A now-forgotten Barrio"

By KiKi

One night during the summer of 1953, my buddies from Pico Viejo and I were cruising Whitter Blvd in East Los, and it was in our cruising we met some girls from a now-forgotten East Los Angeles barrio. And after we did some chatting with the girls, they invited us to a house party in the now-forgotten barrio for the following Saturday. 

That Saturday, I picked up my buddies in my '38 Chevy; we then drove to East Los, where we knew a store owner that sold beer to underage guys (like us). After buying some cold ones. We cruised until the sun went down before making our way to the party. The party was being held in a garage. Soon after we entered the garage, we spotted the girls that invited us, and we started slow dancing with them.

It wasn't long before the vatos from the now-forgotten barrio started getting pissed off and giving us dirty looks, and the vatos were getting more pissed as we swayed to one slow record after another with the girls. A while later, one of our guys who had indulged in too many cold ones sat down on a couch and passed out. While my friend was passed out, one guy from the now-forgotten barrio walked up to him; he looked at him for a minute or so, then started beating the shit out of him; my buddies and I jumped the guy, and then all hell broke loose.

There were 6 of us, maybe 20 of them, so we ran like a bat out of hell to my car and jumped in. There was a car parked in front of me and one in back, and to get out, I had to back up to clear the vehicle in front well; I backed up too fast, and I hit the car behind me, a mid-'30's cherried-out Ford, as the bumpers hit they locked. As I took off in first gear, it felt like I was pulling a trailer and was having trouble gaining speed; then one of the guys yelled at me, "kiki, you're towing a car behind you," after going a few more yards, I hit a bump. I looked in the rear-view mirror, the bumpers unlocked, and saw the Ford hit a parked car. We jumped onto the 10 Freeway with some vatos chasing us. We lost them on the freeway and safely got back to Pico Viejo to lick our wounds...