Description
Book SynopsisDrawing on interviews with over 100 young men and women, and five years of research, the author explores the fast-paced world of kids and their cars. She reveals a world where cars have incredible significance for kids, as a means of transportation and thereby freedom to come and go, as status symbols and as a means to express their identities.
Trade ReviewFast Cars, Cool Rides is empirically rich, full of arresting observations and revealing verbatim quotes. * American Journal of Sociology *
Bests insights and observations should help youth workers and other adults understand this often powerful symbol. * Youth Today *
In Fast Cars, Cool Rides, Amy Best takes the inside lane on how and why young people use their cars as a means of cultural expression. Whether the school parking lot, auto-shop class, or the San Jose cruising scene, and whether the goal is personal freedom, racial solidarity, masculine power, or feminine rebelliousness, the car is the vehicle for the job, affording youth the symbolic and material means to solidify their identities within the context of global consumer culture. An intelligent, well-written book on kids and their cars; buckle up and take this ride. -- Laura Grindstaff,author of The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows
Best shines a fluorescent street light on young people in high octane motion, making meaning and community through their cars. . . . Best's subjects articulate an intricate interplay of class, race, gender, and identity formation; she's given a great American institution its props. -- Donna Gaines,author of Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids
Has the potential to expand our knowledge about young people's great social power, their contributions to changing culture, and their influence in marketplace decision-making. . . . A compelling and thought-provoking read. -- Debra Van Ausdale,author of The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism
How pleasantly jarring to be invited to enter Santa Clara Street, to feel the heat of the summer, to smell the alcohol on the breaths of the youth, to hear the bottles breaking on the sidewalk and to, most importantly, be treated to a fine analysis of the experiences of some of these cruisers. -- Daniel Thomas Cook,author of The Commodification of Childhood: The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Fasten Your Seatbelts I Cool Rides1 Cruising Slow and Low: Young Chicanos/as Ride the Streets 2 Sex-in' the Car: Girls and Car Cruising 3 Race-ing Men: Boys, Risk, and the Politics of Race II Fast Times4 Car Privileges: Family Rules and Permission to Drive 5 The Road to Nowhere: Consumer Culture and the Price of Freedom Conclusion: The Ride of Your Life Appendix Notes References Index About the Author
