New flavors in South Los Angeles
May 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment
For the past few years, the city of Los Angeles has been trying to revamp the image of what is now known as "South LA."
Two new businesses located just North of USC are trying to infuse their refined palates with the community. Richard Weiche is the barista and owner of Cafe Corsa, a cafe that specializes in individually brewed drip coffee and exquisite espresso machines. Santos Uy is one of two USC alumni who own Bacaro LA, a wine bar boasting an esoteric and affordable wine selection, with a seasonal menu.
However, the changes in the community can have an unwanted outcome. With new business comes gentrification, which can raise the cost of rent and push the current population out. The solution might be a balance between improving the community and preserving the current population. If new businesses can come in and offer residents in the community alternative choices, while attracting outsiders to visit, then perhaps the perceptions of the area can change as well.
Produced by Maritza Navarro
Storage Auctions in South Los Angeles: A solution to unemployment?
May 27, 2009 By 27 Comments
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By Claire Webb
Checkout a radio version of this story on Annenberg Radio News.
Treasure seekers in South Los Angeles have discovered a way to find loot and earn extra cash in a tough economy—storage center auctions.
Each month storage facilities hold public auctions of units where the tenant has fallen behind on rent or abandoned the space. Buyers come to a center and follow the auctioneer around from unit to unit and are allowed to bid on the contents of the space after taking a glance inside. They can either move on to the next one—or purchase the space and all the contents inside.
And you never know what you might find.
“Like Forest Gump says, you never know what you’re gonna get,” said buyer Jenny Alamada at an A-1 Self Storage center auction in Paramount.
Indeed, when the metal door of a unit is rolled up, you can see anything from mattresses, to home appliances to clothing, boxes and even jewelry. Buyers are allowed to walk past the unit up for sale, and shine a flashlight to see the inside, but no one is allowed to go past the threshold. Technically the unit is not theirs yet—so for legal reasons the center does not allow buyers inside until it is sold.
The economic factor
In tough economic times where the unemployment rate in Los Angeles tops 11 percent—regular buyers like Emmanuel Razo, who attended an auction at a US Storage Center in Inglewood with about 20 people, are seeing people flock to these auctions as a way to make extra cash.
“Last month there was more than I’ve ever seen,” Razo said. “When I first started there was maybe a handful of people, five to six, and increasingly its gone up to over 100 at any particular auction.”
Razo used to manufacture ladies shoes but turned to storage auctions about a year ago to earn money to subsidize his income. Now he resells items he finds at auction full-time. “Well, hopefully I can get some merchandise and make some extra money, some living money is what you want to call it. The economy is such that you’ve got to find a couple ways to scratch up a few dollars,” he said, attending a recent auction on Industrial Avenue in Inglewood.
The number of bidders at these auctions inspired by a listless economy is up across Los Angeles County, said Yuvia Cruz, Los Angeles district manager for US Storage centers. She has seen more of a following at the auctions in the past few months.
“Yeah, more buyers for sure,” she said.
Count Jason Overs among the new buyers. A substitute teacher in Los Angeles County, he began going to weekly auctions four months ago when his workdays were scarce.
“This is just something I do since the economy is kind of bad right now. Can’t really get as many jobs as I used to,” Overs said.
The road to auction
All storage centers have a slightly different set of rules. However, most of them have a similar process before putting a unit up for auction. According to Cruz, the US Storage can begin the auction process after 15 days without payment. She admits after the company goes through the legal requirements of notifying the tenant, and advertising the sale for two consecutive weeks before it is sold, the process from the first missed payment to auction takes longer.
“It takes about 2 months from start to finish,” Cruz said.
And owners can come at anytime up until the auction and pay the full amount they owe to redeem their things, but once the auctioneer yells “sold,” it’s done. Now the new owner must decide what to do with their new merchandise.
“You know you can put them up on Ebay, Craiglist, or tell a friend—see if they need anything particular,” Razo said.
