Taking the High Road : An alliance formed by half a dozen lowrider clubs seeks to combat the negative image that plagues the hobby. Members are exposed to other cultures, and gang affiliations aren’t allowed.

Lowriders have rumbled along the streets of Southern Californiafor decades, but these days some are learning about more than just hydraulics and chrome plating. Some club members are bridging the gap between cultures--and banding together against car thefts--through a new alliance that promotes unity among the diverse car clubs of Orange County.

Six car clubs joined together in November to form the Lowrider Alliance of Orange County, a cross-cultural organization that strives to change the negative image that plagues lowriders.

While lowrider alliances--including an Orange County association which recently disintegrated--have existed in various parts of the United States for about 10 years, all were predominantly Latino organizations. Multiethnic and cultural alliances have not existed until recently.

“The newest lowrider associations are cross-cultural. We see that as the new trend in lowriding, and what you are really touching on is the future of lowriding,” said Lowrider magazine publisher Alberto Lopez, whose magazine has a national and international circulation of 180,000 per month.

The alliance includes four Latino clubs, one predominantly Latino club that has some African American members, and another club with a mixture of black, white, Samoan, Tongan and Filipino members.

Lowrider Matt Autele, a Samoan that said before meeting Latino car club enthusiasts he knew little about quinceaneras . For Autele, a member of the Uso car club in Santa Ana, “a birthday was just a birthday.” But since becoming a member of the alliance, Autele has learned that in Latino cultures, a quinceanera is the coming out celebration for 15-year-olds.

“There are some places that we go to where people say, ‘Why the hell do you have a white boy in your club?’ and we say, ‘You know why, because he’s family.’ It really opens a lot of eyes,” said Autele, 27, president of Uso, which means “brothers” in Samoan.

“Each ethnic group has their own style, their own way of doing things. And that’s a plus for an alliance,” said Autele.

A lowrider is a car whose original shock absorbers have been replaced with hydraulic coils to lower the car. The vehicle usually has specialized wheel rims and paint jobs, custom interiors, and hydraulics to make the car “hop.”

In the mid-1980s, this largely Latino subculture began to draw the interest of others, particularly African Americans, Lopez said. By the late 1980s, lowriding had attracted an Asian contingent, he said.

Car club members say they have also formed closer ties for protection against auto thefts and carjackings. Alliance members look out for each other and try to come to each other’s aid in the event of breakdowns, members said.

Autele said that when a Uso member’s car was stolen a few months ago, he alerted the other clubs in the alliance. Members from Anaheim to Orange to Santa Ana were on the lookout for the vehicle, he said.

Lowriders say they are also trying to improve their images by combatting the stereotype that all lowriders are gang members. Although many in the alliance acknowledge they are former gang members, no one with current gang affiliation is allowed to join the car clubs, they said.

“You have to choose between your car and your neighborhood,” said Joe Castorena, 21, a member of the De Aquellas club. “There’s no way you can be in both things.”

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As part of the effort, the alliance has sponsored family-oriented events such as a Christmas toy drive that raised $1,600 for needy Santa Ana children and a picnic and car-hopping contest in Fountain Valley on Sunday. The group is scheduled to hold an upcoming Easter Egg hunt.

But police and community members critical of the violence that accompanies car cruising concede it is difficult to distinguish between lowriders and gang members whose vehicles are outfitted in similar fashion.

Bristol Street in Santa Ana remains the main Orange County thoroughfare for these sleek cruisers, and ,despite a crackdown by police, there have been seven cruising-related homicides since January, according to the Santa Ana Police Department.

Generally, police said, they cannot tell lowriders and gang members apart by physical appearance.

“We don’t differentiate--cruisers are cruisers. Our problem is that cruising attracts gang members,” said Sgt. George Kopitch, who is attached to the department’s cruising detail. “But we work it as a cruiser problem, not as a gang problem.”

According to a city ordinance, cruising is defined as the driving of a motor vehicle three or more times within a four-hour period in a particular direction past a traffic-control point.

Police officers do, however, look for certain characteristics of the cars in an attempt to distinguish lowriders from gang members, said Sgt. Bob Clark. For instance, lowriders chrome out the vehicle’s undercarriage and install their club’s name on plaques beneath the cars’ rear windows.

This knowledge has helped police separate lowriders from gang members in some instances. Officers do recognize the individual car clubs and have helped them out on occasion, said Nasario Bastida, 24, president of the Uniques club.

“We put our money into our cars. Gang members put their money into drugs and guns. When they come across another gang, they throw signs. We compete against each other with our cars,” said Bastida. “The furthest we go is hopping the car against another car to see who can go the highest.”

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Neighborhood association representatives have long been critical of the cruising scene.

“People have to take home different routes on Saturday (because) cruisers are shooting out of cars at innocent bystanders. It’s incredible and we are tired of it,” said Alberta Christy, head of the Valley High Neighborhood Assn. in southwest Santa Ana.

But Christy said lowriders shouldn’t be blamed.

“When people see a lowrider, guilt by association will occur,” Christy acknowledged. “Until this problem is eradicated, people are going to categorize them in that same group. It’s unfair. I know it’s unfair.”

Assemblyman Jim Morrissey (R-Santa Ana) has authored a bill that would allow police officers to issue citations the second time they spot a cruiser in an area. The current law allows officers to cite cruiser when it is spotted a third time.

“The problem is not the lowriders, because last Sunday night there were 1,000 cars and I only saw one lowrider,” said Morrissey. “The problem is the cruising, the crime involved and the gang members shooting each other.”

But alliance members say they believe they are making progress toward respectability.

“With all the new things that we do to our cars and this alliance, I think it’s a whole new era for lowriding,” said Peter Delayo, 23, of the Southern Royalty club. “Maybe later, instead of talking about the ‘50s and ‘60s, people will talk about the ‘90s and the leaps and bounds lowriding has made.”