La Arboleda

On her days off, Claudia Saenz scours used record shops, thrift stores and yard sales, keeping her eyes peeled for records her parents grew up on. They remind her of her childhood.

“I just feel that [vinyl] is definitely more intimate than playing it on my phone on, like, Spotify or a streaming app,” Saenz says. “I just like holding that piece of history.”

She’s founder of the Chulita Vinyl Club, an all-girl vinyl collecting crew spread throughout the Southwest and California. And although they collect all kinds of records, Chicano soul is one genre that rings near and dear to the club’s heart and style.

Chicano soul is the product of black and brown communities living side by side. The group Little Joe y La Familia is the perfect example of this fusion. Little Joe grew up on the cotton fields of Texas, where his was one of the only Mexican families living in a community of largely black families. It should come as no surprise, then, that he was one of the pioneers of Tejano soul.

For The Chulita Vinyl Club, Crate Digging Is More Than A Hobby