by Jorja Leap
I was beginning to see that tattoos involved more than ink and pain. There were mental tattoos—and most of them were not on people from the neighborhood. This was what plagued Alex, whose bail was denied that afternoon.
Joanna’s latest crisis temporarily drives Alex Sanchez out of my thoughts. After her tattoo-removal treatments, she introduces me to Clumsy, or Carlos, her cousin who has just been released from prison. Carlos is nervous, twitchy, and looking very institutionalized. Joanna is trying to help Carlos settle in. This involves getting him a job at Homeboy Industries and a new place to live, out of Florencia territory. Carlos served a seven-year stretch in prison for attempted murder; he is viewed as a good soldier who did not roll over on his partners in the crime. Such loyalty makes him a valuable commodity.
“They don’t want to let go of Carlos,” Joanna begins. She nudges Carlos and assures him that I am coo’—nothing will happen if he talks to me.
“My neighborhood does not want to lose anyone,” he explains. “They want me to stay. And it’s bad. My mother is Florencia, my father is Florencia, my wife is Florencia. They don’t want to let go of me. And my PO doesn’t believe me, he doesn’t help, he is waiting for me, trying to get me to fuck up so he can violate me and send me back to prison.”
Joanna, in a frenzy of informal case management, asks me if I can help find Carlos somewhere to sleep, just for the night. Her behavior mimics my frantic efforts the night before to find my cousin Nick, whose drug use has been an ongoing anxiety for me. His ex-girlfriend and I stayed out until midnight, chasing him in and out of bars in Silver Lake, trying to convince him to go home with one of us. But the parallel only stretches so far. My cousin is a doctor, with a six-figure income. Carlos doesn’t even have a social security number or a driver’s license. What he has is the name Florencia-13 tattooed across his neck, an alphabet choker referred to as an “eyebuster.” I keep looking at Carlos and thinking that if his tattoo removal is successful, he will look like an undergraduate sitting in one of the classes I teach at UCLA. He is boyishly handsome, newly animated, excited about his first apartment. He is also trying to escape a death sentence of the streets.
Two days later, Elie Miller, the Homeboy attorney and head of a self-described “legal ministry,” calls to tell me that Carlos has been arrested. She asks me to tell Joanna, but I can’t find her. That evening, Joanna texts me. She is in the hospital with Marcos, who has come down with pneumonia. I am home, reviewing Shannon’s math homework with her. Our biggest struggle is eleventh-grade calculus. Shannon’s adolescence is a complete failure—she is neither moody nor rebellious. Instead, she appears to be evolving into a rather unique individual—obsessed with indie music and the vintage clothes she purchases at local thrift shops. She has also taken to spending large amounts of time after school volunteering as a tutor and office assistant at Homeboy. I feel she is safe there—she hangs out with the homies in the curriculum office and helps them with their charter school homework. She has befriended an older homie—Raul—and they have grown close. She teaches Raul the fundamentals of calculus. He advises her about life and warns her never to get a tattoo, telling her, “Women should not have tattoos, because they are the beauty of the world. Their beauty should not be spoiled.”
I feel reassured when Shannon repeats Raul’s advice to her. Two of Shannon’s cousins already have tattoos. Neither Mark nor I want to see her get one, although we have already told her that after she turns eighteen, it is her decision to make. I tell Mark he should be happy—an OG may actually prevent our daughter from following a youthful trend. He is silent for a moment.
“Great. Now the homies are helping us raise our daughter. What’s next? Are we adopting one?”
I wonder if it’s a good time to tell him later that one of my favorite couples at Homeboy, Quentin and Ana, have asked us to be godparents for their baby.
I wait.
Twelve. The Lost Boys
Where would we be if we kept chasing the wind
Around the streets love to stay high as a kite
After the cord snaps and send it flying
Up, up and away
Riding the freedom of gravitated euphoria
Itsgoodtoknowyou.
—Quentin Moore
“It’s rough out there,” Screech tells me, “I gotta protect myself.”
