Chicano Gang Members in Recovery: The Public Talk of Negotiating Chicano Masculinities (original) (raw)
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"Grow Your Hair Out": Chicano Gang Masculinity and Embodiment in Recovery
Using ethnographic data from Los Angeles, this article examines how two distinctive faith-based programs—Homeboy Industries and Victory Outreach—drew upon masculine bodily displays and practices to facilitate recovery from gang life. First, recovery's body projects negotiated masculine bodily displays from gang member to "family man" or "man of God" by reshaping malleable facets of men's embodiment. Second, leaders protected reformed gang embodiment from the risk of being interpreted as a failed masculinity by emasculating active gang embodiment. Lastly, because some subjects had difficulty overcoming rigid facets of masculine gang embodiment—such as drug addiction—recovery provided bodily practices for reshaping and redirecting rigid facets of embodiment. Whereas emerging research on gang exit has built upon functionalist-oriented life-course and role-exit perspectives of crime desistance, this article suggests that embodied, masculine contests are fundamental to the phenomenological realities of gang recovery. Recovering gang members deepen commitment to exit from gang life not by being passively legitimated as "family men" or "men of God," but by actively using bodily displays and practices to construct new, masculine moral universes.
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2014
In God's Gangs, Edward Orozco Flores draws on 18 months of fieldwork in two outreach organizations with "recovering" gang members from Los Angeles barrio and working-class Latino neighborhoods. Los Angeles, with its dubious title as the "gang capital" of the U.S., has a much-studied history of gangs-particularly Latino gangs-that stretches back to the Great Depression (Bogardus 1943; Klein 1971; Moore 1978; Vigil 1988). Flores contributes to this history in an important way with his focus on disengagement from gangs, what he terms "gang recovery," an area of gang research that has exploded in just the last 5 years. What differentiates God's Gangs from the extant literature is how Flores weaves together themes of masculinity, religion, immigration, and marginalization to guide readers through the transformation from "shaved" (i.e., active gang member) to "saved" (i.e., former gang member). Religion and the faith-based practices of the two outreach organizations are doing the heavy lifting in this transition, with masculinity serving as the primary outcome in need of explanation. Indeed, the central thesis of God's Gangs is that "religious practices facilitate Chicano gang recovery by reorienting masculine expressions away from the street and toward conventional social spheres" (p.13). The two organizations are Homeboy Industries and Victory Outreach, both well-established with deep religious roots and origins in Boyle Heights. The stage is set to study gang recovery in the first two chapters, where Flores frames his study within the tradition of critical race theory. In Chapter 1, he develops a story of The Latino Crime Threat in California generally and in Los Angeles particularly. Latinos, he argues, have been linked intimately to criminality, gangs, and illegal immigration-a handful of racist and xenophobic comments of Los Angeles Times readers in response to a gang sweep are used as proof of the malicious discourse. The ruling class (read: white males) is responsible for the historical and continued exclusion and marginalization of Latinos by having
Machismo and Chicano/a Gangs: Symbolic Resistance or Oppression?
1996
Both machismo and gang violence have been w1delyd1scussed in the popular and social science literature . Scholars have not systematically addressed the meanings ofmach1smo held by gang members . We interviewed 25 Chicano/a and Mejicano/a gang members and 20 adult youth service workers and neighborhood providers, explicitly asking fortheirdefinitions of machismo. Wefmd both similarities and variations across generational and gender groups in our sample Using the both /and approach of Patricia Hill Collins (1991 ). we analyzed the simultaneously oppositional and oppressive nature of machismo in the lives of these young men and women . Our study reveals the complexity and contradictions inherent in machismo and related characteristics . and their implications for positive soc1al change .
Journeys in Gang Masculinity: Insights from International Case Studies of Interventions
Deviant Behavior, 2018
Drawing on formal interviews and ethnographic participant observation this paper highlights how effective gang intervention programmes can and do supplant negativistic masculine identities based on violent criminality with more positivistic masculine identities based on gainful employment, family life and desistance. The authors examine how this transition occurs at three prominent gang intervention programmes in diverse transnational contexts: Los Angeles, Glasgow and Copenhagen. In contrast to earlier work, the paper also examines how gang members can revert back to negativistic masculine identities, criminality and violence when the support that these programmes provide is withdrawn.
Voices from the Barrio: Chicano/A Gangs, Families, and Communities*
Criminology, 2000
Based o n in-depth interviews with 33 youth gang members and 20 adult neighborhood leaders and youth service providers, we explore the complicated relationships among gang members, their families, and other residents of poor Chicanoia and Mexicano/a barrios in Phoenix. Listening to the multiple voices of community members allows f o r a multifaceted understanding of the complexities and contradictions of gang life, both for the youths and for the larger community. W e draw on a community ecology approach to help explain the tensions that develop, especially when community members vary in their desires and abilities to control gang-related activities. In this exploratory study, we point to some of the ways in which gender, age, education, traditionalism, and level of acculturation may help explain variation in the type and strength of private, parochial, and public social control within a community.
When You\u27re Out, You\u27re Not Really Out: Exiting Strategies Among Gang-Affiliated Chicanas
2019
In recent years there has been an increased focus on gang desistence and exiting strategies, yet little is known at present regarding the experiences of women exiting the gang lifestyle. The current study, based on semi-structured interviews with twenty-four formerly gang-affiliated Chicana women involved with a prominent gang prevention/intervention organization, sought to understand how these women negotiated their disengagement from the gang. Consistent with previous literature, we found that disengagement from the gang lifestyle is neither linear nor immediate. Five primary themes that emerged from the interviews included: (1) the process of identity transition; (2) motherhood and its responsibilities; (3) generational shifts in gang culture; (4) burning bridges; (5) impacts of prison; and (6) support services. The women\u27s narratives offer an alternative lens through which to understand women’s negotiation of their own identities through the process of disengagement from the ...
When You're Out, You're Not Really Out: Exiting Strategies Among Gang-Affiliated Chicanas
2019
In recent years there has been an increased focus on gang desistence and exiting strategies, yet little is known at present regarding the experiences of women exiting the gang lifestyle. The current study, based on semistructured interviews with twenty-four formerly gang-affiliated Chicana women involved with a prominent gang prevention/intervention organization, sought to understand how these women negotiated their disengagement from the gang. Consistent with previous literature, we found that disengagement from the gang lifestyle is neither linear nor immediate. Five primary themes that emerged from the interviews included: (1) the process of identity transition; (2) motherhood and its responsibilities; (3) generational shifts in gang culture; (4) burning bridges; (5) impacts of prison; and (6) support services. The women's narratives offer an alternative lens through which to understand women’s negotiation of their own identities through the process of disengagement from the ...