In this thesis I document, describe and analyze the reconfigurations of space in East Los Angeles with punk rock cultures, particularly the backyard punk scene from 1998-2008. In the processes of reconfiguration privately oriented and policed places are transformed into public oriented punk rock social spaces. With a focus on punk rock culture that includes music, gig organization and travel to gigs I look into the creation of multiple forms of social space where aggrieved persons can construct uplifting identities and form new subjectivities and solidarities with others. Through an ethnographic methodology I reveal how the social spatial and cultural production of gigs creates new discursive and physical sites of congregation and mutual aid. Interviews with participants of the backyard scene reveal that by attending to their needs, desires and imaginations they actively take part in a continuing practice of social protest in East Los Angeles. Accompanying the Skums on their travels to and from backyard gigs I reveal that in East Los Angeles punk rock is not only about music, but also about constructing methods of reaching and returning from backyard gigs. The spatial relations I witnessed reveal that Chicanas/os and Latinas/os face unfair consequences like other impoverished classes whose presence in the public sphere brings with it suspicion and criminalization. The stakes of the unpaid labors that make up punk rock in East Los Angeles are complex. East Los Angeles cultural actors work diligently to materialize a range of desires that in effect offset the lack of city and state funded public spaces in their neighborhoods and make segregation into congregation with use value orientations to space and cultures of punk rock.