Everywhere I looked I saw lowriders. Candy paint speckling under the street lamps, hydraulics hissing in the breeze, engines rumbling low. It wasn’t one or two cars—it was a complete takeover, as if the night had quietly handed itself over to them.

I began to see what all of the buzz was about. I had been to a lot of car shows in my life, but never one like this. Where did everyone come from? At midnight? In a country town? In the middle of nowhere?

The moon cast a glow across the crosswalk. As we cruised the crowded street, cell phone flashes lit up the night, cheers raged skyward, and beaming faces flooded the corners. Even the white bikers, American flags stitched to their chests, kneeled and snapped pictures.

For a moment, it was almost as if none of the things that usually divide us mattered. Not politics. Not race. Not ethnicity. The only thing that mattered was chrome, paint, and engines.