Chicano Gangs: One Response To Mexican Urban Adaptation In The Los Angeles Area Author(s): James Diego Vigil Reviewed work(s): Source: Urban Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 1 (SPRING 1983), pp. 45-75 Published by: The Institute, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40552988 . Accessed: 01/02/2013 13:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Institute, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Urban Anthropology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Fri, 1 Feb 2013 13:22:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Chicano Gangs: One Response To Mexican Urban Adaptation In The Los Angeles Area James Diego Vigil Departmentof Anthropology and EthnicStudies Center Universityof SouthernCalifornia ABSTRACT: Mexican adaptationto urbanareas in the UnitedStates has resulted in the rise of youthstreet groups and gangs. These Chicano groups/gangsare as- sessed withina frameworkwhich examines ecological, economic, cultural,and psychologicalaspects of that adaptation. Since the 1920s, Mexican immigrants and theirchildren have typicallysettled in the poorer,neglected sections of the city, called barrios,and workedin menial,low-paid industries. Changing from traditional was made more these Mexicanpatterns to those of Anglo-America problematicby livingand workingconditions. Moreover, urban social institutions,especially the social control specialists, e.g., schools and law enforcement,often became sources of additionalproblems in the enculturationand socialization process of these immigrants'children. Urban adaptation was exacerbated by these factors, and affectedcultural assimilation and acculturation.Many youths who were unable to findan identityin eitherMexican or Anglo cultureevolved a cholo culturalstyle which aided adaptation to the street. It is this culturaltransitional phenomenon whichaids our understandingof the formationof gangs, forthrough the decades what began as a "boy" gang problemeventually evolved intoa gang subculture. For manycholos the gang subcultureprovides a source of identityand avenues for personal fulfillment.With continuing Mexican immigration,and the existence of a gang subculturewith its own enculturationand socialization patterns,the whole process of Mexican adaptationto urbanlife requires reexamination. Chicano youthgang activitiesin the barrios(neighborhoods) of Los Angeles and otherurban areas of the southwesternUnited States have for years attractedconsiderable attentionin the public media. Not surpris- 45 ISSN 0363-2024, ©1983 The Institutefor the Studyof Man, Inc. This content downloaded on Fri, 1 Feb 2013 13:22:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 46 URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY VOL. 12(1), 1983 ingly,this attention usually has focused on criminalbehavior attributed to these and othergang youth:gang fights,shootings, and stabbings,rob- beries, burglaries,and illicitdrug traffic(Roderick 1982). Chicano gang members (who oftencall themselves cholos? also frequentlyhave prob- lems on a dailybasis withschool officialsand police,which further contrib- utes to theirreputation as a source of urban disorder.Although gang memberstypically constitute a small minorityof the youngin a barrio,their high visibilityand the relativelack of media coverage of less dramatic barrioactivities has tended both to create a negativeimage of barrioresi- dents generally,and to obscure the conditionsgiving rise to the gangs themselves.As Oscar Lewis has pointedout in his introductorydiscussion of the "cultureof poverty"in FIVE FAMILIES (1959), such media stereo- typingof poor communitiesis commonplace (see, e.g., Suttles 1968, Mo- rales 1972). The concept "multiplemarginality" can be utilizedto explore and integratethe diverse influenceswhich have shaped the formationand persistence of these gangs, as well as the attitudesand behaviorof the gangs' members. Multiplemarginality incorporates the effectsof barrio life,low socioeconomic status, cultureconflict, and impaireddevelopment of self-esteemwhich arise in a complexof ecological, socioeconomic,cul- tural,and psychologicalfactors. Employingthe concept in the study of Chicano youthgangs willavoid the problemsassociated withsingle-cause discussions of previousgang studies; Cartwrightet al. (1975:25-45) have provideda general reviewof such studies in the second chapter of their theoreticalstudy of juvenilegangs. The concept of multiplemarginality will permitthe developmentof what Geertz has called a "thickdescription," that is, a descriptionof cumulativeand combinativeinfluences