Since the time of the rebels and the greasers of the 1950s, kids from the suburbs have been mimicking the fashion style of inner-city teenagers.
The thing is that those teens from the streets weren't trying to set fashion trends. They were simply wearing the only clothes they had.
Some trends - like sagging pants that are worn well below the waist - were never meant to be copied.
My colleague, Sameer Jain, talked to teenagers from the 'burbs who think it's cool to dress like a rap star or a gang member. He even found a politician who thinks that sagging pants should be a crime that's punishable by jail time or a hefty fine.
Do the police really need another tool to target people in poor neighborhoods? Does anyone really think that cops are going to cruise around rich neighborhoods to look for kids who are sagging?
I don't think so either.
But the thing that society doesn't understand is that wearing sagging pants didn't start off as a way to look cool. The look didn't come from prisoners or gang members trying to rebel against parents or teachers or police. The origin of this trend came from poor neighborhoods, where families simply make clothes last.
As the older brother, I know that my younger brothers sometimes get the clothes that I've outgrown.
There's nothing really wrong with them. I would keep wearing them if I could. And my mom does a great job at keeping them nice and clean so they can be passed down the line from one kid to the next. But sometimes, they're still too big for the next kid.
And they sag.
I ducked into a Goodwill store in East San Jose to look for moms who might be shopping for pants for their sons - just to make sure my brothers aren't the only ones getting hand-me-downs.
"I buy clothes for the oldest and keep them until they don't fit the youngest one or until they are useless," said Araceli Henriquez of San Jose, who has four boys. "It's smarter to buy here because there isn't a lot of money to buy clothes for them at the bigger stores."
She doesn't like the idea of sagging as a fashion trend and said she tries to buy belts for the boys and hem the cuffs so they don't drag. They still sag sometimes. It's uncontrollable.
Cantinflas, a well-known Mexican comic from the 1940s, was one of the first to sag, according to Enrique Flores, director of diversity and outreach at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose. But even he wasn't trying to be fashionable. He was poor and simply couldn't afford a belt, which caused his pants to droop. Eventually, he used the look as a form of protest against society.
Later, sagging pants did become a fashion trend set by the pachucos, the 1950s-era Latino gang members. Even later, Latino gang members known as cholos adopted the look in the 1970s as a way to hide and easily access weapons in their clothes, Flores said.
That's why this fashion trend has the potential to become dangerous.
Kids in the suburbs think it's cool to look like kids from the city streets. But those kids need to watch what they take from the streets. There's no arguing that East San Jose has its problems with street gangs. And it's true that some of those gang members are sagging on purpose.
When suburban kids make their way into the cities, they're probably safe if they don't come around provoking people and trying to act like they're better than people from urban communities. But I wonder how many sagging suburban kids would know how to handle themselves on the streets if a gang member - seeing their style of dress - did confront them.
I think they're just looking for trouble that they really don't want to find. And I think the kids who are sagging out of necessity, not fashion, are doing their best to avoid trouble from the police and lawmakers who think they look like criminals.
They're not trying to look like thugs. They're just wearing the clothes their mothers gave them.