In many ways, Chulita Vinyl Club is carving out a spot for Latina women to take the stage and reclaim a space that should be theirs. Why does our counterculture continue to be taken away from us? I feel complicit in the historic revisionism. The words of Rebecca Solnit: "This was the Lexington, a lesbian bar in the Mission for a long, long time, and now it's had amnesia, identity theft, and a botox injection of fake SF history." "Oh wow, this used to be the Lexington Club."Īnd it hits me. Jahaira and her fellow DJ crew member Andrea Gutierrez meet me at the bar.Īfter a warm hello, and hugs, Jahaira looks around, and is silent. I try to remember what this place used to be.
I meet Jahaira at the most gentrified spot in the Mission that I can think of, an empty bar on 19th Street with couches and an affected speakeasy vibe - but it's quiet, which makes it a good spot to do an interview. SIDE A: Sisters in Dance, Sisters in Struggle She's swinging me so fast, I'm only focused on not flying flat on my ass and becoming an accidental coming attraction.īut it feels so good to follow a woman who knows what she's doing, whose long curly hair flows in every direction, and whenever she laughs, I can't help but laugh too.Īll there is: this dance floor, these lights, y Jahaira. I say sort-of, because I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm not slowing her down. Jahaira, mid-spin, throws her hand out at me, swings under her partner, and begins to sort-of cumbia with me.
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But I do know how to move, and follow when someone is bold enough to lead. I also want to find it in myself to dance. Members of the Chulita Vinyl Club at the turntables. We are just a few blocks from where Oscar Grant was killed, and it doesn't feel like seven years have passed because the killings have not. It's July 7, the night that protestors have shut down I-880 and 2,000 people protest police brutality and the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. When she spins, turns, and kicks up, we're not in Fruitvale anymore - we're free. A DJ and founding member of the Bay Area chapter of Chulita Vinyl Club, she wears a track jacket with a gold chain, doorknocker earrings, loose bootleg trousers and heels, and Jesus Christ, she can move. It should come as no surprise, then, that he was one of the pioneers of Tejano soul.At the Aloha Club, boasting "the longest bar" in Oakland, Jahaira Morales dances cumbia with ganas. Little Joe grew up on the cotton fields of Texas, where his was one of the only Mexican families living in a community of largely black families. The group Little Joe y La Familia is the perfect example of this fusion. And although they collect all kinds of records, Chicano soul is one genre that rings near and dear to the club’s heart and style.Ĭhicano soul is the product of black and brown communities living side by side. She’s founder of the Chulita Vinyl Club, an all-girl vinyl collecting crew spread throughout the Southwest and California. “I just like holding that piece of history.”
“I just feel that is definitely more intimate than playing it on my phone on, like, Spotify or a streaming app,” Saenz says. On her days off, Claudia Saenz scours used record shops, thrift stores and yard sales, keeping her eyes peeled for records her parents grew up on.
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