Barrios and Borderlands by Denis Lynn Daly Heyck

Author:Denis Lynn Daly Heyck [Heyck, Denis Lynn Daly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415903950
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 1994-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

I hate it that in the rap songs and in the movies, too, all they talk about is gang bangers. It gives us all a bad name. I mean there's mechanics and engineers and attorneys, too. Why don't they show more people like that teacher at Garfield High, Jaime Escalante? Why can't they include people who can show everybody, including the cops, that chicanos aren't all gang bangers?

Stereotypes like that make me want to contribute more to the community. I mean, I know what the bad things are, and I'm trying to make something good of my life. The L.A. marathon comes right through here, and I give some of my time to that. I joined the Catholic big brothers at one point. You have to give a lot of time, and you have to be careful what you say. The kid will tell you a problem and then ask you, “What should I do?” It's a big responsibility. I might try it again, maybe I could teach some kid that gangs are not it. They think that's it; they think gangs are everything. They think, This is my barrio. I tell them, “This is a street that the city owns. You gonna die for a street that the city owns?”

The whole gang thing just doesn't make any sense, and it makes racism worse. For example, one time, when I was at Berendo, we had all these different gangs, a lot of Hispanics, mostly chicanos. One day a black gang came to Berendo to fight. I wasn't going there at that time. Later, everybody called what happened next the “three o'clock news.” The black gang was very powerful, but all the different gangs at Berendo cooperated for once. They all got together to fight the invading gang out of their school. On the news they said that the different gangs were throwing cocktails. People are attracted to gangs for power; they never think about how dangerous it is, or about how it makes you stereotype people. Like the gangs in the “three o'clock news,” they think belonging to a gang and fighting gives them power.

I'll tell you something that happened to me a few years ago. Every year our parish has a carnival. They never have it for the cinco de mayo, I don't know why, but that's okay. There were a couple of kids at the festival who were writing on the wall of the restoom. I said, “What are you doing. Stop writing on the wall. Degrading the church is not very nice.” They answered, “Leave me alone or I'm gonna tell my home boy.” They were wearing 18th Street clothes, and they were little kids, maybe twelve years old. I said, “Who're you going to tell?” One of them answers with a name, and I tell him, “Did you know that he's dead?” They said, “How do you know?” And I told them, “Because he was one of my home boys, and I went to his funeral two months ago.

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