Cholo Writing: Latino Gang Graffiti in Los Angeles

Cholo Writing: Latino Gang Graffiti in Los Angeles – After being out of print and in high demand for years, «Cholo Writing: Latino Gang Graffiti in Los Angeles» (first published in 2009) is finally available anew this Spring 2024 at Dokument Press in a beautiful hardcover 2nd edition.

Cholo Writing is the 20th century’s oldest form of graffiti, a Mexican-American phenomenon evident in Los Angeles long before the appearance of tags and pieces in the late 1960s New York. It has had a major influence on the visual expressions of Californian popular culture, including the lowrider, surf, skate and hip hop movements. «Placas» are territorial inscriptions created to define a gang’s turf, a genuine, constantly evolving urban calligraphy with strict codes used by Latino gangs for street writing since the 1930s. Here, the aesthetical evolution of Cholo Writing is documented and the influence of blackletter typefaces and calligraphic models such as Old English is traced through two collections of photographs (Texturas & Rotundas) One by Californian Howard Gribbble, who photographed Chicano gang graffiti over a wide geographic area in the early 1970s, and one by French graphic designer and writer François Chastanet, who traveled to the same Los Angeles neighborhoods in 2008 to document early 21st century inscriptions. This second edition includes additional photos, and the main essay «The Gangster E» has been updated according to the latest historical research on Cholo handstyles sources.

Foreword by Dr. Chaz Bojórqez, East Los Angeles graffiti pioneer and Godfather of West Coast Cholo Writing for over 50 years.