(chill music)
- [Debbie] A painter paints a picture,
and whatever's in that painter's heart,
he puts on that picture.
Onto a lowrider, that's my picture.
Instead of painting it on a portrait, I put it on top.
Growing up in Castroville, where I'm from,
a lot of people had lowriders.
I was always around it, I've always been around it.
Helping out lowrider clubs with the raffle,
you know, with their sign-up sheets?
I never thought I'd have a lowrider.
Until there was a friend of mine,
who he told me, he says, "You know what?
"You get your car and I'll buy your plaque for you."
So he gave me a challenge,
and that really pushed me to get a car.
Because I wanted that plaque. (laughs)
(impressive music)
I have 1965 Buick Wildcat.
Her color is Sunset Gold.
She has pinstripe and she has a shimmer blake.
She has 14 inch Sinister spokes.
She has a 401 Nailhead original engine.
I have stock ivory interior,
and the knobs, I made her to be what I wanted her to be,
so I ended up blingin' up her knobs.
I can honestly say that my plaque
is the only plaque of its kind.
My plaque is engraved, but I blinged it up.
Because I wanted to make her mine.
I have Kitty Boo-Boo sitting back there, and that's me,
so I have her and plus the artichoke, where I live at
is in Castroville, artichoke center of the world.
Because that symbolizes, to me, my mom, our roots.
It's got a full system back there.
It has Hifonic, it's got super slams,
so the airbag, the tank, is chromed-out in the back.
He lights up, I have lights back there
and I like bling and because she's my car,
she's a lady's car, I mean, we take her to car shows,
I wanted them to see that that was a lady's ride.
(cool music)
This is the first lowrider that I've owned.
When I got the car, there was a member of the car club
that I was in and I told him,
"You ever sell that car, you need to tell me first."
He called me and said, "You know what, I'm gonna move,
"do you want to get the car?"
When I first got it, she was like a turquoise blue.
It was a muscle car.
I knew what I wanted, in my heart I knew what I see,
how I wanted it, and then voila, there she is. (laughs)
To get her to where she's at right now,
it took me about a year and eight months.
It's not a daily driver where every day I drive her,
but we'll take her to shows or we'll take it out on a Sunday
if it's a nice day on a Saturday.
Cruising, to me, is like I'm fallin' in love
with my husband all over again.
Because when I'm with him, it's like we're back in the days,
because that's where we first met,
that's where we first had our date, was at a lowrider show.
And 39 years later, we're still together.
(touching music)
I grew up in Castroville.
Castroville is a small little town.
Everybody's related, and if you're not related,
you're married to somebody who's related.
Castroville's known for artichokes,
there's artichokes all the way around us.
My mom had 11 kids.
I have seven sisters and I have four brothers.
And I'm number six.
Growing up in a big family, we had a lot of fun times.
We got in trouble a lot.
You know, back then you got the chunklah thrown at you
for things that you did and, you know.
My mom,
she struggled at times, you know, not making ends meet.
She had her husband, we call him Pops.
He had his hard time, but yet he took a woman
who had all these kids that weren't his,
and he treated us like if we were his own.
My dad was killed just before my ninth birthday.
So I have no memory of my dad.
I have nothing.
Growing up without my dad
caused me to be very angry, caused me to hate,
caused me to be jealous of any girl that would,
I would see their father caressing them or hugging 'em
and it would hurt so bad, even just to see that,
because I didn't have that.
To me, myself, I grew up
thinking in my mind that I was a bastard kid.
So it caused me to do a lot of things that,
I was locked up all the time.
And I didn't care, I didn't care about anything or anybody.
Or nothing, nothing mattered to me, at all.
(somber music)
Everything started when I was
like about nine-and-a-half or 10.
My mom had an alcohol problem.
She would leave at times, and it tore me apart.
I would go look for her and I couldn't find her,
and when I found her, you know, she'd be drinking and stuff,
and so I ended up running away.
Stayed out for a couple of days.
And I came back home.
But and then I found myself leaving longer.
I started getting locked up for just doing stupid things,
breaking windows, taking church money,
having drug paraphernalia on me.
I started taking drugs probably about 11.
Started sniffing paint, gas, Pine-Sol, nail polish,
whatever I could get my hands on.
In 1979,
I knew my husband, well my husband now,
but back then we were just best of friends
and we ended up going out.
Next you know it, he comes to my house
and he's asking my mom for my hand in marriage.
My mom told him, she says, "You don't want to marry her.
"She's gonna hurt you."
But he kept saying, you know,
"No, God said you were gonna be my wife."
When I was about 13, my mom asked God to come into her heart
and instantly my mom was,
the alcohol was taken away from her.
She never drank again, at all.
Then my mom started praying for me, and when I was about 17,
she would tell me to go to this Christian home.
She said, "You could take your clothes,"
she goes, "You can take your Lowrider magazines."
I said, "I can take my mag?"
And she goes, "You can take 'em all with you,
"they'll let you have 'em."
Finally the drugs got more,
'cause I was doing drugs on the side
and I knew there had to be something different,
'cause I was destructive to myself.
