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This article discusses the popularity that grew within The US when it comes to chola fashion and the aesthetic. The article goes on to argue how harmful it can be to culturally appropriate this type of lifestyle, as well as point out who were the true cholas of the 90s.

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The Cholas in my Wyoming high school had a very distinct style. This was the 90s, and the way a Chola styled her bangs - fringe to you Brits - was so key to the look that coiffing them was almost like a contest. Whichever girl could grow her bangs the longest and AquaNet her swoop to a peacocky height with a crest of curl up top was queen bee of the school. You might not be aware of what a chola is, and certainly not if you're reading this in the UK, but in the US chola-style is very popular.

Traditionally, the elements of "chola style" relate to a specific subculture of first- and second-generation Mexican American girls influenced by hip-hop, enamoured with lowrider cars, and sometimes associated with gangs. The chola look itself is geared around the hair, but extends to the following: dark lipliner with a lighter lipstick, cat-eye glasses, baggy Dickies denim or khakis, oversized flannels buttoned up to the top, gold chains with crucifixes or St Christopher medals dangling at the end and the aforementioned skyscraper bangs. When my cousin Kath began growing out her own bangs and lining her lips in dark brown, I was totally impressed, although I had to hide it - she was a few years younger and far too much of the American high school experience is about trying to act cooler than you think you are.

This was 15 years ago, but the thing is, popular culture has since made me feel like even us genuine Wyoming cholas were never quite 100% authentic. While we were all Mexican American, I later learned that the concept of "chola" was more than a look. It was part of our inherited and ancestral culture. Historically the term was used by European colonisers to refer to full or mixed indigenous populations in South and Central America, but in the 1960s was reclaimed in the US by working-class Mexican Americans and the Chicano Power movement as a way to flip and empower a term that had historically been used to denigrate us.

To me, chola style blends glamour with an inherent toughness or feminine strength. It also refers to a very unique subculture both culturally and geographically (say, Wyoming, and parts of LA), so it's been interesting to see the chola styles of my youth popping up all over the place in pop culture, whether writ large on high-fashion catwalks or in little hints. For instance, Kendall Jenner's baby-curled fringe in the new issue of Love. Or the British singer FKA Twigs' famous curls, which certainly alluded to a chola aesthetic, although Twigs has since admitted to phasing them out: "I used to really enjoy doing [my hair] every single day, even if I was late I'd squeeze in seven minutes to do [the curls]. But since I did the i-D cover [chola style] has really taken over in fashion and music ... I think the way it's taken now, I'm not really down with it."

But these examples make it clear that there is a revived interest in chola style. As to whether this is homage, straight rip-off or a total ignorance that maybe, just maybe, someone is going to find your look a little bit offensive, I don't know, but it's still everywhere. I should add here that I don't find Twigs offensive - she is more directly referencing the history of the Josephine Baker s-curls than anything else - but I can see how her baby hairs are an entry point into chola style.

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Selena Gomez in chola style at the MTV awards.

While debate rightly rages on about whether Katy Perry and Brooke Candy should be sporting cornrows and box braids - traditionally black hairstyles that paint them as racial interlopers who may be trying on the "ghetto chic" look (not my words) - and festivals have started banning Native American headdresses from their grounds, pop culture barely blinks an eye when chola style is borrowed, plundered, caricatured and/or cartoonised for the benefit of "new" ideas and, of course, the same coolness that I was so enamoured of during my teens. Headdresses have a very specific cultural context within the tribes that use them; they are reserved for chiefs and warriors of the highest honour. Mimicking chola style is not tantamount to borrowing a sacred crown (or doing "blackface"), but it still echoes the fundamental appropriation that's so rampant in style right now. Privileged people want to borrow the "cool" of disenfranchised people of colour, but don't have to face any of the discrimination or marginalisation that accompanies it.

Mi Vida Loca (993)

One of the first mass introductions to chola culture was the 1994 film Mi Vida Loca, which followed a clique of five chola "gangbangers" in Echo Park, Los Angeles. (It was no coincidence that Sad Girl, the alpha of the crew, had the highest bangs.) The Mi Vida Loca actors looked gorgeous and tough, with the sleekest of manicures, but even then the film was criticised for its outrageous, stereotypical plotline, full of pregnant, volatile homegirls and baby daddies being shot.

It didn't help that writer-director Allison Anders was a white woman, but Mi Vida Loca remains probably the most visible depiction of young, impoverished Chicanas. The recent rise of "cholafied" style on catwalks and elsewhere seems to follow its lead.

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Rodarte ready to wear SS14. Photograph: Victor VIirgile/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Take Rodarte's spring/summer 2014 collection- supposedly inspired by the Mulleavy sisters' home of Los Angeles: its cheeky approximation of cheap animal prints, flannel shirts with white-tee crop tops, and ruffled skirts read like the runway edition of the "spicy Latina" stereotype. You half expected them to emerge from backstage to Ricky Martin's La Vida Loca screaming "ay ay ay!"

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Rihanna's chola fancy dress for Halloween in 2013

Not long after Rodarte's chola collection last autumn, Rihanna Instagrammed her Halloween costume: zombie chola in a bandana with a tiny teardrop painted below her eye - the tattoo that can symbolise how many people you've killed. Riri looks amazing in everything, of course, but what offended me was the way she painted herself to look deceased, which I thought made light of the real issue of gang violence (across many races) in Los Angeles.

