Structural analysis in the social sciences Mark Granovetter, editor Other books in the series: Ronald L. Breiger, ed., Social Mobility and Social Structure John L. Campbell, J. Rogers Hollingsworth, and Leon N. Lindberg, eds., Gover- nance of the American Economy David Knoke, Political Networks: The Structural Perspective Kyriakos Kontopoulos, The Logics of Social Structure Mark S. Mizruchi and Michael Schwartz, eds., Intercorporate Relations: The Structural Analysis of Business Philippa Pattison, Algebraic Models for Social Networks Barry Wellman and S. D. Berkowitz, eds., Social Structures: A Network Approach Stanley Wasserman and Katherine Faust, Social Network Analysis: Methods and Ap- plications The series Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences presents approaches that explain social behavior and institutions by reference to relations among such concrete entities as persons and organizations. This contrasts with at least four other popular strategies: (a) reductionist attempts to explain bya focus on individuals alone; (b) explanations stressing the causal primacy of such abstract concepts as ideas, values, mental harmonies, and cognitive maps (thus, "structuralism" on the Continent shouldbe distinguished from structural analysis in the present sense); (c) technological and material determinism; (d) explanations using "variables" as the main analytic concepts (as in the "structural equation" models that dominated much of the sociology of the 1970s), where structure is that connecting variables rather than actual social entities. The social network approach is an important example of the strategyof struc- tural analysis; the series also draws on social science theory and research that is not framed explicitly in network terms, but stresses the importance of relations rather than the atomization of reductionism or the determinism of ideas, technology, or material conditions. Though the structural perspective has become extremely popular and influential in all the social sciences, it does not have a coherent identity, and no series yet pulls together such work under a single rubric. By bringing the achievements of structurally oriented scholars to a wider public, the Structural Analysis series hopes to encourage the use of this very fruitful approach. Mark Granovetter IN SEARCH OF RESPECT Selling Crack in El Barrio PHILIPPE BOURGOIS San Francisco State University CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK http: //www.cup.cam.ac.uk 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA http: //www.cup.org 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1995 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1995 Reprinted 1996 First paperback edition 1996 Reprinted 1996, 1997 (twice), 1998, 1999 Printed in the United States of America Typeset in Garamond A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available ISBN 0-521-43518-8 hardback ISBN 0-521-57460-9 paperback For Nano Born Anew at Each A.M. The street's got its kicks, man, Hey, the street's got life, man, like a bargain shelf. In fact, like a young tender sun, cool-breeze, it's got love like and gentleness anywhere else. like a long awaited dream to come. Oye, vaya, check it out. Vaya! The children are roses, with It's got lights that shine up the dark nary a thorn. Forced to feel like new. racist scorn. It sells what you don't need and never lets you forget Ha, ha, vaya, check it out! what you blew. Our children are beauty with It's got high-powered salesmen who the right tobe born. Born push mucho junk, and hustlers who anew at each A.M. like a child can swallow you up in a chunk. Aha, out of twilight flying towards check it out. sunlight born anew at each A.M. It's got our beautiful children living in all kinds of hell, hoping to survive Punto! and making it well, swinging together in misty darkness with all their love to share smiling their Christ-like forgiveness that onlya ghetto cross can bear. Oh, yeah, vaya, check it out! CONTENTS Acknowledgments page ix Introduction i 1. Violating Apartheid in the United States 19 2. A Street History of El Barrio 48 3. Crackhouse Management: Addiction, Discipline, and Dignity 77 4. "Goin' Legit": Disrespect and Resistance at Work 114 5. School Days: Learning to be a Better Criminal 174 6. Redrawing the Gender Line on the Street 213 7. Families and Children in Pain 259 8. Vulnerable Fathers 287 9. Conclusion 318 Epilogue 328 Notes 339 Bibliography 365 Index 379 Vll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to begin by thanking my friends and neighbors in El Barrio for participating in this book, and for welcoming me so openly into their lives. I changed everyone's name and camouflaged the street addresses to protect individual privacy. Above all, I want to thank my close friend whom I have called Primo in these pages. He followed my work since the beginning, and he guided much of it. His comments, corrections, and discussions on the half-dozen versions of the manuscript, that he read or listened to, were most helpful. The other major character, whom I have called Caesar, also provided me with analytical insights and critiques on various early drafts of this book. Similarly, the person I have named Candy was extraordinarily helpful and supportive throughout the field- work process and in the early stages of writing. The woman I called Marfa provided me with comments and moral support right through the very final phases of writing this book. I also want to thank the following institutions for their generous financial support: the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Ford Founda- tion, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Wenner-Gren Founda- tion for Anthropological Research, the United States Bureau of the Census, and my home institution, San Francisco State University — with special gratitude to Marilyn Boxer, the Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Brian Murphy, the Director of External Affairs, Joe Julian, Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, and my colleagues in the Anthropology Department who had to accommodate my frequent re- search leaves over the past six years. I appreciated having institutional research affiliations with The Research Institute for the Study of Man, the Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos of Hunter College, Columbia Acknowledgments University's School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and the San Francisco State Urban Institute. I am grateful to Marc Edelman, Robert Merton, Eric Wolf, and especially Loi'c Wacquant, who gave generously of their time to provide me with detailed, line-by-line critiques of substantial portions of the manuscript. Dozens of other friends, students, colleagues, and mentors also read drafts of this book - or at least heard portions of its central arguments. Many useful insights or points of information were conveyed to me in informal conversations after seminars, classes, and conferences, or even at parties. Some of the feedback was critical, and I did not always incorporate it in the text, but I am thankful for its constructive engagement. In this vein, I thank: Rina Benmayor, Pierre Bourdieu, Lia Cavalcanti, Charo Chacon-Mendez, Karen Colvard, John Devine, Amy Donovan, Eloise Dunlap, Angelo Falcon, Reynolds Farley, Patricia Fer- nandez-Kelly, Gerry Floersch, Michel Giraud, Laurie Gunst, Ramon Gutierrez, Charles Hale, Robert Kelly, Arthur Kleinman, Steve Koester, Antonio Lauria-Petrocelli, Gloria Levitas, Mitchell Levitas, Roberto Lewis-Fernandez, Jeff Longhofer, Peter Lucas, Burton Maxwell, Susan Meiselas, Sol Perez, Alejandro Portes, Jim Quesada, Rene Ramirez, Tony Ramos, Rayna Rapp, Peggy Regler, Antonio Rivera, Roberto Rivera, Francisco Rivera-Batiz, Clara Rodriguez, Ulysses Santamaria, Saskia Sas- sen, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Jane Schneider, Carol Smith (and all the participants in her Hemispheric Initiatives in the Americas seminar series), Robert Smith, Carl Taylor, Rosa Torruellas, Frank Vardi, Joel Wallman, Eric Wanner, William Julius Wilson, Terry Williams. I owe a great deal to Mark Granovetter, the series editor at Cambridge, who intervened on my behalf with comments and support at a crucial phase in the writing when I was despairing of ever finishing. My in- house editors at Cambridge — Emily Loose, Rachel Winfree, Russell Hahn, and especially Elizabeth Neal - were also extremely helpful. The copyeditor, Nancy Landau, greatly improved the final quality of the text, catching dozens of embarrassing errors and cleaning up an untold number of awkward sentence constructions. The original manuscript could not have been produced without the typing, emotional support, and ethical backbone of Harold Otto, who became a respected friend despite working side by side with me for so many anxiety-filled months. Other people who provided cru- cial research and logistical support at the Russell Sage Founda- Acknowledgments tion include: Sara Beckman, Eileen Ferrer, James Gray, Clay Gustave, Bianca Intalan, Pauline Jones, Paula Maher, Pauline Rothstein, Ema Sosa, Madge Spitaleri, Camille Yezzi, Hong Xu, and Adrienne Zicklin. At San Francisco State University, Thoreau Lovell kindly provided me with after-hour computer access and frequent technical advice. At the Research Institute for the Study of Man, Florence Rivera Tai was of great help. Reading Piri Thomas's Down These Mean Streets when I was in high school planted the seed for this book. I owe him a great debt for making me confront poverty, racism, and drugs in the city where I grew up. It is a special honor and pleasure for me, consequently, to have his permission to publish on page xiii the fax he sent me after reading a manuscript version of this book.