Abstract
The present paper is focused on the analysis of an autobiographical novel by Reymundo Sanchez titled My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King. The story provides enough evidence to appreciate how family relationships and community factors are associated with gang membership among young people belonging to cultural minorities.
The analysis of the book demonstrates that lack of family bonding, increased exposure to violence, availability of drugs, and increased tolerance to delinquency can lead to participation in gang activity. One of the most efficient methods to address this problem is to create community-based youth agencies that will teach the youth coping mechanisms to reduce the impact of racism and decrease the social isolation of young people from minority groups.
The choices made by a person during his or her lifetime are often affected by the external environment. Multiple research confirm that family structure and community have a significant impact on different aspects of a person’s life. Ellison (2013) explains this phenomenon by the fact that humans are social beings that have a desire to be noticed. This eagerness pushes people to do what the family and community members want them to do to receive positive reassurance of their actions.
The present paper aims at explaining how external factors affected the life of Reymundo Sanchez (2000) described in his autobiographical novel My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King. The paper identifies familial and community issues and proposes a gang intervention based on an assessment of macro institutions and community models.
Familial Issues
Reymundo is a Puerto Rico-born Latino, who was significantly affected by the family structure and relationships. When he was born, his mother was only 16, and his father was 74 (Sanchez, 2000). Reymundo’s father died when the boy was only five years old, which significantly affected the financial state of the family as well as the physical and psychological well-being of the boy (Sanchez, 2000). At the age of seven, Reymundo, with his mother and father-in-law, moved to Chicago to seek a better life (Sanchez, 2000). The relationship within the family had several issues that supported Reymundo’s decision to become a gang member and grow more violent.
The present paper identified three central family problems that impacted Reymundo’s life choices. First, Reymundo was a victim of physical and sexual abuse by the members of his extended family before he moved to Chicago (Sanchez, 2000). Early exposure to violence is associated with increased tolerance to brutality (Pitts, 2007). As a result, the boy became known under the nickname Li’l Loco due to his increased activity as a gang member (Sanchez, 2000). Second, the members of the nuclear family also bet Reymundo consistently, which implies that he could not get emotional support from the family (Sanchez, 2000).
According to Ellison (2013), a person always seeks positive reassurance, and as Reymundo was unable to receive it from his family, he began looking for acceptance among Latin Disciples and Spanish Lords (Sanchez, 2000). Finally, Reymundo’s brothers were a members of different gangs and heroin dealers, which created a positive picture of gang membership (Sanchez, 2000).
According to the results of a longitudinal study by Hill, Howell, Hawkins, and Battin-Pearson (1999), availability of drugs and favorable parental and sibling attitudes toward antisocial behavior are risk factors for delinquency, violence, and substance abuse, which are predictors of gang membership. In summary, a high level of conflict within the nuclear and extended family, as well as a positive picture of gang membership among siblings, significantly impacted Reymundo’s life choices.
Community Issues
Modern society has many issues that need to be addressed to avoid the marginalization of young people, as demonstrated by Sanchez (2000). Duchak (2014) states that the phenomenon of marginalization is associated with the “deformation of state and public institutions, destruction of social, cultural, ideological and political bases of life, loss of value orientations” (p. 70). The problem is that cultural stereotypes and prejudice towards certain religions prevent the social integration of minorities, which leads to adverse outcomes.
Ellison (2013) states that cultural minorities, such as African Americans or Latinos, are often mute and invisible to society. The voices of minorities are often muted in public discourse due to increased unemployment and lack of education (Ellison, 2013). At the same time, minorities are often made invisible through incarceration (Ellison, 2013). Similarly, Reymundo was made unseen and unheard by the community, which caused the tendency of joining a gang.
Three major issues contributed to Reymundo’s choice to join Latin Disciples and then Latin Kings. First, the community had increased access to firearms, which is one of the central risk factors of marginal behavior, according to Hill et al. (1999). Reymundo repeatedly saw gang members use guns, and at the age of 14, he participated in his first murder using a shotgun (Sanchez, 2000). Second, the community around Reymundo provided increased availability of illicit drugs.
Sanchez (2000) wrote that the Latin Kings’ activity was directly associated with drug dealing. Early exposure to drugs may lead to the development of addiction, and an easy way to get drugs is to join a gang. Therefore, drug availability is a significant predictor of gang membership (Hill et al., 1999). Third, Reymundo’s community norms were favorable toward antisocial behavior, which led to an increasing number of young people in trouble. Many of Reymundo’s peers in the neighborhood had increased tolerance to deviant behavior (Sanchez, 2000). Therefore, even though the majority of community members did not support violence directly, delinquent behavior was considered normal among many of the peers and older community members.