Or swap meets are a popular place to sell wherever a buyer might find in the unit.
“Whatever you’re not able to sell on Ebay or Craigslist, you just let it go to swap meet for cheap. Everybody is looking for a bargain there,” said Razo.
The recent auction in Inglewood Razo attended sold six units and took in $1,260. Auctioneer Dan Dotson, who conducts many of the auctions throughout Los Angeles, takes a 20 percent fee from the total that day—so the higher the sale the better it is for him. But he said usually the storage facility does not make the money back it lost on the rent the tenant did not pay.
“Usually by the time it comes down to the auction, they might get 20 cents on the dollar, and that’s about it,” said Dotson.
Cruz, the US Storage manager, agreed: “We always lose.”
Still, buyers migrate to these auctions to buy whatever they can to resell and hopefully make some money in the meantime. When asked, buyers like Razo said getting in line for other people’s things is just a business for them. And many of them, like Overs, have found this is not only a way to combat the economic downturn, but also an exciting way to spend your weekdays.
“Just having fun doing it, seeing what’s out there and making a little bit of money,” Overs said.
Crenshaw High School students salute arrested teacher
May 20, 2009 By 1 Comment
After Ms. Lopez was interviewed by student Rene Rosales as she prepared for UTLA action against the LAUSD, she participated in a protest outside the district headquarters in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, May 15. The LAPD deemed the gathering an "unlawful assembly" and Ms. Lopez was arrested. In the ninth grade Computer Visual Handling class, instructed by Daphne Bradford, the students produced the following video as a salute to their teacher.
NEWS ANALYSIS: Proposed teacher layoffs signal deeper problems for troubled LAUSD
May 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment
If the Los Angeles Unified School District had a motto, it might be: when it rains it pours. The besieged school district has been locked in a bitter feud with United Teachers of Los Angeles, which represents district teachers, thousands of whom will lose their jobs when the 2009-10 school year begins in July.
On April 14, the school board voted to approve layoffs that affect thousands of union teachers and other district employees. Even though their contract forbids them from striking, UTLA members voted to approve a work stoppage on May 15, a day of standardized testing for many students.
On Tuesday, a Los Angeles judge issued a restraining order against the organization, barring them from abandoning their classes on Friday.
“Gathering kids in an auditorium with little supervision is not a good thing,” said Superior Court Judge James Chalfant. In addition to student health and safety concerns, the judge cited UTLA’s contract with the school board, which included an agreement to avoid work stoppages.
Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines urged the union to come back to the table, and accept furloughs and pay cuts to avoid cutbacks.
The teachers have few bargaining chips left, and may have to come to terms with the layoffs. Teachers rallied outside schools on Friday morning, but returned to their classrooms by the time the first bell rang.
Underachieving high schools in South Los Angeles will be hard hit by the layoffs, teacher to student rations will increase to 42 teachers per student. Also lost are counselors and special programs that help prevent students from dropping out.
Photographs of Barack Obama are common fixtures in South Los Angeles schools, but students, parents and teachers are finding other signs of hope in LAUSD scarce.
The teacher strike is another sign of the growing divide between the community and the central LAUSD administration, which has a legacy of costly mismanagement.
The district faced a $596 million budget hole for the 2009-10 school year, and thousands of employees have been sacrificed to make the district solvent. Depending on the results of the May 19th special election, even more money could be cut from the state education coffers.
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February 10: The UTLA announces it
will consider a vote to authorize
a teacher walkout, even though it
would violate their contract.
Superintendent Cortines originally came up with a motion in early March to address the looming crisis, and brought it to the school board. That first plan called for layoffs of more than 8,000 employees, including thousands of teachers.
Teachers, students, and parents rallied outside schools before the first bell rang. They swarmed school board meetings, chanting “Let us in!” and “Save our teachers! Save our schools!” Some teachers said they were willing to be dragged away from the protest in handcuffs.