It is spring 2008. In the past six weeks two more gang members have been killed. Screech—who asks me to call him by his “real” name, Kevin Williams—has taken to traveling with a gun, strapped, everywhere he goes. He is also jumpy, erratic, and quick to anger. When I tell him to leave his gun at home, he stops talking to me. Three days pass without my seeing him. Instead, my cell phone rings at all hours with calls from his wife, Elena.
“I’m so worried about Kevin,” she tells me, her voice pitched high with anxiety. “I wake up in the middle of the night and he is standing at the window, staring out at the street. I tell him to come to bed, but he won’t come. Sometimes he leaves—I don’t know where he is going.”
All this is happening at the start of a major evaluation project. I have teamed up with two brilliant colleagues at UCLA, Todd Franke and Tina Christie, to design a longitudinal study of former gang members who come to Homeboy Industries for help. The three of us have just been awarded enough money from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation to fund the first two years of what will be a five-year study. Julio Marcial, who has the soul of a researcher, ultimately comes through with funding from the California Wellness Foundation to help with the remaining three years. It is a dream come true. But now the real work begins.
I meet Kevin Williams during the proposal-planning stage of the study, and he quickly involves me in all aspects of his life—gang activity, love, and danger. He is talkative and funny, with mocha-colored skin and gray-green eyes, the star of a gang-intervention class sponsored by the Los Angeles County Department of Human Relations. “Spreading Seeds” is a popular course with an unfortunate title: half its attendees have already fathered multiple babies. But oddly enough, its blend of new age mysticism and indigenous teachings appeals to homies, whether black or brown. Kevin attempts, carefully, to explain the class to me.
“I’m learnin’ that to move beyond the present, you gotta understand the past—and the oppression of people of color.” But when I ask Kevin about his personal history, the radical speak suddenly disappears.
“I guess I’m seein’ I always wanted a family,” he admits. “I never met my father. I know who he is. He was a Black Panther. Then he got locked up. I could find him but I don’t wanna. There’s nothin’ he could do for me right now. When I was comin’ up there was no older figures except who I met on the streets. They were gangbangin’ and stuff—I learned their trade, I could see they were makin’ money offa drugs, but I wasn’t sure this was what I was gonna do. But they were kinda my family, ya feel me, that was it. I didn’t have anythin’ else.”
Kevin is one of my lost boys—he belongs to no one, not his neighborhood, not even himself. Although he tells me he is an Eight Tray Gangsta Crip, he shows no signs of the blind allegiance to the gang I have witnessed in so many others. He reassures me that he is free to talk with me “any night,” offering to drive to UCLA and meet on my turf. He defies the stereotype of the gang member—if such an individual even exists.
Criminal justice experts, law enforcement professionals, and policymakers have worked overtime to define gangs and describe gang members. Ultimately, most agree that a gang consists of any group that gathers together on an ongoing basis to “engage in antisocial or criminal activities.” When determining the minimum size for gang activity, the magic number is usually set at three. Gang members “identify with one another based on geographical location, clothing, colors, symbols and names. They communicate their gang affiliation through hand signs and graffiti. Law breaking activities enhance the gang member’s credibility, creating fear in the community and providing an ongoing source of income.” This is
what gang experts believed—and I was included in their ranks. I had written those words in 2007 in a book chapter called “Defining Gangs,” and they represented the reasoning of minds far more scholarly than my own. There was a laundry list of gangster traits: someone who is violent, someone who is antisocial, someone who intimidates and preys upon the weaker members of society. But I knew that, no matter how exhaustive the list, something was still missing.
Getting to know people like Kevin, along with Ronny and Joanna, reinforced for me what was already obvious: there is no typical gang member, no one-size-fits-all. Instead, there is something of a pattern. The father is absent. The family is fractured. The neighborhood is calling. But just when I think the pins are lining up, something doesn’t fit.
While his father was MIA, Kevin’s mother tried to provide. She was gone most days, working full-time as a medical aide at a nearby convalescent hospital. When she was home, she was always critical, always watchful.
