thegraylady

Dear You,
2002-07-30 06:05:16 (UTC)

some randomn thoughts and maybe a bit more history and facts about me

my son will soon be starting school next week. i guess i
would like to reflect about my own years in school.
i hated school up till about highschool, before that, when
i lived with my mother, i had to lie to faculty about the
brusing and other marks on my body. otherwise my mother
swore that she would kill me, or if i was taken away, the
foster homes i would be sent to were far worse than living
with her.
due to moving around so much, i wasn't able to make very
many friends. and it didn't help that i didn't make friends
easily. i had been taught at such a young age to be
secretive, i simply didn't warm up to other kids or anyone
in general. my mother never bought me clothes that fit the
fashion trends. so often i was made fun of. and going to
predominately "white" schools, i had another reason for
being made fun of. i don't look "white" but i don't
look "yellow" either. lots of times in my life i'm often
mistaken for being of latin decent. in the 3rd grade, i had
my face scratched, starting from the corners of my eyes and
down to my chin, because a group of girls didn't think my
eyes slanted enough.
but when we moved to los angeles, and lived in the area
called "korea town" i didn't really fit there either. if
there was ever another white kid in my class. he/she was
normally the only one in the whole school. other asian kids
would make fun of me for being mixed, the nicer ones simply
didn't associate with me. most of my friends, if and when i
managed to make any, where of latin decent.
i guess when i was in highschool, my mixture of exotic
looks, finally caught some of opposite sex's attentions,
and suddenly i was someone people could like. my tiny
circle of friends expanded. it forced me to become more
sociable than i had ever been. i can't say if i ever
had "close" friends, but several folks claimed me for a
best friend, and out of courtesy i would claim the same of
them.
the violence in that community is horrible, i don't think
any kid i knew back then wasn't terrified of it. there
wasn't a week that would go by that a fellow student wasn't
shot. at first i didn't join a gang, mostly because i knew
that this didn't offer any degree of safety, it only
invited more. and i felt there was enough beatings for me
waiting at home, than also having to worry about being shot
at on the streets.
another thing, one thing about being an abused kid in the
inner city of l.a. your definitly not alone. even in your
own apartment building, or the next one over, you can hear
another kid screaming. but if you're not being beat at
home, you can get beat at school, or simply on the way to
or from, sometimes both.
it's a terrible thing you hear on the news about what
happened in the columbine massacre. for folks that grew up
in the inner parts of the big cities, it's the same old
shit for us. it happen at least once a week at any school,
any street corner, in front of anyones building/house. but
the country didn't give a shit about it. it happened so
much, that i stopped crying and stopped worrying about it.
for me, violence now became something that happen inside
the home and outside of it. i hated not being able to
escape it.
eventually..i did too a short stint of joining a gang..kind
of funny when i look back. i joined mostly out of
curiousity, i still have a cigerette burn on my wrist to
prove my "initiation" i was probably an active member for
all of 2 weeks. and i got bored. and started attending
school again. nobody had my phone number or really knew
where i lived, since my mom moved a lot and i was running
away from home as well. so they couldn't track me down for
being awol from the group. i didn't do anything violent
while i was in there, mostly the guys did that part. girls
were just to hang around at the parties and be sexually
available. at that time i had no interest in having sex
with anyone, if any guy had tried to touch me, i would of
done my damndest to rip his dick off. i was never a slouch
as far as knowing how to fight (getting your ass kicked
most of your life teaches you a few thing, not to mention a
huge amount of rage to unleash on some fool thinking you
could be easy prey) , and none of the guys ever felt froggy
enough to take a shot at me. i wasn't into using drugs or
alcohol. i liked knowing what i was doing all the time, and
being in control of at least my own actions. seeing junkies
on the streets, and my mother getting drunk has kept me
sober and straight all these years even to now.