The school board was divided, and postponed its decision. The meeting on March 24 was held in a private session, but the closed doors did not keep away protesters, many of whom rushed over after the school day ended.
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March 24: Hundred of teachers,
parents and students gather
at the district headquarters
The mayor got involved, proposing employees accept a 3 percent reduction in salary, a solution similar to the one he proposed for saving city workers from layoffs.
Maywood Mayor pro tem, Ana Rizo, came to the April 14th school board meeting to appeal for teachers’ jobs.
“In my family, we were a very low income family, and I was probably with my teachers more than I was with my parents, because they had multiple jobs, she said. “For teachers to be with our kids so much, it would really be like taking away another parent from them.”The board held several extra special sessions to discuss the motion with community members, but eventually Cortines threatened to resign from his post if a decision was not reached.
April 14: After months of
demonstrations, the board
approves the layoffs
On April 14, after months of debate and debacle, Cortines called for another vote. The board voted 4-3 to authorize the layoffs of 5,000 employees. That includes teachers, counselors, janitors and other positions.
Most of the lost educators are young teachers who have not yet received job tenure. The superintendent has said he will continue to work with schools to find ways to bring back teachers.
One of the plans involves early retirement. The district is offering senior employees early retirement for the first time in 17 years. The deadline for applying for early retirement was extended until May 8th so that more employees will sign up. So far thousands of teachers have volunteered, which will allow the district to rescind layoff notices to some of its younger teachers whose jobs are on the line.
Casualties included newest teachers
Araceli Castro, a fifth grade teacher at Hoover Elementary school, is one of the new teachers affected by the layoffs. “After receiving my bachelors, multiple subject teaching credentials, and a masters, I decided to take my newly learned skills back to the community I grew up in,” she told the board members. “You have put thousands of teachers like me on the back burner, if I am let go, there is no guarantee that I will ever return.
“I’ve always begun my first day of class telling my students I was once in your seat, I grew up in your community and…I fear they will be afraid to aspire to their own dreams because they see how quickly everything can be taken away from them. All teachers are important whether its their first year or their retirement year, our profession thrives on new ideas and energy that fresh minds bring into our schools.”
Partly because of intense pressure from teachers, the board delayed making a decision for more than a month. In that time, a plan was made to rescind the layoff notices of about 2,000 elementary school teachers using funds from Obama’s stimulus package. At the April 14th school board meeting, school board officials praised the governor for his
quick action to secure stimulus funds, which saved thousands of jobs.
UTLA members hope to see that number go up as the continue to lobby the district. Their May, 15 work stoppage is intended to turn the heat up on the central administration. Eighty three percent, or $160 million,of the state’s stabilization funding from the stimulus bill are being used in the upcoming school year to save 2,600 jobs.
Parents and teachers appealed to the board to use more funds to save more jobs, but Cortines refused. Rumors circulated that the district would receive more than enough money to hire back every teacher from the stimulus funds. Cortines quickly shot down those hopes, calling the rumor “an insidious lie.” By spending the funds over two years, instead of one, Cortines said ultimately more jobs will be saved.
“If LAUSD uses all of the stimulus money for 2009-2010, we would have to
lay off twice as many employees in the following year,” the superintendent said.
The UTLA disagreed, and pressed the district to immediately use all available funds to prevent layoffs. If money from the Economic Stability and Recovery Act are insufficient to save all their teacher’s jobs, UTLA recommended that the district trim the fat within its own offices to prevent adverse effects on classroom size and student performance.
Cortines insisted he had already taken steps to reduce the size of the central administration at the request of the community.
“I have been asked to reduced the central administration, I have reduced the central administration, there were 4,000, I cut a quarter,” he said at a school board meeting.