More complex is Gwen Stefani, whose 2004 Luxurious video places her as the only (blonde, glimmering) white chola at a Mexican American barbecue, reflecting her upbringing in the majority-Latino city of Anaheim, California. But nothing can top Sandra Bullock getting a "chola makeover" on the George Lopez talk show in 2009 (racist, as far as I can tell), or even Selena Gomez dressing in chola style at the MTV awards in 2011. We are witnessing the mining of a subculture on a grand scale.

For me, the ignorant harvesting of chola style reached its nadir with a 2012 Steven Meisel editorial in Vogue Italia entitled "Haute Mess", which starred Abbey Lee and Coco Rocha and seemed to pluck aspects of chola style - strong lipliner, teardrop tats and high-end styling inspired by "messy drag queens". It caused quite a stir at the time. When I saw it, I got a distinct feeling of love-and-laughter, imitation is a form of flattery, but it can also feel like mockery too.

Sandra Bullock does 'chola style' - on the George Lopez show.

What Bullock said to George Lopez implies that flattery was her intention, of course: "If I could do anything to become more Latina, I would do it," she said. "It hasn't happened yet." And it won't.
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Chola style - the latest cultural appropriation fashion crime?

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The Cholas in my Wyoming high school had a very distinct style. This was the 90s, and the way a Chola styled her bangs - fringe to you Brits - was so key to the look that coiffing them was almost like a contest.

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3 young cholas show off their moves. Dressed in the famous chola fashion, they dance to the beat of the song at a swap meet in LA.

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Two young women pose in an act of female solidarity with one another. This photo was taken circa 1990s.

https://www.vintag.es/2017/06/chicana-gang-and-party-scene-amazing.html

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Article about the importance of Chola representation in media

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Article about the importance of Chola representation in media

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Fregoso, Rosa Linda. "Homegirls, cholas, and pachucas in cinema: Taking over the public sphere." California History 74.3 (1995): 316-327.

This article focused on the representation of Chicanas and Cholas from back in the day. The article included the stereotypes associated with "Pachucas" and Cholas, as women who are easy, violent, and street-roamers. The author wanted to point out how this type of representation can be hurtful within media, as they gave an example of the movie "Mi Vida Loca."

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This tweet is meant to empower Latinas to choose their partner wisely. It is also in celebration of Selena, a famous Latina singer, who the tweet compares to the highest level of Latinidad.

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It's Friday Putitas y Putos. Ask me about my mood today 😎🖤 #quienquieretequila #felizdiadelamota #cholavibes #soylocaperomaschula #ifxkwithme 😈🖕🏽💋

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It's Friday Putitas y Putos. Ask me about my mood today 😎🖤 #quienquieretequila #felizdiadelamota #cholavibes #soylocaperomaschula #ifxkwithme 😈🖕🏽💋 https://t.co/DkU9Hcnoai

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It's Friday Putitas y Putos. Ask me about my mood today 😎🖤 #quienquieretequila #felizdiadelamota #cholavibes #soylocaperomaschula #ifxkwithme 😈🖕🏽💋 pic.twitter.com/DkU9Hcnoai
— BeezyLocz (@BeezyLocz) April 20, 2018

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It's Friday Putitas y Putos. Ask me about my mood today 😎🖤 #quienquieretequila #felizdiadelamota #cholavibes #soylocaperomaschula #ifxkwithme 😈🖕🏽💋 https://t.co/DkU9Hcnoai

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
It's Friday Putitas y Putos. Ask me about my mood today 😎🖤 #quienquieretequila #felizdiadelamota #cholavibes #soylocaperomaschula #ifxkwithme 😈🖕🏽💋 https://t.co/DkU9Hcnoai

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It's Friday Putitas y Putos. Ask me about my mood today 😎🖤 #quienquieretequila #felizdiadelamota #cholavibes #soylocaperomaschula #ifxkwithme 😈🖕🏽💋

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This meme is meant to make fun of the specific makeup style that cholas tended to wear. This would consist of thin, drawn on black eyebrows to show a specific expression.

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Annette gives us a tutorial on how she gets ready. Her routine consists of chola-style makeup with dark brown lipliner and eyeliner, as well as slicked back hair and a perfect outfit to bring it all together.

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Its been a min tht i havent gotten ready for a date ✨💙#fyp #justforyou #grwm #chola #chicanastyle #datenight

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@babydolldiabla
Its been a min tht i havent gotten ready for a date ✨💙#fyp #justforyou #grwm #chola #chicanastyle #datenight
♬ sonido original - Betzi Navarrete

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A funny meme about your abuelita being a chola back in her day.

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Cholas from Southern California in the 80s

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Cholas from Southern California in the 80s

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A group of cholas pose together holding up their respective gang sign affiliation. Southern California during the 80s and 90s was notorious for the amount of chola groups it had.

https://www.vintag.es/2016/12/chola-style-and-culture-40-fascinating.html

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Chola Tiny teaches us how to do our eyebrows like a chola

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Chola Tiny teaches us how to do our eyebrows like a chola

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In this video Tiny attempts to teach us how to create eyebrows out of tape and black marker. These eyebrows are just one of the beauty tricks that she has for us as she talks about how to get ready for your man when he comes out of "la pinta."