“She was on me alla the time,” Kevin remembers. He mimics the high pitch of her voice: “Be home after school, it doesn’t take that long for you to catch the bus, call me and let me know that you got home. She was always sayin’ things like that. But I was fourteen, I was already out. One day she came home and I wasn’t there and when I got home we started fightin’, hittin’ each other. I’m thinkin’, There’s no point in this. So I call 911 and tell them, ‘My mom is beatin’ up on me.’ The police took forever to get there and then after talkin’ to her, they got me in cuffs and they took me to the police station—Seventy-Seventh Street. I was hotheaded, on the ride there I was like, Why the fuck you takin’ me to the station? My mom is the one you should be takin’ to the station.
“I wound up in Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. We went to court and my mom showed up and said, ‘Any child I raise, if they try to hit me, they still wouldn’t be alive when I got done.’” But despite his mother’s open admission of child abuse, Kevin was reclassified from child welfare client to delinquency case.
“This happens all the time,” Carol Biondi tells me when I ask her about Kevin. She is my go-to person with good reason. Despite her well-groomed beauty, affluence, and Hollywood connections, Carol is the full-time watchdog of the Los Angeles County Department of Probation. She walks the camps and halls, organizes a Saturday newspaper class at Camp David Gonzales, harangues authorities, reviews legislation, and serves on the LA County Children’s Commission. She is the real deal.
“You get a kid who’s in the child welfare system,” Carol explains. “They say something inappropriate and they get labeled a delinquent. In this case Kevin mouthed off to the cops and they decided he belonged in Probation. It’s that simple. And that wrong.”
“That’s how I caught my first juvenile probation case,” Kevin confirms, “for doin’ nothin’.”
One thing is obvious: somewhere along the line his mother ceded Kevin’s parenting to the County of Los Angeles. “There’s no one gonna be there for these children,” Big Mike has already warned me, and Kevin is living proof. As I get to know him, I see that the all-too-familiar pattern took hold once he was released from juvenile detention.
“I get home and I’m livin’ in one neighborhood territory of the Eight Tray Gangstas—ETGs—but I’m supposed to go to my school in 67 NHC territory. And I got big problems. I’m not in the neighborhood—but it’s where I’m from and people just see that. And I feel like I’m kinda part of them.”
In this alphabet soup of the absurd, Kevin faces multiple threats. The ETGs command the largest black gang territory in LA—a little over two and half square miles of real estate in South Los Angeles. As part of this, there is ongoing conflict between the ETGs and the Rollin 60s Crips dating back to 1979. This rivalry extends to all “Rollin Os” gangs and to all “NeighborHood” (NH) gangs including the 67 NeighborHood Crips (67 NHC) whose turf contains Kevin’s middle school. Despite continuing efforts to negotiate peace treaties, the rivalry remains lethal.
“People were jammin’ me up all the time, askin’ me, ‘Where you from?’ I had to answer, and I got so I could get along with everyone. I didn’t wanna belong to a neighborhood, I just wanted to get along.” Kevin chose street diplomacy as his problem-solving strategy.
The smarter homies, like Kevin, often possess some sort of personal charisma rendering them capable of crossing boundaries. Despite claims about how strongly the neighborhoods cleave to geography, there are always the informal ambassadors who can negotiate the lines of gang territory. Their acceptance, however unstable, depends on force of personality and the ability not to offend anyone. But there is a price to be paid. Acceptance can be revoked at a moment’s notice. And, if you can cross boundaries and be a “get along guy,” you are never going to move up the food chain of the neighborhood. It’s the shooters who do well, the guys who are willing to kill.
“There’s soldiers and there’s talkers,” Big Mike has told me.
It’s clear that Kevin is a talker. So is Ronny, who explains his ability to go beyond borders in the neighborhoods.
“I had the love of my hood but I wasn’t gonna give up on friends who claimed other neighborhoods—they were my brothers too. I told the people in my hood the truth, I wouldn’t leave my friends.” Unlike Ronny, Kevin does not blatantly declare his independence. Instead, he uses a different strategy to “get along.”