May 15: citing student safety, a judge
issues a restraining order
against UTLA and ends the walkout
plans
Extra funds will be needed in the 2010-2011 school year as well. The school district has been operating with a deficit for about 14 months. The state budget problems caused that figure to balloon, and the district was faced with a mid year 140 million deficit. To avoid teacher layoffs, the district cut 82 million in arts classes, after-school programs, music, and other special programs. The district also lost 535 administrative positions, but managed to avoid losing teachers.
“We chose not to layoff probationary teachers in the middle of the current 2008-2009
school year days before the second semester began. We did not want to disrupt
classrooms and schools,” the superintendent said in a statement.
The solutions to the mid-year deficit were one time fixes. They did not address the projected deficits, more than $100 million, the district faces in the next three years. And the pressure from state law mandates that the district demonstrate its ability to balance its budget for the next three financial years. By June, the district has to come up with the funds to solve the crisis, and the layoffs make up most of the deficit. In July, they will take affect.
Education Crisis in Los Angeles Illuminates Racial and Economic Divide
May 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Cash-strapped and desperate, the Los Angeles Unified School District is set to fire around 3,500 teachers before the end of June. Couple these upcoming layoffs with a $595 million budget deficit, and the 2010/2011 school year is looking pretty shady. Resources won’t be getting replenished any time soon. Inner-city schools suffering from high drop-out rates and over-crowded classrooms can expect both of these problems to increase, while education levels across the district fall into decline.The situation has created a dramatic rift between the community and LAUSD board members. On one side, teachers, parents, students and community leaders are preparing for a full-day strike on May 15th, hoping to urge the LAUSD to spend its almost $1 billion of federal stimulus money immediately and save jobs now. On the other, the LAUSD warns that a short-term fix will only result in even more lay-offs next year.
"Obama gave LAUSD money to spend right away to prevent layoffs, but the Superintendent and the School Board are only spending part of the money now," said Noah Lippe-Klein, a teacher at Dorsey High School in South LA. "They say they are saving the rest for later. This is unacceptable." Lippe-Klein says that before laying-off teachers to save money, the LAUSD needs to cut private consultant contracts and district administration jobs, and slash wages for those earning over $100,000. The LAUSD says that it has been as thorough as possible in trying to avoid firing teachers. Either way, schools in LA are about to take a turn for the worse.
But the problems facing education standards in Los Angeles affect only one half of the city… at least for the short term. Private schools and the affluent districts, like Beverly Hills, responsible for educating LA’s wealthiest children, will no doubt find a way to survive. Meanwhile, Title I schools like Crenshaw High School in South LA, with a 50 percent drop-out rate, a 70 to 30 Black-Latino population, and more than 60 percent of students on the free-lunch program, will be hardest hit.
The impact on the city in the long run, however, will be severe. "The number one thing that an economy needs is an educated work force, and that’s what we look to the LAUSD to provide," said Fernando Guerra, Director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles. "Less resources mean less opportunity and less progress." Poorer children are a target of educational cutbacks, but so too are LA’s African-American and Latino communities. Together, Black and Hispanic students made up 85 percent of LAUSD high school enrollment in 2007/2008, at 10.9 percent and 73.7 percent respectively, totaling more than 575,000 students. According to Guerra, the under-education of lower-income African-American and Latino communties, by their sheer numbers, means that the education level of the city as a whole will fall in the next few years.
Carol Connor, a teacher from from Baldwin Hills Elementary School, says that educational cuts in California, where per-student spending is 47th in the nation, actually sever Fourteenth Amendment rights from poorer, African-American and Latino children.
"The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal access to education, a fair and equitable one," said Conner. "If our schools are paying less, then our children are not getting equal access to the same quality education as the students in all the other states. Being one of the largest districts, it’s amazing to me that this is being allowed."
Arguably, the LAUSD can only do so much. In a state that continues to spend far more on prisoners than students, it’s no wonder that the educational system in Los Angeles is as marred by financial difficulties as the children it serves. Chasms continue to widen, and the social and psychological impacts of below-par schools are deeply ingrained. "We don’t take our education seriously because, what’s the point?" said a ninth-grader at Crenshaw High School. "We’re not going to get anywhere anyway. Most of the teachers don’t care and our text books are so out of date that they don’t make sense."
