Today we’d like to introduce you to Jimmy Lizama.
Hi Jimmy, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I am a native of Los Angeles and have lived in KTown for over 40 years. I have never owned a car and retain the conviction to not do so ever. Late to work to an art space in Hollywood many moons ago, I discovered the power of the bicycle as a true method of transportation, beating three buses that epiphanous day. Since then, I have made every effort to translate the uses of bicycle power in respect to energy equity in the world, to celebrate the every day, to bring to light the abuses of capitalism that pervades our every move in this country and across the globe and to help anyone I can in finding balance and justice in the way they move around their city.
Today, you can catch me on el BiciCrofono, a mobile performance stage that is towed by bicycle tandem where we fill the L.A. streets with community karaoke, bands playing cumbia to punk, poetry, puppetry, protest, and more. BiciCrofono is a project of Re:Ciclos, a non-profit effort to build a cargo bicycle library from used bicycles and help those who cannot afford one have access to them. We strive to teach in the process of fabricating these bicycle machines.
I held the stage at TedXUCLA, presented next to David Byrne of Talking Heads, been the subject of documentaries around the bicycle phenomenon in Los Angeles, and have led several efforts in the Community to bring attention to celebrate and propagate a certain bicycle culture for our beautiful metropolis. As joyful as it has been, it has not been easy as we continue to see increasing hostility by car culture, especially to brown and black communities. All the work that I do points to a future L.A. that has kicked the addiction to the car as their primary method toward prosperity for at the hands of car mobility that prosperity is predicated on global climate disruption, enslaved democracies around the world, and disrupted communities here at home.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Whether throwing a community karaoke bike party at Relampago Wheelery fabricating cargo bikes at Re:Ciclos, or rocking out with the cumbia band Poco Pocho on the 110 Freeway on el BiciCrofono, the journey to express bicycles in L.A. has been completely punk rock and by and large fun. But it has also mostly been a volunteer experience, meaning that funding and capacity have been limited, and thus, our movements have been limited. To this day, funding and being able to transform volunteers to paid staff has been and will remain to be the ultimate challenge for all the efforts that I have embarked upon.
Bicycles for transportation don’t sell in a car culture, and selling bicycles generally gentrifies the market as the bicycle industry survives — like all other industries — by ever-increasing the price of their products, which in turn excludes a lot of communities who cannot afford appropriate bicycle gear for reasonable commuting. The struggle is to continue social and environmental justice work and funding that work. Selling bicycles and bicycle gear will never be able to nor is it designed to foment revolution. Given that racism in transportation and global warming are very real, our city and our world need less the profitable success of a few companies and more the complete makeover of modern life through egalitarian political movements and mindfully crafted urban design, rural balance, and adequate natural preservation.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
The bicycle has become my life’s medium of expression and contribution to movements. Like a painter might utilize oils to render a scene or declare a stance, so too do I utilize the bicycle — its history, its mechanical definitions, its literal revolutionary movements as a machine, and its implications in energy equity in the world. The bicycle — though conceived in Eurocentric opulence — was perhaps accidentally invented as one of the truest developments of human beauty, grace, balance, and as important a tool as fire itself.
Helping Angelinos see beyond the limitations of the car and helping all of us have a true dialogue about the all-too-present existential and humanitarian consequences of our privileges, such as racism, classism, global warming, war, and occupation, is the highest virtue I can possibly find in the work I hope to accomplish.
What matters most to you? Why?
Equity in all the systems of our world is the most important factor for peace on our planet. Through our housing, food, mobility, even entertainment choices, our expression of humanity and ecological equilibrium are declared. If any of those systems are based in exploitation, global or local, and they all are, then we live in a reality that is out of balance. Regrettably, we live in an extreme realm of that imbalance across all our systems planetarily. To bring back balance is not just what matters most to me, but what is absolutely necessary for humanity and our co-inhabiting ecosystems to survive past this century.
Contact Info:
- Website: lareciclos.org
- Instagram: @bicicrofono