with so many of my friends joining gangs, i used the time i
was in that one gang to begin my own investigations as to
the reasons why people join gangs to begin with. and the
otivations i learned are as numerous as how many people are
in them. some join for safety, some join for community it
offers, some join just to piss off their parents, some join
simply to have a reason for being violent. some even joined
for the same reason i did, out of boredom, or simply
because they were asked. some joined because it was a
family obligation, their parents, even grandparents had
been in the gang. and there's more than this. learning
about the reasons (some gangs even claimed to have many
generations of whole families within them, much like any
glorified italian mafia group), made me wonder how gangs
even started in the first place. after i left that one gang
and was a "free agent" again. i began asking around to find
veterans of different gangs. i got to meet a few from
different gangs. most of them were amused at my historical
interest in them. tho some vets refused to even talk to me
about it. i had to rely on younger members to fill me in on
a gang's history. maybe the stories i heard weren't true,
but if even they aren't, they were fascinating stories.
several of the gangs started in the 80's in the inner city
of LA had started off being a football team members at
highschools. this was true to many of the latino gangs, in
fact i was able to interview one of the founders of a gang
called "Drifters" i was simply shocked as he told me how it
all began. tho most of my interest in gangs involved latino
gangs, i was able to get some information about some asain
gangs. several asains gangs are simply extensions of
politcal and business factions from thier original
countries. many former viet cong members formed gangs on
the west coast, and due to a former nieghbor's demise, they
are well connected as well on the east coast. i couldn't
get much information about "black" gangs, due to the fact i
simply had no connections amoung blacks. some latino gangs
can trace their history to the "zoot suit wars" that
happened in l.a. what i found even more disturbing, is that
many latino gangs had formed with good intentions, keeping
thier neighborhoods safe, making a stronger community. some
members of gangs, ones that could claim several generations
within a gang, often said their ancestors had once own land
in california that had been confiscated by the u.s.
government, it was the young men from these displaced
families that began forming groups that eventually became
the modern gangs of today. some vets i spoke to, didn't
approve of the growing violence done by thier younger
members, and that more and more women/girls were now an
active part of gang activities. they spoke with a strong
nostolgia of times when turff wars were handled with simple
chains and bats, they said there were few deaths, once
someone was beat down, the battles ended. i heard more than
one veterano (an older member of a latino gang) say a gun
doesn't end any fight, just makes them want more blood.
in the late 80's some gangs that used to be of an exclusive
ethnic group, began accepting members outside of thier
ethnic group. i met some asains that had joined hispanic
gangs, some hispanics that joined black gangs, and blacks
that joined hispanic gangs. the thing i found most odd
about these particular persons, was how they seemed ashamed
of themselves. they would do everything short of altering
their physical attributes, tho with plastic surgery, who
knows what they may try. personal it repulsed me to watch
them. many of these person's wouldn't even associate with
someone from thier own ethnic background unless they were
blood related. they absorbed their gangs ethnic culture
like a sponge. what was even sadder, they often didn't not
have full support from thier gang, only from the ones that
supported their membership. the rest of the gang would
treat them as if they were a potential traitor. normally,
the only reasons i could find for them joining these gangs,
was that they simply lived in the same neighborhood or went
to the same schools. the ethnic geography of L.A. was
varied, hispanics moving into black neighborhoods, or visa
versa. and asians seem to be sprinkled everywhere. of
course there was the occassional white kid whose family had
either been left behind (it seemed whenever a minority
moved into a predominately white neighborhood, the whites
would begin an exodus) or had to seek out cheaper homes.
my personal investigations into the "gang" issue, was a
private affair, lots of my friends thought i was strange
for doing it. i did it mostly to keep myself sane, and to
prove to myself why joining a gang wasn't a good idea. or
rather i should say, staying in one. i remember some of the
folks i interviewed asked me if i was going to write an
article about it, maybe i should have. it always seemed to
me, not enough is known about this culture of youthful
violence, it still seems that way. i was initially going to
submit my findings to a newspaper one time. but honestly,
who would listen to some wierd kid? it is my opinion, that
kids don't normally join gangs to be violent, that is an
after effect, they join gangs because they are looking for
answers about themselves and the world they live in. and if
you think about it, even as we grow older we are still
searching for answers. we get married and have children,
because we want to have our own gang, a people to call
family, we get a home to have a tuff to call our own. we
all want to belong to community a place to belong to. we go
to school and read books, listen to lectures, to learn
about the world, we watch the news for that reason as well.