“I was cool with people from warring neighborhoods ’cuz I could do stuff, fixin’ cars, installin’ radios. This guy, Larry Walls, taught me mechanics and computers. He and his wife were there for me. If I had a problem they would come to the school. I wrote down they were my grandparents on my emergency card.”
Kevin is inventive—what does not exist, he creates. He makes the Walls his family. But Larry dies suddenly, there is no insurance, and his widow goes to live with her daughter in another state.
“Yeah. That’s what happened. All of a sudden, I’m alone.”
Then, Kevin is shot. He is precise about when. Most homies keep time by their arrests and lockups. It is childhood milestones courtesy of the juvenile justice system. There are no photographs or report cards or bronzed baby shoes here. Few gang members possess a social security card, and their birth certificates are misplaced, lost. Some are undocumented. Kevin’s only scrapbook is his body. He recalls his ages via scars that bullets have left.
“I got hit when I was seventeen. After I got shot, I couldn’t go back to school. I was at Jordan High but my enemies were there so I got put on a home-study program. I tried home study for a minute.”
Formal schooling ends for Kevin. There is no counseling, no experts are called in; he is finished, done. He connects with a series of homies and attempts check fraud, burglary, and auto theft. Every effort ends with Kevin reclaimed by Probation and weaving through three halls and one camp. Recounting this, Kevin smiles.
“I turned eighteen in there. When I got released, I really started gangbangin’. There was nothin’ else to do.”
Until then, Kevin hadn’t formally joined any neighborhood: his status was murky. Researchers describe such youngsters as “wannabes,” kids on the periphery of the gang, flirting with membership, performing criminal acts, and building their credibility until they are asked to join the neighborhood. They become “foot soldiers,” carrying out missions, led by the shot callers and the veteranos. This model portrays the progression of gang life as orderly. In reality, very little adheres to the clear-cut stages of gang membership laid out in scholarly articles. Day to day, in the neighborhood, there is no specific process—only matters of violence and timing and pain. Most homies join a neighborhood on impulse. Kevin was no exception.
“I joined the hood ’cuz of my brother. I had taught him alla this stuff, and then he comes and tells me, ‘I’m gettin’ put on.’ I was like, ‘You’re not gonna get put on before me, I’m gonna get put on before you, I gotta protect you.’
“Put on” in gang vocabulary is the initiation process. It’s identical to being “jumped in”�
��a phrase often used by black gangs. It is only a beginning, however. You are still required to prove yourself by “putting your work in.” The process of Kevin and his brother being put on is vicious; both of them are beaten bloody by five different gang members.
“My brother isn’t really a banger even to this day—and I still am feelin’ bad about this. He doesn’t have it in him. But we got in. Guns and shooting—it was our life.” Kevin’s voice softens. Big Mike has warned me that guns are everywhere. Every homie is strapped. Kevin explains, “I feel lika man when I gotta gun. Ya get up in the morning and ya put on your gun. It’s whatcha do.
“You look up, you’re strapped and you already a gangbanger,” he continues. “It’s dirty. Before I got in, the picture of the gang is beautiful, but once I got in, these guys wanna make you be a killa. The things they gonna do to you—to make you be a killa—you don’t know. I thought that we were just gonna have meetings. What a joke. What you gotta understand is that they really do stuff to you.”
I do not press Kevin about the “stuff.”
“No one understands—in the neighborhood—they hurt you. They keep you scared. They want you under control.”
So this is the romance of the gang. This is not The Godfather. No one is bathed in the coppery light of brotherly attachment. The neighborhood is the abusive father, heavy on shame and intimidation, parceling out respect. We sit quietly for a moment. Kevin’s head is down. He is trying not to cry, but he fails. His tears fall. The moment is leavened with regret and humiliation.
It is a while before I see Kevin again. Elie Miller e-mails that he has been arrested for armed robbery. He gets a year in county jail. Lockup marks a critical passage for Kevin, including a lesson in racial disparities. Felipe Mendez, a gang interventionist in East Los Angeles and former gang member, had already explained jail politics to me.