(relaxed music) (door slams) (engine starts) (suspension thumps) (hydraulic whirs) (relaxed music continues) (relaxed music continues) (relaxed music continues) (relaxed music fades) (mellow music) - My name is Monica Pena.

I come from Kansas City, Missouri.

I am Chicana, Mexican American.

My parents immigrated here before I was born.

I grew up in the West Side.

That's where all my friends are.

That's where my Chicano heart is at, and that's where I usually tend to gravitate to.

West Side is my home.

(mellow music continues) Low riding is all about community, comradery, brotherhood, sisterhood, art.

(engine rumbling) It's a rolling canvas, right?

You're put all your imagination into a car that you really love.

(narrator speaks Spanish) - I joined them in 2019, and this year they voted me in to be their president.

It's been a good opportunity.

They're my brothers.

What can I say about them?

I think they bring a lot to the table.

They've been doing this for a long time.

(narrator speaks Spanish) - [Monica] When KC Estilo Car Club started their first Fridays, back on the West Side back in 2010, I think that's when it started picking up momentum, and everybody was just like trying to build cars.

And now we have a spot to go to.

And I think now with having 4th Friday events down at the West Bottoms, I think that momentum's still carrying on and it's starting to get bigger and bigger.

(narrator speaks Spanish) (steady doo wop music) (sander shuffling) - My daddy is my...

He's my foundation.

He's my rock.

I still respect his philosophy, and I'm still daddy's girl, so whenever I need help, I'm like, "Dad, can you come help me?"

(laughs) And he's always there.

He's my dad.

(narrator speaks Spanish) (tool clatters) (Dad speaks Spanish) (engine starts) (Dad continues to speak Spanish) (upbeat music) - The only woman that I ever saw like work on cars would be my mom.

She was doing the upholstery inside the cars, you know?

And once in a while I would see her go outside and help my dad bleed the brakes or give him tools or whatever.

So yeah, my mom, I would say is my inspiration.

(narrator speaks Spanish) - It's gonna be an art studio and I will have my computers.

- Oh, that's cool.

- It'll be awesome.

- Before Monica, I've never seen a female low rider driver before.

When I saw her, it really inspired me.

So I feel like we're empowering each other to kind of build that sense of community and womanhood and kind of pushing everybody to create, yeah.

(narrator speaks Spanish) (narrator continues to speak Spanish) ♪ I can, I will ♪ ♪ It's a new day ♪ ♪ I love how I feel ♪ ♪ Yes, I can ♪ ♪ I'm gonna do it ♪ ♪ Nothing's stopping me ♪ ♪ There's nothing to it ♪ ♪ I can, I will, I am ♪ ♪ I believe ♪ ♪ Yes I can ♪ (insects chirping) - I have a bad day or something's not going well in my life or... (engine humming) I've had a lot of those.

I just take the car out and just start driving, put the music loud, put my oldies on, and just start driving.

(upbeat music) (engine revs) (upbeat music continues) Life, you just gotta take it one step in front of you.

You can't look at the whole staircase.

You just gotta put your foot in front of the next one and just live in the present really.

♪ Flame drives me insane ♪ - I would tell those people that are buying into the stereotypes to get to know a person.

Get to know that person for who they are.

Understand their culture.

♪ Controlled by her emotions ♪ ♪ Tomorrow seems so far away ♪ - We're not all felons and we're what the media puts us out to be.

(engine rumbling) ♪ Lady, can you see me ♪ ♪ You're my everything ♪ ♪ You're my lady ♪ ♪ Lady, can you feel me ♪ ♪ I fell head over heels ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're my lady, lady ♪ - I'm gonna do what I love.

Low riding is my passion, and I'm gonna still continue to do that.

(mellow beat music) (mellow beat music fades) (dramatic music) (pencil grinds) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (pencil scribbles) (dramatic music continues) (pencil scribbles) (pencil scribbles) (dramatic music concludes) (pencil scribbles) (pages flipping) (dramatic music concludes) (gentle music) (vehicle whooshes) (narrator speaks Spanish) (narrator continues to speak Spanish) (gentle music continues) - My name is Baldemar Rivas Bernard.

I'm from California in a small city called Visalia, born and raised.

But my mom's from Culiacan, Sinaloa, and my dad's from Mexico City.

I grew up in my dad's shop.

My dad had a upholstery shop.

So, I was just mostly there after school and we didn't really have a lot of stuff to do.

So, it was a lot of pencils and paper.

So, I'd just draw, and it got me through it, and I got really good at it.

And I just kept doing it.

Drawing was the only thing that really managed to capture my attention.

And there was always something new to learn.

So, I just kept on learning as I went.

