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book: Barrio Gangs
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Barrio Gangs

Street Life and Identity in Southern California
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 1988

About this book

Within the Mexican American barrios of Los Angeles, gang activity, including crime and violent acts, has grown and flourished. In the past, community leaders and law enforcement officials have approached the problem, not as something that needs to be understood, but only as something to be gotten rid of. Rejecting that approach, James D. Vigil asserts that only by understanding the complex factors that give birth and persistence to gangs can gang violence be ended.

Drawing on many years of experience in the barrios as a youth worker, high school teacher, and researcher, Vigil identifies the elements from which gangs spring: isolation from the dominant culture, poverty, family stress and crowded households, peer pressure, and the adolescent struggle for self-identity. Using interviews with actual gang members, he reveals how the gang often functions as parent, school, and law enforcement in the absence of other role models in the gang members' lives. And he accounts for the longevity of gangs, sometimes over decades, by showing how they offer barrio youth a sense of identity and belonging nowhere else available.

Author / Editor information

James Diego Vigil is Professor of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine.

Reviews

This book is a major contribution to understanding Chicano gangs, and the multiple marginality framework will prove helpful in understanding other Chicano subcultures in very different contexts.
— American Anthropologist

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    Contents

    vii
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    Foreword

    ix
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    Preface

    xiii
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    1. Introduction

    1
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    2. Ecological and Socioeconomic Background to Emergence of Street Gangs

    16
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    3. Sociocultural Factors in the Choloization of the Mexican American Youth Population

    35
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    4. Four Life Histories—Wizard, Geronimo, Freddie, and Henry

    65
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    5. The Gang Subculture as a Lifeway: Structure, Process, and Form

    87
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    6. The Notorious Side of the Gang Subculture

    125
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    7. Psychodynamics of Gangs

    150
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    8. Conclusion

    170
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    Glossary

    177
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    References

    181
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    Index

    197
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
October 25, 2021
eBook ISBN:
9780292757202
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.7560/776135
eBook ISBN: 9780292757202
Audience(s) for this book
For universities and colleges of further and higher education
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