which ac- count forsimilarities and variationswithin and across groups. Marginality, as used here, reflectsthe situationsand conditionsto which Mexicans have been subjected (Dickie-Clark1966) in theiroverall adaptation to Americanurban life. It has been suggested thatthe concept of marginality obscures the crucialimportance of the exploitationof lowerclass workers in low-payingjobs as a factorin a capitalistsystem (Peattie 1974; Perlman 1976). It is certainlythe case that Mexican and Mexican-Americanlabor has been importantin the developmentof southwesternUnited States economic enterprises(farm workers in agribusiness, for instance ). Yet the workersin question have virtuallybeen excluded fromthe mainstreamof urban decision making.Though they have become marginalto the inter- ests of societyat large,they still function as integralmembers of society's economic enterprises.Their perception of this is maintainedby significant structuralfeatures in the environmentto whichthey adapt (Kapferer1978; Lommitz1 977). Local probationand police officialshave estimatedthat as manyas 400 youthgangs currentlyexist in Los Angeles County(Decker 1 983), and at least halfof these are Chicano gangs. There are also, of This content downloaded on Fri, 1 Feb 2013 13:22:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Vigil CHICANO GANGS IN LOS ANGELES 47 course, many gangs located in communitiesin the counties adjacent to Los Angeles. The gangs range fromthose whichdate fromthe 1940s, for which the existence over time of more than a dozen identifiableage- graded cohorts has been established (Moore et al. 1978), to recently formedgroups. An individualgang's active membershipmight number as highas several hundredor as few as 10 or 12. The newer,smaller gangs are typicallyfound in suburban areas, whilemost of the older,larger gangs are located in long-establishedurban and semi-ruralbarrios. (Many of these semi-ruralbarrios, and the gangs associated withthem, have been surroundedin recentdecades by the ever-expandingsuburban develop- ments.) The long-termexistence of older barriogangs has served as a model and a stimulusfor gang formationin other areas, and has become a major socializationfactor within and around the barriosoccupied by such gangs. Chicano youthgangs in Los Angeles were initiallyformed by sec- ond generationMexican Americans,and the core membershipcontinues to be primarilycomprised of nativeborn youths. The gangs emerged con- temporaneouslywith the subculturaldevelopments which were called pachuctf and gang membersin many ways epitomizedpachuco charac- teristics.That subculturehas over timeevolved intothe cholo lifestyle,and again, gang membersare the primeparticipants in the dress, speech, be- havior,and attitudepatterns which compristfthat label. The cholo life-style (likethe pachuco stylewhich preceded it) representsa syncreticincorpo- rationof elementsfrom Mexican and Americanyouth cultures, as well as values and attitudesshaped by adaptations to the problemsassociated withlife in the barrios.The gang itself,over time,has become partof the barrioenvironment to whichmore recentimmigrants must acculturate.In- creasinglyin recentyears, both immigrantyouths from Mexico and third- generation Mexican Americans have become peripherallyinvolved with streetgangs. The Chicano PintoResearch Project(1979, 1981) has found small numbersof thirdgeneration Chícanos, who are themselvesoffspring of gang members,involved in the core membershipof some youngerage cohorts.Even those barrioyouth (immigrant or not)who do not participate in gang activitiesare keenlyaware of the gang, and must adapt to it. Ac- culturation,of course, affects virtuallyeveryone to some degree in a multiculturalregion such as the greater Los Angeles metropolitanarea. Members of differentgenerations are affecteddifferently, however, espe- ciallyin immigrantpopulations. Second generationoffspring of Mexican immigrantscomprise a generationwhose acculturationlevel may be re- garded as transitional,in that many cannot fullyaccept eithertheir par- ents' or the majorityculture. This absence of a secure cultural(and personal)identity increases the attractivenessof the gang subculturefor a small, but significant,minority of barrio youths. Age-graded "klikas" (cliques, or cohorts)and (in older gangs) verticallines of organizationlend This content downloaded on Fri, 1 Feb 2013 13:22:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 48 URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY VOL. 12(1), 1983 some sense of order to their often confused interpersonal interactions (Klein