(gentle music continues) (birds chirping) I kinda grew up in a weird environment of a lot of kids falling through the cracks.

So, I ended up falling through the cracks in school and I got bad grades.

I barely graduated high school.

But I went to community college when I turned my life around.

And I took some art classes.

I always showed up for class.

I never skipped.

I loved drawing.

So I was like, "Man, if only I could do this for a living."

(narrator speaks Spanish) - After my father passed away, we couldn't really keep up, and we had to close down the shop.

I knew my family wanted me to do school.

They knew I had something.

So, I finished my community college, and my mom moved up to the mountains with my little brother, and then my older brother followed.

After that, I got my general ed outta the way, and I thought I could have a really good scholarship.

But I took a year off school to really figure out exactly what I want.

(narrator speaks Spanish) (birds chirping) - I had a clarity with nature.

Visalia is really close to the Yosemite Mountains, so, I just lived up in the mountains for a year.

And that really helped me clear my mind.

And I knew exactly what I wanted.

So, I committed to doing this and taking a scholarship and coming to Kansas City, and I'm not gonna look back.

(truck whooshes) (narrator speaks Spanish) (narrator continues to speak Spanish) (narrator continues to speak Spanish) - Sometimes I feel it.

I feel the energy of positivity.

I know my family looks up to me and they want to support me.

They really do keep me going.

And that's a big motivator for me.

That's a big reason why I'm doing this.

I do it for my family, for my nephews and my nieces, (speaks Spanish).

(narrator speaks Spanish) (harness jingles) - Yeah, there you go.

(birds chirping) (gentle music continues) And I feel like moving here to Kansas City, it supports artists here.

And there's such a nice community where I can find any type of illustration type of work if I look for it.

That's how good the community is.

And just a lot of good resources here.

(dramatic music) (indistinct chattering) (dramatic music continues) (interface beeps) (indistinct chattering) (dramatic music continues) I was 24, for the first time I made my first comic book, and I was like, "Dude, this is what I wanna do and I never did it."

And it's one of those things where like, "Okay, I gotta start doing more comics.

I gotta really start cranking 'em out and get better at it."

So luckily two years later, I got my first big comic book with Image Comics.

So my first comic book is called "Unearth".

It's a horror comic based in Mexico.

Yeah, that was really fun to do.

It was supposed to be 15 issues but we had to wrap it up a bit because of the pandemic.

But I was lucky enough that DC hit me up and I started working for them.

And I got my hands on "Robins".

And then, they let me create an "Elseworld" called "DC: Mech".

And now I'm doing a "Godzilla vs.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers".

(dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music concludes) (narrator speaks Spanish) (narrator continues to speak Spanish) (upbeat music) ♪ Didn't I, didn't I, didn't I ♪ ♪ Didn't I, didn't I ♪ ♪ Make a promise that ♪ I'd get right, fallin' ♪ ♪ I'm just falling from a ♪ different height, fallin' ♪ ♪ Didn't I, didn't I ♪ ♪ Didn't I, didn't I, ♪ didn't I, didn't I ♪ ♪ Break the cycle ♪ for a short time ♪ ♪ But my habits make ♪ me rewind, oh, I ♪ ♪ Falling through my life ♪ ♪ No one ever needs to know ♪ ♪ Falling through my life ♪ ♪ Didn't I ♪ ♪ Didn't I, didn't I ♪ ♪ Didn't I ♪ ♪ Didn't I, didn't I, didn't I ♪ ♪ Didn't I ♪ ♪ Didn't I, didn't I ♪ (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - [Jose] And I've learned to love my idea of having the heritage that I have as mixed as it is, with all the complexities it has.

It's what makes me, and it makes me want to expand and know more about other cultures, not be so dogmatic and think that there's only one form and one way.

There's the indigenous spirit of being tied to the land and being responsible for the land as a defining principle, a guiding principle, of what makes us human.

(dramatic music continues) (dramatic music fades) (narrator speaks Spanish) (gentle music) (narrator continues to speak Spanish) (brush whooshing) - My name is Jose Faus and I was born in Bucaramanga, Columbia, South America.

(gentle music continues) This is, for me, this is sometimes like the best part of the painting, the actual part where you just sit down and you're just trying to get rid of the white.

So you're putting down, and the brush strokes are just coming on.

I'm using a wide brush.

I'm not really caring about the paint.

I know the color is what it eventually will be.

This is just an underpainting.

But there's a freeness to it, right?

It's like, it doesn't matter what I'm filling in, but I just fall in love with this part of it.

(gentle music continues) My first language was Spanish, but when we came here to this country, English became the one that I had to use the most so I had to learn it.

My mother didn't really speak Spanish at home.

