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Hyper-criminalization and the normalization of violence was an integral aspect of Robert Weide's formative years growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s, where Sureño, Crip, and Blood gangs maintained a precarious coexistence, often punctuated by racialized gang violence. His insider status informs Divide & Conquer, which considers how the capitalist economy, the race concept, and nationalist ideology have made gang members the instruments of their own oppression, resulting in racialized sectarian conflicts spanning generations between African American and Latino gangs in Los Angeles and California's prisons. While gang members may fail to appreciate the deeper historical and conceptual foundations of these conflicts, they rarely credit naked bigotry as the root cause. As Weide asserts, they divide themselves according to inherited groupist identities, thereby turning them against one another in protracted blood feuds across gang lines and racial lines. Weide explores both the historical foundations and the conceptual and cultural boundaries and biases that divide gang members across racial lines, detailing case studies of specific racialized gang conflicts between Sureño, Crip, and Blood gangs. Weide employs mixed-methods research, having spent nearly a decade on ethnographic fieldwork and conducted over one hundred formal interviews with gang members and gang enforcement officers concerning taboo subjects like prison and gang politics, and transracial gang membership. Divide & Conquer concludes with encouraging developments in recent years, as gang members themselves, on their own volition, have intervened to build solidarity and bring racialized gang conflicts between them to an end.

Foreword by Roddy RicchThe Trap Kitchen franchise turns toward mixology with a comprehensive and creative guide to street cocktails, as this legendary culinary duo puts their spin on time-honored drinks on the go.Elevate your book collection: Premium Svepa black faux leather cover, featuring intricate sculpture embossing for an exquisite, high-quality appearance.'TRAP KITCHEN: THE ART OF STREET COCKTAILS'elevates the time-honored culture of street cocktails, infusing it with the signature Trap Kitchen flair. Utilizing a blend of popular libations and regional flavors, they create an unparalleled cocktail experience.As the pandemic spurred a surge in demand for portable drinks on the go,'The Art of Street Cocktails'emerges as a go-to resource for crafting flavorful, transportable cocktails. This mixology manual offers an array of dynamic recipes, from the minty, rum-infused Hulk Smash to the tropical pineapple coconut Trap Kitchen Cocktail, a tribute to their iconic pineapple chicken dish.'TRAP KITCHEN: THE ART OF STREET COCKTAILS'transcends the typical drink guide, embodying the essence of mobile mixology. It's a celebration of social, urban culinary arts, regional cocktail traditions, and innovative drink crafting, appealing to both casual cocktail enthusiasts and seasoned mixologists. Each page pulsates with the spirit of Trap Kitchen, keeping their groundbreaking innovation alive in every sip, and offering a vibrant collection of street-smart cocktail recipes for today's dynamic mixology scene.

A funny, irreverent cookbook for the unconventional home cook looking to spice up their kitchen—featuring over 30 soul food recipes inspired by the flavors of Compton. Meet Spank and News—the chefs behind the cult-favorite Los Angeles restaurant—in this “part recipe collection and part autobiography” that “details the duo's rise from gang life to cooking for the likes of Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar” (Time Out). When two former members of Los Angeles'most nefarious rival gangs decided to unite under one oven, they had no idea that they would be creating an empire. Trap Kitchen is a glimpse into the meals that have now become famous in the L.A. streets thanks to the series of pop-up restaurants that continue to bloom throughout the area. Celebrities and residents alike flock to the locations for soulful meals—but it's more than that. Having lost friends and family to violence, we learn how the masterminds behind Trap Kitchen sought to change the paths they were on, using cooking as their driving force. While other cookbooks may boast a level of urban-skewed appeal in their realness, this cookbook also delves into the stories of why they became involved in cooking in the first place. Inside, you'll also find over 30 fun, delicious recipes that have delighted the restaurant's famous clientele, such as: • Trap Mac• Bacon and Young Cheesy• Too Much Sauce BBQ Chicken• Chicken & Waffles• Seafood Gumbo• Skrrrrrt Steak• All In My Grill Salmon• Young Chops on the Heat Trap Kitchen is both a heartfelt and stomach-filling experience to learn how two men changed their stars by seeking out peace and good food for themselves and their community.

Based on five years of ethnography, archival research, census data analysis, and interviews, Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries reveals how the LAPD, city prosecutors, and business owners struggled to control who should be considered “dangerous” and how they should be policed in Los Angeles. Sociologist Ana Muñiz shows how these influential groups used policies and everyday procedures to criminalize behaviors commonly associated with blacks and Latinos and to promote an exceedingly aggressive form of policing. Muñiz illuminates the degree to which the definitions of “gangs” and “deviants” are politically constructed labels born of public policy and court decisions, offering an innovative look at the process of criminalization and underscoring the ways in which a politically powerful coalition can define deviant behavior. As she does so, Muñiz also highlights the various grassroots challenges to such policies and the efforts to call attention to their racist effects. Muñiz describes the fight over two very different methods of policing: community policing (in which the police and the community work together) and the “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” approach (which aggressively polices minor infractions—such as loitering—to deter more serious crime). Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries also explores the history of the area to explain how Cadillac-Corning became viewed by outsiders as a “violent neighborhood” and how the city's first gang injunction—a restraining order aimed at alleged gang members—solidified this negative image. As a result, Muñiz shows, Cadillac-Corning and other sections became a test site for repressive practices that eventually spread to the rest of the city.