Unless some drastic changes are made, soon, tomorrow’s Los Angeles is going to be a pretty dire place to live. "The priority should be the children," said Conner. "That’s the future. These are the children that we are going to need to grow up and to replace the jobs that we occupy today. And if they [receive] a mediocre education, then there are going to be a lot of horror stories in the future."
More than 80 percent of students in the LAUSD come from families who have an income below the federal poverty line. These students, who are arguably most in need of educational support, will find more reason to be despondent about their opportunities for success in the next few years. It’s no coincidence that schools with the lowest average SAT scores, as listed by the Los Angeles Times, also happen to be racially diverse, low-income high schools in the poorest parts of Los Angeles, including Jordan High School (2nd lowest SAT scores in the LAUSD), Crenshaw High School (8th), and Dorsey High School (13th). The education these children receive already differs greatly from schools on the other side of the city, and with fewer teachers and resources come June 30th, that gap will only widen.
Education, then, contrary to Horace Mann’s belief, in a city like Los Angeles, is not the great equalizer, but the great divider.
As reported for the Huffington Post.
INTERVIEW: Growing Up in Watts
May 7, 2009 By 2 Comments
David Lopez is 18 now, and he’s spent most of his childhood in Watts. When he was just 6, the brother who raised him joined a gang and in the subsequent years David experienced first-hand the allure of gang life and the tragedy of its violence. He sat down with me on the patio of Burger King on 108th St. in Watts to recount his experiences. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of that interview.
Stephanie Harnett: Do you remember the first time you realized your brother was in a gang?
David Lopez: Oh, yeah, I remember that. Uh, it was actually, well, back in the day, my family and everybody used to, um, they used to play volleyball in front of my house, like right in front, like in the street, with the neighbors that lived across the street. And my brother, he was pretty good at volleyball. And from time to time he kinda stopped playing with us and he would go kick it in the whole little group thing.
SH: Still on the street?
DL: Yeah, but, like, on the corner. Not so much in front of my house. Yeah, I found out he was gang banging when I seen the tattoo. He had a tattoo of his gang.
When was the first time you saw the tattoo? How old were you?
I was probably like around 7, 6 or 7.
And you already knew what it meant?
Yeah, I already knew what it meant. I mean, it was written all over the floor and stuff, the walls throughout my whole block. It was written, so I already knew what was up. I knew what it meant.
And what’d you think when you saw that?
I mean, I kinda already knew my brother was in a gang ’cause, like, he was already bald and he would dress like, um, he would wear the high socks with the, like, the plaid shorts and the Cortez’s, the Nikes. So I already knew what’s up. I mean, I’d seen him, I’d seen people that looked exactly like him, so I’m guessing, you know, he was in a gang.
But you looked up to your brother?
Yeah, I looked up to him a lot.
So did you think that was cool when you first saw it [the tattoo]?
Yeah. I mean, I kinda started wanting to dress like him. And he would actually dress, I mean, he would buy me clothes that actually matched with him. Yeah, so I would. I actually had my head shaved for a while too. At a real young age. I was still, like, real young. I was young as f***. Oop. Yeah, and, uh, yeah. I was bald throughout all of middle school. I mean, not middle school, elementary. And some of middle school. Yeah. And I was dressing like him too.
Did you want to follow in his footsteps?
Yeah, I did. I mean, I thought what he was doing was cool, ’cause, I mean, he had a lot of friends and stuff. And he would, everybody would call him, uh, nah, I can’t say what they called him. I mean, I thought it was cool. I actually wanted to do it. Yeah, not until like middle school though is when I actually wanted to be, you know, in a gang.
And did you actively pursue that?