i believe the kids are not thinking about the violence or
the substance abuse, or the other numerous crimes nutured
by criminal gangs, they are clinging to illusion that a
gang offers. a family, a community, a safe place in the
chaos we call the world, a place to belong to and call your
own. they are offering them simple answers to the simple
questions we all asked of ourselves everyday : who am i?
what am i supposed to do with my life? where do i belong?
if someone wants to stop gangs and the violence it
nurtures, we need to offer our youth alternatives, we need
to get up in their faces, not think that they'll muddle
their way around in the dark and find the light switch on
thier own. they're kids for crying out loud! thats what
parents are supposed to do, guide and teach their children.
i was lucky, not many of my friends were, i believe i
listened to a higher force guiding my life, my mother
certainly didn't help me with any of the decisions i made.
but not many kids hear the voice i did, how can you when
you hear sirens and gunshots all day and all night long?
when every news cast talks about another violent crime
being committed, when violence is there everyday in your
face? even now i know if hadn't been for certain persons
coming into my life at certain times, i too could of been
another casualty to violence. if parents are failing in
thier duties, shouldn't we as a community step in and lend
a hand out to these bewildered youths? i remember begging
and pleading with my friends that turned that way, to stop
and chose a different way. but i'm just one voice, one
small tiny voice, in a sea of noise. some listened, some
never could hear me. i am ashamed at forgetting so many of
thier names, but i can remember thier faces, in my heart
thier names are etched. perhaps my sanity can not bear
thier loss.
sometimes at sudden flashes, i remember my youth in LA and
i wonder what became of my friends. i sometimes think that
maybe i could of done more. but the rational part of me,
reminds me, i was a kid too, with so many of my own
problems.
there is one particular face that has haunted me for so
many years, a beautiful girl, caucasian with long tightly
curled reddish hair. she was a big boned girl, probably
about 5'7" or around there, i remember how she towered over
me. we had one class together. she was one of the few white
kids at my highschool. her mother was a computer programmer
or soemthing with computers. she was so funny, and she was
so incredible nice. we used to ditch school together a lot.
i was attracted to her saddness, i felt connected to it. i
had so much of my own, i rarely met folks that could share
or match the intensity of it. but she was one of those i
wanted to save. at the time we both were lost. i had run
away from home again, and was staying with a nice family
that was helping me stay in school. i was trying to break
from my bad habit of ditching class, but i was so desparate
for someone to share my pain with, that i thought i had
found someone who could understand me. she was terrible
lonely like me. she was a minority at our school, being one
of the few white kids there, and me i was always culturally
lost (too yellow to be white too white to be yellow) she
managed to entice me to ditch classes with her on several
occassions. she liked drinking, tried to get me to drink
with her, but i was firm in my refusals, finally she gave
up. i think i embarrassed her about that, for she never
told me about her other substance addictions. and she liked
to hitch rides with strangers, which i now supected she may
have been prostituting herself on occassions to get monies
for her addictions. i only let her convince me to go into
one of these rides once, when she said she knew this guy
really well and he was totally safe. after a few moments in
the car, the guy said and hinted at a lot of things that
made me very uncomfortable, immediately told her i had to
go home and he could let me out at the nearest bus stop.
she wasn't happy about it. but she made the guy let me out.
soon after that i stopped seeing her in class. i was going
back to attending church, and was quite busy with the youth
group there. one day, she popped into my head and i
couldn't shake this awful feeling about her. so i went back
to her house. her mother answered the door and seeing me,
went into hysterics. after her mother calmed down, she told
me that the last time she had seen her was around the time
i had stopped seeing her in class. and she told me about
the things my friend never told me, she had been involved
with a local drug dealer, and was into heavy drugs. she had
called the police to look for her, and the last news she
had was that my friend was in hollywood somewhere, but that
had been weeks ago. i felt awful, sometimes i think, if i
had checked on her that very same day she didn't show up to
class or went ditching with her that last time she asked me
too, maybe she would still be at home with her mom. i never
could bring myself to go back to her house again. i know i
shouldn't blame myself, i couldn't have predicted or known
how much trouble she was in. but still her face haunts me,
she had such a pretty smile, with such terrible sad eyes.
and to my deeper shame..i can't remember her name!! but her
face will never leave me alone. and the guilt is fresh as
that day as i tried to comfort her hysterical mother.




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