Punk’s Not Dead in East LA: Exploring the East Los Series and It’s Use of Locality and Cultural Hybridity for Eastside Catharsis

Resum

Punk Rock, with its enticing ability to use rhythmic violence and hard-hitting melodies, obtained a unique niche in the backyards of East Los Angeles in the late 70's and early 80's. Punk's importance in the lives of East LA youth can be chronicled back to legendary East LA bands like Los Illegals and The Brats; yet some, like London's International Times in 1977, believed Punk was dying. Although the research that has been emerging about Punk has been insightful in understanding Los Angeles and its dichotomies, the literature seems to be stuck in the 80's, making Punk's importance in the lives of East LA youth today supposedly dead as well. Has the Punk scene in East LA truly been dead for almost thirty years? Have the youth of the Eastside found other outlets for their teenage angst, family problems, and identity crises? For these young Punkeros of Latino origins, the struggle with national identities, resistance against unemployment, and the unending combat towards advancement for minorities, are a driving force in the current Punk scene in East LA. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to analyze how Angela Boatwright’s 2014 Van’s Off The Wall documentary titled East Los used locality and bi-cultural integration in order to portray East LA “punkeros”; giving insight into the lives of Latino-American young adults in LA. Eastside youths have found a way to use Punk as a means towards catharsis, a way to not only release negative emotions, but a way to express their discontent with the status quo and their inevitable hybridity.  In East LA, Punk is definitely not dead.

California Lutheran University