Famous for its revolutionary aspects in musical, political, sexual identity and consumerist ideas, punk rock also has its lesser-known gangster ethos as well, explained here by players in the various punk gangs.The Los Angeles, Orange County, and South Bay punk scenes, populated by blue collar kids who responded to the violence and aggression of punk songs and shows. A number of them formed punk gangs that got into beatings, drug dealing and murder. Among them, no gang was more notorious than La Mirada Punks, or LMP.Says LMP chieftain Frank the Shank after getting arrested by police for murder:'After having my hands in so much bloodshed over the years, I most certainly had it coming. I deserved whatever I got.'Unexpectedly Frank was bailed out from prison by his father's friend, a mob gangster.'Too many people died at the hands of punk rock violence,'said Frank.'I got lucky, some didn't. As an ultra-violent punk rock gangster, I admit my part in ruining the scene. L.A. punk was a magical moment of youth expression like no other. And the gangs ruined punk rock. I still have people telling me today that they quit punk because of LMP. I dig graves at a small cemetery just outside Los Angeles. What else would you expect for Frank the Shank?'Cover illustration by the renowned Raymond Pettibon.

Jumped In tells the story of the gangs of Los Angeles in the words of the gang members themselves as well as the people who interact with them on a daily basis--trying to arrest them, control them, and help them. There are priests and police officers, murderers and drug dealers, victims and grieving mothers, and other assorted characters, often partnering in unlikely ways. Jorja Leap's work draws upon intimate material, from interviews to eyewitness accounts, telling the deeply personal stories of current and former gang members who span three generations, as well as the dilemmas Leap herself faces as she struggles to adjust to marriage and motherhood--with a husband in the LAPD and a daughter in adolescence. Jumped In is a chronicle of the unexpected lessons gang members taught her when she was busily studying them. Ultimately, it is a book about attachments and commitments, loyalties and betrayals, drugs and guns, sex and devotion.When Leap began studying Los Angeles gang violence in 2002, she set out not so much to provide a solution but to find out what was being done and who was doing it. The stakes couldn't have been higher: a child or teenager is killed by gunfire almost every three hours--nearly eight times a day--and homicide is the primary cause of death of African American males between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four. During her years of research, this petite white woman from UCLA gained the trust of gang interventionists and access to their inner world. She sat in the living rooms, stood at the crime scenes, and drove through the housing projects. Through the oral histories, personal interviews, and eyewitness accounts of current and former gang members, readers come to understand gangs and the forces that pull people into them. First we get the lay of the land: the genealogy and geography of gangs and sub-gangs, territories within territories. But the centerpiece of the book is really the stories of those people who live'la vida loca,'as well as the experiences of those trying to make things better. These stories are told in Leap's candid first-person voice, as she introduces us to gangland residents such as Tray, a young father trying to go straight who is nonetheless felled by a bullet, and Joanna, a third-generation gang member, who speaks of forbidding her mother to sell drugs around her baby granddaughter. We also ride along with Leap and Big Mike, a former'original gangster'who now does street peace ministry. We see the successful'Jobs not Jails'program at Homeboy Industries and learn that former gangsters make good paramedics and firefighters, accustomed to dangerous situations as they are. With an anthropologist's eye and a compassionate heart, Leap offers not a prescription for solving the gang problem, but a gritty yet hopeful portrait of violence and redemption.

An ethnographic analysis of the purported transnational gang crisis between the United States and El Salvador, based on extensive research in Los Angeles and San Salvador.

To assess whether an initiative to reduce gun violence that had been successful in Boston could be adapted for use elsewhere, researchers selected an East Los Angeles area for a similar intervention that was to include both law enforcement and social service components. Although the latter component was not widely available when the intervention began, researchers found that the intervention helped reduce violent and gang crime in the targeted districts and that crime also decreased in surrounding communities.

2008 — ALLA Prize for Best Book on Latina/o Anthropology The Pico Gardens housing development in East Los Angeles has a high percentage of resident families with a history of persistent poverty, gang involvement, and crime. In some families, members of three generations have belonged to gangs. Many other Pico Gardens families, however, have managed to avoid the cycle of gang involvement. In this work, Vigil adds to the tradition of poverty research and elaborates on the association of family dynamics and gang membership. The main objective of his research was to discover what factors make some families more vulnerable to gang membership, and why gang resistance was evidenced in similarly situated non-gang-involved families. Providing rich, in-depth interviews and observations, Vigil examines the wide variations in income and social capital that exist among the ostensibly poor, mostly Mexican American residents. Vigil documents how families connect and interact with social agencies in greater East Los Angeles to help chart the routines and rhythms of the lives of public housing residents. He presents family life histories to augment and provide texture to the quantitative information. By studying life in Pico Gardens, Vigil feels we can better understand how human agency interacts with structural factors to produce the reality that families living in all public housing developments must contend with daily.

