew older, Austin’s lowriding scene began to change. The bridge’s boundary grew porous. Families married across the river. As pride in their cars had once kept the neighborhoods apart, the art of lowriding brought them together.
“Time has healed,” Guzman said.
The gray in his beard reflected colors from lowriders parked nearby. Today, Guzman, Medina and Sanchez are members of the old guard. Their pride lies as much in their cars as in the next generation of lowriders who, they hope, will inherit them.
Lowrider clubs proliferated in Texas in the 1960s
On a recent Sunday, lowriders from across Austin and throughout Texas cruised through the capital to celebrate the uniquely Latino tradition. Their rally point was a new exhibit at the Bullock Texas State History Museum.
More: Five reasons to visit the Bullock Museum’s lowriding ‘Carros y Cultura’ exhibit
The exhibit, called “Carros y Cultura,” celebrates Texas lowriders: the art, culture and people.
Lowriding’s origins lie in 1940s California, where the elaborately decorated cars arose as an expression of Latino pride. The culture came to Texas about 20 years later.
That’s when Austinites, like Steve Guzman’s grandfather, first started putting bags of cement in the trunks of their cars to get closer to the pavement.
Now, there are close to 100 lowrider clubs in Austin alone, Guzman estimated.
‘Never did we dream that we would be at the Bob Bullock museum’
About 70 riders from as many as 30 clubs came to show their cars on Sunday, cruising past the Bullock museum, around the Capitol, down South Congress Avenue and across the bridge. Then they posted at Fiesta Gardens’ Chicano Park, in Austin’s Holly neighborhood, to party.
Lowriders of every shape and size cruised the streets: some richly ornamented, some glowing. Others rolled down South Congress with one wheel cocked high in the air: a maneuver known as “three wheel motion.”
The celebration grew as a way to take “Carros y Cultura” back to the streets, said an adviser for the show, Monica Maldonado.
Maldonado is the founder of MAS Cultura, a nonprofit dedicated to uplifting Austin’s Latino community through art. Lowriding, she said, was one of her first inspirations.
“But never did we dream that we would be at the Bob Bullock museum,” she said just before the cruise. A bubble-gum pink lowrider slipped past. Maybe it was the bright sun, reflecting off its paint, but tears began to well in Maldonado’s eyes.
“I’m here. I’m an Austin native, and to see our culture celebrated and bringing everyone together — there’s really no words for it,” she said, blotting her eyes.
Portraits of families rendered in paint and chrome
Each lowrider tells a story with their car. Many are passed down through generations as family heirlooms: symbols of dedication and reminders of the beauty in perseverance.
“West Texas” Eddie Velarde, a member of the Majestix Car Club’s San Antonio chapter, has been restoring his 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme for 18 years.
When he bought the car, his daughter, Selena, was just 6 months old. This year, she graduated from high school. Velarde hopes she’ll inherit the lowrider when he dies, he said, as a memory of his hard work.
“I look at this car, and it’s a symbol of times when bills went unpaid, when money was short. Life was hard, but we made it.” Velarde said, running his hand over a portrait of his daughter painted on the Oldsmobile’s trunk.
Paintings of Velarde’s mother, father and wife adorn other panels. He’s dedicated the car to his family, he said: “It’s an extension of who we are.”
Like Velarde, longtime Austin rider Trampia Guzman grew up “in the life,” he said: “I was born to it.”
When Trampia Guzman’s father followed work to fields in the Northeast, he’d call home, asking his young son to rotate the tires on his car. Lowriding was a way of life for them.
‘This is an art, and it’s miraculous’
The art gave rise to other creations.
Trampia Guzman’s grandmother taught him to sew when he was 5. He started making zoot suits, a uniquely baggy and square cut style that began among Chicanos from El Paso in the ‘40s.
Now two of Trampia Guzman’s suits are on display in the Bullock museum’s lowrider exhibit. One of them, cut from shining gold cloth, he made as a memorial to his grandmother. The material came from a set of drapes that had hung in her home all of his life.
He admired the cloth as a boy, he said: His memory of his grandmother had always been sitting in a chair in front of the golden drapes. Now, he wears the suit each year on the anniversary of her death.
Stories of love and dedication spring from the lowriders.
Trampia Guzman’s wife bought him one to restore on their 20th wedding anniversary. He said he cried when he saw the car taken apart for painting; he was so overwhelmed. His friend, who goes simply by “Gizmo,” helped him paint the car.
“This is an art, and it’s miraculous,” Gizmo said, turning his head with a grin. “You see that red car over there?”
He pointed to a pearlescent cherry cruiser, sitting low to the ground.
“That one got struck by lightning. It almost burnt all the way down, but we saved it.”
Carros y Cultura
When: On display through Sept. 2
Where: The Bullock Texas State History Museum at 1800 Congress Ave.
Info: An exhibit showcasing Texas’ unique lowriding culture, featuring ornately decorated cars, motorcycles and artworks from the Latino community
Austin, TX
America 250 celebration: Texans who fought for independence honored in Austin – Texas – The Black Chronicle
(The Center Square) – As part of Texas’ celebration of the founding of the United States, a new monument was unveiled in Austin commemorating 69 patriots who fought for U.S. independence who later came to Texas.
