Of Cholos and Surfers

 

           

            Cultural artifacts have distinctive yet powerful influences on individuals and the society. They change people’s attitudes and ways of thinking. In the essay Of Cholos and Surfers by Jack Lopez, some artifacts he encountered as a teenager changed his view on social identity. The magazine Surfers Quarterly and the surfboard called Velzy-Jacobs transformed Lopez’s way of dressing and confronting people around him. These effects were so great that they lasted for the rest of his life.

            The artifact that had the greatest influence on Lopez is the magazine Surfer Quarterly. It was his accidental encounter with the magazine that flamed his desire to be a surfer even when “he never made it to the beach”. His view of what it means to be a surfer shaped his behaviors and decisions. In his neighborhood, he must choose to be a cholo or to be a surfer. By owning an issue of the magazine and dressing in “surfer” clothes, he became a surfer.

            To the teenage Lopez, the magazine was far more important than issues in the society. He stated that the magazine looked like “a square of water was floating in the air” and it held spiritual value to him. He would spend Friday evenings reading the magazine and memorizing every photo caption and their sequence, uninterested even in his family rituals. His view on surfers differed greatly from his father’s. His father would flip through the magazine casually and even make fun of Lopez with the store clerk. This shows that the magazine initiated the separate views between Lopez and his family.

            Another artifact that influenced Lopez is the Velzy-Jacobs surfboard. The surfboard was Lopez’s “teenage dream”. It was this goal that made him do chores and save money so that his parents would buy it for him. It was the surfboard that bribed him into moving out of the neighborhood. It was the decision of becoming a surfer that separated Lopez and his childhood friend Lenny Muelich, who became a cholo.

            Penney’s Towncraft T-shirts and Sir Guy wool shirts are two other artifacts that Lopez encountered. Penny’s Towncraft T-shirts, baggy shorts, and being barefoot are the typical outfits of the surfers. Sir Guy wool shirts, khaki pants, and French-toed black shoes are the typical outifts of the cholos. By dressing like a surfer, Lopez became different from the others in his neighborhood and gained a distinctive social identity.