This ethnography of a gang war in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Oakwood, just blocks from the famed Venice Beach boardwalk, provides a rare eyewitness account of the urban violence pervasive in the recent history of the United States. With seventeen people killed and more than fifty injured, the hostilities over ten months in 1993 and 1994 marked the peak of gang violence in the history of Los Angeles, a city once labeled the'gang capital of the nation.'The conflict began as a quarrel among individuals, some of whom had gang affiliations. Over time, the feud engulfed families and soon grew into a sustained clash between African American and Latino gangs. Eventually, victims fell who were not members of opposing gangs, but who fit certain racial and gender profiles. The conflict began to take on the attributes of what one local newspaper sensationalized as a'race war.'Karen Umemoto lived nearby during this conflict and undertook two years of ethnographic research during and immediately following the spate of killings. She now offers a nuanced analysis of the trajectory and eventual end of this acute crisis. Her interviews with gang members, neighborhood residents, business leaders, police officers, and gang-intervention workers reveal the complexity of contemporary American urban conflict. The Truce highlights the differences in interpretations among combatants, witnesses, and law enforcement agents and others whose actions often had unintended consequences. Drawing on her experience living in multicultural Los Angeles and on the latest scholarship in a wide variety of disciplines, Umemoto provides much-needed guidance for policymakers and concerned members of the public faced with violence in an ever-changing urban landscape.

To assess whether an initiative to reduce gun violence that had been successful in Boston could be adapted for use elsewhere, researchers selected an East Los Angeles area for a similar intervention that was to include both law enforcement and social service components. Although the latter component was not widely available when the intervention began, researchers found that the intervention helped reduce violent and gang crime in the targeted districts and that crime also decreased in surrounding communities.

LA, 1997. The city is restless and simmering with tension. In two seemingly unconnected attacks, rap superstars Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. are brutally murdered. Across town, a black off-duty cop is gunned down by a white undercover cop in broad daylight.Award-winning journalist Randall Sullivan's searing investigation uncovers a mass of connections to Suge Knight and his infamous label Death Row Records. But as Sullivan follows his leads into the darkest corners of the city, he finds the case thwarted at every turn by the LAPD itself - and realises that he is caught in a web of police corruption that spreads wider than he could have ever imagined.

Winner, Best Book on Ethnic and Racial Politics in a Local or Urban Setting, Organized Section on Race, Ethnicity, and Politics of the American Political Science Association, 2002 This cross-cultural study of Los Angeles gangs identifies the social and economic factors that lead to gang membership and underscores their commonality across four ethnic groups--Chicano, African American, Vietnamese, and Salvadorian. With nearly 1,000 gangs and 200,000 gang members, Los Angeles holds the dubious distinction of being the youth gang capital of the United States. The process of street socialization that leads to gang membership now cuts across all ethnic groups, as evidenced by the growing numbers of gangs among recent immigrants from Asia and Latin America. This cross-cultural study of Los Angeles gangs identifies the social and economic factors that lead to gang membership and underscores their commonality across four ethnic groups—Chicano, African American, Vietnamese, and Salvadorian. James Diego Vigil begins at the community level, examining how destabilizing forces and marginalizing changes have disrupted the normal structures of parenting, schooling, and policing, thereby compelling many youths to grow up on the streets. He then turns to gang members'life stories to show how societal forces play out in individual lives. His findings provide a wealth of comparative data for scholars, policymakers, and law enforcement personnel seeking to respond to the complex problems associated with gangs.

In this illuminating look at two Chicano gangs in East Los Angeles, Joan W. Moore examines the changes and continuities among three generations of barrio gangs. As a sequel to the author's award-winning study, Homeboys (Temple, 1979), this book returns to the same neighborhoods to chart the development of gang behavior, especially in terms of violence and drug use, and to compare experiences of male and female gang members. In a remarkable research collaborative effort, Moore and gang members worked together to develop an understanding of both male and female gangs and an internal vision of gang members'lives. By using excerpts from individual interviews, the author depicts more about the gangs than simply their life together as a unit; she gives them a voice. Gang members discuss their personal reaction to violence, drug using and selling, family relations and intra-gang dating; they share intimacies that reveal varying levels of loyalty to and dependency on their affiliations, which often become a family substitute. After maintaining neighborhood ties for 17 years, Moore's research group has established a relationship with these communities that gives her a rare perspective. This is a fascinating and informative book for anyone interested in sociology, criminology, youth behavior and deviance, and ethnic studies.

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.