Texas is also celebrating its first U.S. Navy fleet week in state history in the Houston area, where roughly 1,000 sailors and Marines are participating in nearly 200 events as part of the America 250 celebration. This also includes commemorating the Texas Navy, which helped win Texas’ independence from Mexico 190 years ago this April, The Center Square reported.
Gov. Greg Abbott and the leaders of the Texas Society Sons of the American Revolution unveiled a new monument honoring Texas revolutionary war patriots at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
Abbott, a direct descendent of a patriot who supported the cause of American independence, was also inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution and received the Silver Good Citizenship Medal.
“It is appropriate to remember that today, April 18th, 251 years ago, the Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred with the shot heard around the world,” Mel Oller, president of the Texas Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, said.
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On the evening of April 18, Paul Revere rode from Boston to Charlestown warning colonists that British troops were coming. Several hundred Minute Men and colonial militia fought British soldiers the next morning in Concord and Lexington, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War.
The commemoration in Austin was important “to reflect on the courage, sacrifice and enduring principles that gave birth to the United States of America,” Oller said. “This monument stands as a tribute to those patriots and reminder to future generations of the ideas that continue to shape our Republic.”
“Texans played a role in the war too, and it’s important to recognize them, and the sacrifices they made for our freedom,” he said.
“The history that is etched the United States into the annals of the greatest country in the history of the world,” Abbott said. As others try to rewrite American history or “try to condemn the glory of what America has been able to achieve,” Abbott said Texas was focusing on teaching children about U.S. and Texas history. “We must educate every generation about why it is that America grew from just a tenuous 13 colonies into the most powerful country in the history of the world.”
“There could hardly be a better time to dedicate this monument than during our 250th celebration of freedom, of independence,” he said. It’s “an enduring testament to the heroes who fought for that freedom that is unique to America.”
One of the greatest gifts Revolutionary War heroes gave Americans was freedom, Abbott said, “but freedom is not a one-time event. The fight didn’t end with the Treaty of Paris. It’s an everyday process, perpetually. Just as the patriots took to the hillsides to battle the Red Coats, modern day Patriots” continue to fight for freedom, including the failed policies of Marxism, he said. Many Texans’ ancestors “died for a country they would never get to see. Stories of these heroes must be told. Generations of Americans must be reminded of who they are and what they fought for.”
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There are 69 American Revolutionary War heroes listed alphabetically on the monument who later settled in Texas, including native Tejanos who fought for American independence, according to TSSAR.
Listed first is John Abston, who enlisted in the militia in Virginia when he was 18. He fought alongside and under men like John Crockett, father of Davy Crockett, in one of the most pivotal battles of the war: the Battle of Kings Mountain, in South Carolina. He later moved to Collin County, Texas.
Another is José Santiago Seguín, the grandfather of Texas Revolutionary hero Juan Seguín, the first and only Tejano to be elected to the Republic of Texas Senate. He also fought with Sam Houston in the Battle of San Jacinto.
Another is Peter Sides, who fought with a North Carolina regiment against the British. He later joined the Gutierrez-Magee expedition in 1812 and was killed in 1813 at the Battle of Medina in what is now Bexar County. The battle is “known as the bloodiest battle on Texas soil. The rebels’ bodies were desecrated and their body parts were removed and scattered,” the TSSAR explains.
Another is William Sparks, who joined a North Carolina militia when he was 17. He and his family later moved to Nacagdoches, Texas; his sons and grandsons fought for Texas independence.
Listed at the bottom of the monument is Ira Hobart Evans, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and the youngest Speaker of the Texas House who founded the Texas Society of the Sons of American Revolution.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas’ highway system dropped two spots since 2025, and now ranks at No. 27 in the country for its cost-effectiveness and overall conditions, according to the Reason Foundation’s 2026 Highway Report.
The report assessed pavement conditions, fatalities, deficient bridges, infrastructure costs and congestion levels across the United States. Texas earned the following rankings:
- 33rd in urban interstate pavement conditions
- 21st in rural interstate pavement conditions
- 39th in urban arterial pavement conditions
- 12th in rural arterial pavement conditions
- 3rd in structurally deficient bridges
- 26th in urban fatality rate
- 42nd in rural fatality rate
- 41st in traffic congestion
“More than 42,000 of the nation’s 618,923 highway bridges, nearly 7%, are still structurally deficient. Arizona, Nevada, and Texas reported the lowest percentages of deficient bridges,” the report said.
The full report can be found online.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Small hail peppered the Austin area as strong thunderstorms moved through Saturday.
A few of the storms dropped rain and up to pea-sized hail in San Marcos, Dripping Springs and the Austin metro area.
A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for Williamson County around 8:15 p.m., and then canceled shortly after. However, it was enough for the Two Step Inn music festival in Georgetown to cancel shows for the rest of the evening. Event organizers say the festival will run as planned Sunday.
KXAN’s First Warning Weather team is monitoring the storms. We will update this post as the evening continues.
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