When I was on the bus, there was a white piece of paper,
as white like this that I've never seen before.
And I looked on the ground,
I picked it up to kill some time and it said,
"For you have not chosen me,
"but I have chosen you that you may go and bring forth fruit
"and anything you ask of the Father in my name,
"it will be given to you."
I got it, I threw it,
because nothing ever penetrated my heart,
nothing even ever made me cry.
Because it was so hard.
But whatever was on that paper, it hit here.
Then I knew that somebody really loved me.
I felt something that I've never felt before.
I went into the home in 1980.
I've been clean now for,
in December 16th was 39 years I've been free from drugs.
Last year,
my mom was gonna have surgery
and there was never any indication
that she wasn't gonna make it.
And
she ended up passing away.
I stayed away from my family, but not,
not because I wanted to stay away, but to me,
if I seen them
all together and my mom wasn't there,
then I knew she wasn't coming back.
Lowrider helped get me through that time,
because members of our car club,
we weren't even in the car club.
They kept making sure that I would come out.
You know, "Hey, we're gonna have this,
"let's go take a drive, a Sunday drive.
"Let's go have lunch."
You know, so they were really keeping me busy,
and it was the Lowrider family
and I was just like, blown away.
That's how we came to be in Tavares Family Car Club.
(chill music)
In the town where I lived,
there started to be a lot of graffiti.
And to me, uh-uh, that's where I live,
so that wasn't about to happen.
So I said, "Something has to be done."
So I said, "Well, let's have a painting party."
Word got out, so the newspapers started calling,
the Chamber of Commerce called, they said,
"We heard you were doing this community cleanup,"
they go, "How can we help?
"We'll barbecue for you.
"We'll do the whole lunch thing, just let us know how many."
So they go, "How many you have right now?"
I say, "Oh, about 15."
And they go, "Well I'll call you in a couple of days."
So, next you know it, kids were comin' out like cockroaches.
So they started coming to the house saying,
"Hey, we heard you were gonna do this, can we help?
"Can we help?"
So as days went on, they call me on Friday,
they go, "How many do you have?"
120.
Ever since then, that was in 1991, me and husband founded
what was called the Castroville Paintbusters.
As time went on, there was two homicides
two blocks away from me on that side
and one on the other side of where I live,
and I just lifted my hands and I said,
"Here I am, God, I'll do it.
"I don't know what you want me to do."
And that's how Peace in the Streets was formed.
The group that I work with are mothers
that have lost their kids.
And also parents that have their kids locked up.
And the reason for Peace in the Streets is
to bring in law enforcement, to bring in community,
to bring in business owners,
and to bring in dignitaries to work as one in unity.
(fun music)
Doing community work and knowing all the people,
the new county supervisor, he asked me,
"What do you wanna do?"
I said, "Well, I don't know nothing but probation."
You know, being on probation for nine years, you know, I go.
They said if I pass my GED, that he will give me a job.
I went to go do the test to see what your level was, and,
not something I'm proud about,
but I tested at third grade level.
And the lady said, "It's gonna take you two years."
And I said, "When is your next graduating class?"
And she says, "In May, six months."
And I said, "I will be at that graduation class."
The kids, the high-at-risk kids that I was working with,
'cause I was forever telling them to do homework,
they knew now that I was gonna go to school,
so now they're saying, "No, you need to do your homework."
So it was the other way around,
we were all doing our homework together.
Every test that I took,
the youth and their mothers would be waiting for me.
Because they were proud, this is, they accomplished that.
In helping me get my GED.
In my graduation,
there was so many youth there and their parents and,
but there was also two judges, two county supervisors,
and the chief of probation department was there.
They even brought me a briefcase and everything and,
and I was just like,
"That's not supposed to happen to a person like me."
(tender music)
After I got my GED,
I started working for Monterey County Probation Department.
I've been working in my job now in July for 26 years.
My first job was working at a community school.
And working at the community school, I work with,
you know, high-at-risk kids that have gotten kicked out.
Once they know you, they build a rapport with you,
and they trust you where you can encourage them
and you can, you know, help 'em to get to where they want to
'cause some of them have stories too,
and they're where they're at because
of something that happened in their lives.
And I understand them.
I understand exactly where they're coming from.
So if I could help them in any way to change
or just to be there for them and stuff, I'm gonna do it,
and I do do it, and I will still continue doing it.
The most rewarding part of my job is
knowing that I've done everything I can that day
to help somebody.
I couldn't do anything that I do without my husband.
My husband fully supports everything, every crazy adventure,
every crazy thing that we do, he's right there next to me
and, you know, I wouldn't be able to do it without him.
See, people always think that we have to stay down,
we can never like, change, that we gotta stay where we're at
but we don't.
When we've made it, we have to look at somebody else
and help them make it, and let them see
that there's hope in anything that they wanna do.
And still take it low and slow and have a lowrider. (laughs)
My name is Debbie Martin, I'm a probation aide,
and I'm a Lowrider Roll Model.