When speaking about community issues, it is vital to acknowledge that every individual risk factor is not sufficient to promote gang membership. However, according to Hill et al. (1999), every additional risk factor increases the probability of joining a gang directly. In addition to all the risk factors, the wider community promoted social exclusion for cultural minorities. This encouraged Reymundo to seek defense from gang members. In his later gang days, Reymundo becomes disappointed with gang leaders as they become more concerned with drugs and money rather than with helping Latinos in trouble. These thoughts explain his motives for joining the gang.
Community-Based Assessment
Macro Institutions
Before designing an adequate intervention, it is crucial to conduct a community-based assessment to understand how macro institutions affected Reymundo’s life. According to the US Department of Justice (1994), schools need to be assessed as they can help to address the problem of gangs in a community. Reymundo enjoyed his days in Von Humboldt School in Chicago, and he was an honor student during his first year of education (Sanchez, 2000). However, even their he learned to fear white people, which demonstrated that the school policies promoted social exclusion of Latinos (Sanchez, 2000).
In Tuley High, Reymundo was mocked and often unheard, which showed schools’ dysfunctional integration policies, as Reymundo turned from an honor student to an underperformer (Sanchez, 2000). At the same time, both schools were aware of gang problems as many school children were participants of Latin Disciples and Spanish Lords. However, they did not have a comprehensive program that addressed the issue of gang membership, which is vital, according to the US Department of Justice (1994). Therefore, it can be stated that Reymundo’s schools were dysfunctional as macro institutions.
The police also need to adopt efficient measures to address the problem of gangs, as they are primary law enforcers in the community. Sanchez (2000) describes the police officers as hateful people that demonstrated prejudice towards Latinos. Reymundo was a witness to police brutality without a valid reason (Sanchez, 2000). Therefore, it can be stated that instead of fighting gangs, the police forces encouraged the youth to join the gangs as they promoted social.
According to Pitts (2007), social cohesion is crucial for building a healthy community, and the police need to role model the attitude towards minorities regardless of cultural and ethnic stereotypes. In summary, even though the police enforced the law aggressively, which is central, according to the US Department of Justice (1994), the promotion of social exclusion is a definite flaw.
The court system and other macro institutions described by Sanchez (2000) shared similar problems as the police and schools. According to Gottdiener, Hutchison, and Ryan (2015), one of the most common problems of urban communities is racism. Racism comes as a reaction to the uneven distribution of minority populations, social isolation, concentration, and centralization (Gottdiener et al., 2015). The minority communities often experience poverty, which is positively correlated with gang membership, drug abuse, and violence (Gottdiener et al., 2015).
As a result, local representatives of macro institutions associate risky activity with race instead of appreciating the sociology of the problem. The problem of cultural prejudice is well described by Sanchez (2000) and mentioned in all the studies reviewed for the present paper (Duchak, 2014; Gottdiener et al., 2015; Ellison, 2013; Hill et al., 1999; Pitts, 2007). Therefore, the central community issue is the social isolation of the minority youth induced by racism that makes cultural minorities mute and invisible.
Proposed Intervention
The proposed intervention needs to address the problem of youth participating in gang activity in the shortest possible time with maximum cost-efficiency. According to the US Department of Justice, the creation of community-based youth agencies (CBYA) is an efficient method of addressing the marginalization of minority youth. These agencies serve the youth gang members through “socialization, education, family support, training and employment, social control, and community mobilization and agency coordination” (US Department of Justice, 1994, p. 22). At the same time, such agencies target youth prone to gangs, which is a vital prevention practice (US Department of Justice, 1994).
CBAs have an opportunity to help the youth avoid marginalization and learn essential coping mechanisms to resist racism. Moreover, increased education and decreased incarceration will help the voices of minorities to be heard by society. This will lead to reduced racism and, consequently, less gang engagement.
Conclusion
Racism and social isolation of minority youth are the central problems described by Sanchez in his autobiographical novel. Injustice and prejudice towards young people, lack of family bonding, and insufficient support of community organizations lead to increased participation in gang activity among adolescents. The macro institutions described in the book are dysfunctional as they fail to address and sometimes even acknowledge the problem of gangs and Latinos. The most efficient way to solve the problem is to create a coherent CBYA that will provide adequate support to the minority youth.
References
Duchak, O. (2014). Marginalization of young people in society. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, (29), 70-79.
Gottdiener, M., Hutchison, R., & Ryan, M. (2015). The new urban sociology. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Ellison, G. (2013). Cut dead. In: Cut dead but still alive: Caring for African American young men (pp. 1-28). Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.
Hill, K. G., Howell, J. C., Hawkins, J. D., & Battin-Pearson, S. R. (1999). Childhood risk factors for adolescent gang membership: Results from the Seattle Social Development Project. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 36(3), 300-322.
Pitts, J. (2007). Reluctant gangsters: Youth gangs in Waltham Forest. Web.
Sanchez, R. (2000). My bloody life: The making of a Latin King. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press.
US Department of Justice. (1994). Gang suppression and intervention: Community Models. Web.