Who: Veterana and Rucas is an account run by Guadalupe Rosales, a NY-based, East L.A. native who wanted to create a space for her community to reconnect and reminisce about the SoCal gang and party scene. Running for about a year, the account began as her own personal photos and quickly grew as people submitted their own photos of their lives as Chicanos in the ’90s and earlier.
Why You Should Follow: Because without knowing or expecting it, this account is becoming a living history book. The account is growing super fast, and every day people are making connections with long lost family and friends from the era. Rosales tells LA Weekly that she wants to keep this preservation alive and organized a talk at UCLA in which she will speak of the archive/collection that she is developing at the Chicano Studies Research Center. The exhibit showing the memorabilia from the party crew and rave scene of the era will open in January 2017 at the PSSST! art and residency space in Boyle Heights so, if you’re in the area, make sure to check it out!
She says, “This history gets overlooked or [is] not really respected…So many of us were part of it that it’s kind of like, ‘How could it not be important?’”
Sample Photos: