Gangs’ Deadly Hold Offers No Hope
For the last week, we’ve held vigil over Jaramillo Rodriguez, our 19-year-old nephew.
His body lies inert, invaded by tubes and tethered to electronic machines which do the basic biological work that this strapping 6-foot-4-inch boy currently is incapable of sustaining. Once a promising athlete, he lies near death, another young victim of the brutal gang warfare plaguing the City of Angels.
He and his two “homies” were cut down by gunfire from rival gang members over disputes that are totally baffling even to those familiar with the self-destructive lifestyle called “la vida loca,” the crazy life.
It’s irrelevant whether the dispute was over control of territory (usually involving short stretches of bleak barrio asphalt) or over personal insult (perceived as violating the integrity of an exaggerated sense of pride and honor) or whether it simply was a chance encounter by rival members of kamikazelike youth gangs.
What is shocking is the degree to which this formerly romanticized rite-of-passage lifestyle has degenerated into a self-destructive, alienated, fatalistic ideology which holds sway over so many of our children.
Spawned by the fraying fabric of barrio life and fueled by popular culture’s steady diet of conflict resolution through violence, this view of life as mayhem is causing too many of our intelligent, eager school-age kids to mutate into teen warriors without a cause.
During the early part of the Chicano power movement in the late 1960s, the “vato loco” (crazy guy) was cast as the embodiment of resistance to sinister cultural aggression. His unconventional clothing, colorful “cal” dialect - a unique blend of Spanish and English - and insolent demeanor made him the definition of “cool” in the barrio. Chicano college student activists adopted the “cool” look: white T-shirts under plaid Pendleton wool shirts with a military press and sharply creased khakis or jeans.
But in those days, most “vatos” became “veteranos” by their 20s and outgrew the crazy life. Some led a dual life, going to school or work during the week and hanging out in the neighborhood on weekends. Guns were a rare commodity, and drive-by shootings were just beginning to be used as a gang tactic.
Most “veteranos” made the transition to the work force as semiskilled or skilled laborers and as professionals. While Los Angeles was just as segregated and racist a city as it is now, there were job opportunities, and evidence for believing in the future was found on every East Side street: guys working for a living as did their fathers and grandfathers before them.
The loss of blue-collar jobs - combined with the curtailment of social spending - has eroded employment and educational opportunities for our children to the point that they are extremely marginalized. In the process, the adolescent lifestyle for many of them appears to have become a life sentence.
Barrio life for most gang youths is marked by self-destructive activity often terminated by incarceration or death. Confronted by armed gangsters on one side and police on the other, a homie’s life is dictated by a live-for-today attitude in which the goal is to stay alive by warding off attacks and inflicting attacks on rivals without getting arrested. And behind bars, the mayhem and, often, the killing continue.
These children have no hope. For them, fatalism has replaced faith.
At the hospital this week, one of our nephew’s friends commented on the tragedy: “It’s messed up, hey, but everybody has to go some day. I know it may happen to me. But that’s all right. I’ll die for my barrio.”
The young man was no older than 15, but he already presented a chilling and disheartening combination of attitudes: childlike idealism and a reckless disregard for human life.
The gang mentality alienates these youths from their families and from the community. Their mind-set has them in a constant battlefield superconsciousness, like soldiers in battle, that numbs them to the sensitivities and the needs of others.
When they grieve for their fallen friends - a frequent occurrence - they do so profoundly, intensely, but only for a very brief period; they must remain hypervigilant and combat-ready in the low-intensity warfare their lives have become. To relax or drop their guard could mean death.
As we wrestle with the pain, the remorse and self-reproach about how we could have done more to prevent this tragedy, the deadly hold that gang life has is haunting us.
Our nephew and his friend were hit after they had made a commitment to bail out of the gangbanger life. Our nephew had begun to make arrangements to move out of Southern California. His friend, also on life support, had gone back to night school to earn a diploma and qualify for the armed forces. He had about one month to go. (The other friend has recovered from his wounds.)
Where can we find hope in the future when young men like this see none for themselves?
Our family’s tragedy is but one of many in this city. And like so many other families, we continue our vigil for a young man on life support with a hope born in an earlier era.
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