Rosa Garcia, petite and dark-haired, doesn't let longboarding get in the way of her wardrobe. When Garcia gets on her longboard, she'll sometimes opt to wear skirts and sandals instead of baggy clothing and skater shoes.
"Sometimes I don't want to ride it because I want to wear my Manolo Blahniks," she says.
Garcia prefers her Doc Marten sandals to skate shoes, she says.
"I don't wear boy clothes at all," she says. "I will wear skirts, I have a Lacoste dress that I wear. I wear whatever I want."
Walking around ASU, it's hard not to spot lady longboarders weaving swiftly through the crowds.
Garcia, a political science junior, says she learned how to longboard two years ago, adding that most women prefer longboards to smaller skateboards because they are easier to maneuver and they cruise longer.
After seeing a lot of students ride their boards to class, Garcia thought she would try it herself.
"My friends back home are really hardcore into skating, so they taught me how," she says.
Now she rides her longboard to class every day, Monday through Thursday.
Garcia got her two female roommates into longboarding, too. The three of them ride side-by-side when they go out.
"They're just like me," she says. "We'll skate everywhere wearing tube tops and skirts."
Garcia says she feels connected with the skateboarding community. For example, when other guys ride past her, they usually acknowledge her with a head nod, she says.
"I don't know if people think it's cool," Garcia says. "When I was a freshman and I saw girls riding, I thought it was so cool, so maybe people do."
Molly Nass, a theater senior, has been longboarding for three years and says she sometimes gets nervous about what people think about her longboarding skills.
"Sometimes I wonder if people get annoyed or think I'm a tomboy. I think guys get intimidated, like I look tough or like I'm trying to be rebellious," she says.
Nass says that the scariest part about riding to campus is trying to maneuver her way around people. She's fallen between five and 10 times, she says.
One day, she found herself face down on the cement when she was riding in the rain.
"Later I found out that people who longboard don't really ride them in the rain; it messes up your wheels," she says.
Nass was breaking in her new longboard and was going really fast when she tried to jump over train tracks, she says. In the past, she jumped the tracks with ease when she borrowed her friend's board, she says, but this time she flew off of her board and skidded on the pavement.
"I was on the side of the road and this guy was there and was like 'Are you OK?'" she says. "I tried to pretend like I knew what I was doing."
But falling didn't stop Nass. She rides her board to get around campus and to walk her dog. Nass lets her Samoyed pull her along the street like it would a sleigh. "It sounds so nerdy," she says, laughing.
Garcia suggests beginners practice before trying to ride on campus to break in their boards, so they're loose enough to make sharp turns.
"Have a guy jump on it," she says.
Nass says she started longboarding to get to class quickly, not to make a statement. But if people think she's rebellious, hopefully it's a way to rebel against gender stereotypes, to show that women are capable of skateboarding, she says.
"Why be afraid to do it because there is a masculine stereotype around it?" she says. "Some people will always see you a certain way as a woman. I don't even make it about women; it's about letting go what certain objects are defined as."
Reach the reporter at mani.obrien@asu.edu.