I think she wanted us to learn the language really well.

So English became my language actually after that.

(narrator speaks Spanish) (narrator continues to speak Spanish) - I was back for the first time this last summer.

I gotta tell you, it was very emotional.

I still haven't really figured out what all happened there, but it's still in my heart.

Big, big moment.

(plastic bag crinkles) (brush whooshing) (narrator speaks Spanish) (narrator continues to speak Spanish) - I do believe in art (gentle guitar music) is a vehicle for transformation.

I believe in art is a language that we can all intuitively understand.

An artist belongs everywhere.

They should be on every drafting panel, visioning board, anything.

There should be artists there, creative people.

So on some level there's something that's communicated with art.

And it may be that if I really dug deep into it and was looking for it, maybe like somebody said, "You could see the face of God."

I don't know that.

But I do know that there are emotional and spiritual things that art brings to me, that heal me, that make me better, and that are shared with everybody, right?

Like some of the stuff that's happening in the world right now.

I go to poetry a lot.

♪ I'm just an angel ♪ that's fallen from grace ♪ ♪ In a weak moment and ♪ doubting my faith ♪ ♪ I dance with the devil ♪ and I'm so ashamed ♪ ♪ He never mentioned ♪ that I'd have to pay ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Evil fiction he ♪ made me believe ♪ ♪ Love and affection from ♪ him would come cheap ♪ ♪ But I'm in the rain ♪ now, I'm on the run ♪ ♪ I wanna go home, I don't ♪ know what I've done ♪ (music fades) - I find a lot of truth in poetry, a lot of meaning, a lot of beauty.

And that's to me, the best spirituality that I can have.

And just trying to find that balance and I find that by embracing my cultural heritage, I come closer to a better understanding of where I fit in the world.

So that's a gift to me of heritage.

There is no one group that is exalted over the others, right?

(narrator speaks Spanish) - I think in one time I stood beneath a tree and I saw the way the wind was moving across it.

And I felt that in this moment I could find that under this tree, I could find some bigger truth.

I was 14 years old and I was looking for something.

I wasn't sure what it is.

And to this day, I still don't know what it is.

But I sat underneath that tree and I looked up to the heavens and I said, "God, please, if you exist, show yourself to me.

Tell me, guide me, show me, point me in a direction that'll make my life complete."

And I waited as if by the simple act of waiting, it was going to be revealed to me.

I was there for four or five, six hours.

I remember, I started in the middle of the day, and then it was the evening coming on and the lights was going down, the things were dimming.

Nothing had happened.

And I sat there with eyes open, kinda disappointed.

I looked across and the tree that I was under, was reflected on another one that was across the street.

And I saw the movement of the air going through those trees and the way the branches were moving slightly, and I realized there was something going on that I had not even been paying attention to.

There's a force in life.

It moves around from tree to tree and it infuses me.

It comes and warms me, caresses me.

It is that breeze that brings me a moment of peace when the sun is too hot, when it's unbearable, even if the gust is warm and hot in my face.

It's a gust, a caressing, enveloping thing that tells me there's something else that's happening in this world that I can't control but benefits me in some way.

It holds me up and tells me, "You are grounded, you belong."

And it's these forces that whirl and move around.

And I can't command them.

I can't direct them.

I can't be Canute sitting on a throne and telling the ocean waves to stop.

I just have to accept the world is as it is, and I am a part in it, moving, breathing, lapsing, falling, rising.

But every day, aspiring to have a moment and be thankful and grateful that again, but for the grace of whatever it is that holds this world in place, I have been given the chance and opportunity, a gift to take one more step 'til the evening comes, unless I rest my head upon a pillow, a bed, piece of ground, a piece of wood, whatever dream, and wake up the next day and do it again and again and again until my time is done, finite as it is.

(inspiring music) - [Journalist] 32 million.

Now here are a few facts.

Latinos live all over our beautiful country.

- [Journalist] And we talked about this being a huge demographic here.

- [Journalist] The Latino voice is really stronger and it's growing.

- [Journalist] The American dream for many, for millions is still alive.

- [Journalist] Endless numbers of people who have made it, are giving back... - [Journalist] She come from outside of the US.

You see very clear, the American dream.

You see very clear, that there's an opportunity... (inspiring music continues) - [Journalist] In the Latino and Hispanic community.

And we've heard the numbers nationally being a huge growth in the population and... - [Journalist] Government report finds Latinos are vastly underrepresented in news rooms, Hollywood films, TV and other media industries.

- [Journalist] From east to west, north to south, from barrios and the inner city, to suburbs, small towns, and the heartland.

- [Journalist] Welcome back, everyone.

Tonight we'll take a look at the growing power of the Latino vote in America.