Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
BELOW THIS IS AN ARTICLE ABOUT CHOLA CULTURE FROM HOW IT ALL BEGAN TO WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A CHOLA:
When I see the rebel Latino subculture being sampled and recontextualized by bourgeois white fashion designers, pop singers, or celebrity starlets, I can't help rolling my eyes.
Growing up in the 90s on the south side of Houston, I watched my older sister Lynda set the chola beauty standard. She lined her lips with berry-colored lipliner, plucked her eyebrows thin, and teased her permed hair with Aquanet hairspray, creating a stiff asymmetrical bang wave with a height capable of competing with all the homegirls in the neighborhood. She wore baggy polo shirts, gold jewelry, and had a gangbanger boyfriend named Angel with a bald fade and a lowrider car. She was a beautiful, highly accessorized chola who was respected in her world-most of all by me.
When I turned 13, Lynda began initiating me into the chola scene. By then, the look had evolved a bit-bang waves were no longer the style-but the core elements of the culture remained. Lynda and I drank Smirnoffs together, danced to Tejano music at the bar, and, at the end of the night, watched the boys fight in the parking lot. At 15, she bought me my first golden nameplate and I started dating one of Angel's friends. She taught me the moral codes of what would become a sometimes violent teenage lifestyle-codes she had learned growing up in our rough neighborhood.
I got into fights at school with other girls who challenged or disrespected me and tried to hold my own in a community that did not look kindly on weakness. I eventually pushed myself toward academics, hiding away from the scene, and ended up going to college-an opportunity not afforded to many of my peers. However, I maintained my chola vibe throughout my time in high school as a way to survive in my environment. So today, when I see chola culture being sampled and recontextualized by fashion designers, pop singers, or celebrity starlets, I can't help rolling my eyes.
At Givenchy's most recent show in Paris, the line used gelled baby hairs and braided hair loops to evoke what designer Riccardo Tisci called a "chola Victorian" look. Pop stars aplenty-from Lana del Rey to Gwen Stefani, from Nicki Minaj to Fergie-have all taken elements of chola style and used them for their own devices. Stefani in particular is a veteran of appropriating "chola glamour" with her pencil-thin eyebrows, dark outlined lips, wife-beater crop tops, and the airbrushed lowriders in her videos. Nicki Minaj's chola aesthetic in Young Money's "Senile" video included gold hoop earrings, a red bandana around her forehead, and sagging Dickies atop a sporty Moschino underwear set. Her lips were heavy with liner as she rapped in front of a crew of tattooed and shirtless Mexican dudes.
I get it. Celebs reference the style to conjure a subversive and feminine fierceness. Aesthetically, cholas are really fucking cool. However, there is a dysfunctional idea at the heart of these instances of chola appropriation-that an elaborate outfit is all you need to enter into a culture. Anne Hathaway's character in the movie Havoc is a great example. In the film, she plays a rich white girl from the suburbs of LA who tries to woo a gangster from the Eastside by rocking big gold hoop earrings and brand name urbanwear. In one of the movie's more mortifying scenes, she sings and rolls on her wannabe thug boyfriend to a Tupac song. Then there are those celebs who take it to another level of offense with straight-up mockery, like when George Lopez gave Sandra Bullock a chola makeover by drawing her eyebrows on with a Sharpie.