Well, it started ’cause, uh, one of my cousins got shot right there by my house and, like, he was real close to me. He was my age, and I was probably like around 12, and he was 13, and he got shot. Yeah, ’cause he was actually gang banging, but he wasn’t gang banging where my brother was from. He was gang banging in some other neighborhood, some other one in South Central. But the opposing gang from, uh, the opposing gang that went at it with my brother’s, that was the one that shot my cousin. So that kinda, you know, it got me mad and stuff, and I wanted to be in a gang. I wanted to get them back. And that’s kinda what made me wanna, you know, join a gang like real, real, real bad.
Were you mad? Or did you feel and obligation?
I was mad. I was mad. And yeah, it was like an obligation, too. I felt like it was an obligation. ‘Cause I remember seeing my brother and, like, a couple of his homies get in the car talking about, like, they were gonna get them back. And I wanted to go. But my brother didn’t let me go.
So what happened after that?
After that incident? After my cousin? Oh, it was probably like a week later. Uh, I told some of the little dudes. ‘Cause my brother, he was already older. He wasn’t considered a "new booty." That’s what they call them, "new booties," the ones that are, like, barely trying to get their stripes. Those are usually, probably, like, at the age of 11, 12. And they’re already gang banging and stuff. Most of them were my friends, ’cause I would go to school with them. I went to Ritter [Elementary School] with them. And, um, I mean, like, I told them, I was like, "Alright, I wanna get in, I wanna get in." And they were like, "Alright, we’re gonna set it up." And they were gonna chord me in, chord me in meaning that they were gonna jump me for 13 seconds, like they were all gonna, like, beat my a** for 13 seconds, ’cause, you know, Southside 13. And, um, my brother found out about this and he didn’t let it happen. He didn’t let it happen. He, he beat my a** himself. And he kinda put stuff in my head. He was like, "Look, why are you trying to be a gangster if you are letting me beat you a**?" And all this stuff. So he kept, like, he kept hitting me and hitting me and hitting me, but, I mean, I knew he was doing it for the best, ’cause I know he didn’t want me to follow his same footsteps. He didn’t want me to go down the same road.
Had your brother had bad experiences before that?
Yeah. [pause] Yeah. Ah, he never actually told me what happened but he told me that for a while, for a cool minute, I know he couldn’t sleep at all. I know he couldn’t sleep at all, like he was traumatized, like real stuff. I was already, like, probably in the eighth grade when he told me this.
So how did you feel then, after your brother beat you up?
I mean, ah, I was mad too. I was mad ’cause I actually wanted to be in a gang. I wanted to be in a gang like real, real, real bad. And my brother, he wasn’t letting it happen. Like, no matter what. I would even try to, like, do, like, on a low key, like real, like, secretive and stuff. But one way or another he found out. I mean, he was part of the gang so eventually he was gonna find out and he would never let it happen. It came to times where he actually told me to stay inside of the house and he wouldn’t let me go outside. And, like, my dad and my mom, they were always working, so he was the one that was in charge of me and stuff.
So what did you do after that? You figured out that [joining the gang] is not an option anymore, right?
Yeah, I mean, I would still kick it with my homies right there that stayed on the block.
While they were gang banging?
Yeah. And, um, in 6th grade I went to a school right here, Markham. Markham Middle School, right here off of, uh, Compton and 108. And, um, I went there for actually two weeks. And I was kicking it a lot with my homies right there, and, like, the first week all my homeboys got, like, kicked out of school.
Why?
Selling drugs, I mean, gang banging and fightin’ and stuff. And I was the only one that was kinda like cool, ’cause I was still getting good grades. Like, throughout elementary school I had, like, straight A’s and stuff. And, um, I mean, I was still getting good grades at Markham. And, uh, once they got kicked out, like…That’s cause, in middle school, that’s when all the gang banging starts and stuff. So there was already a couple people that were gang banging at Markham, and they seen me kickin’ it with that gang, so I got my a** beat. I got jumped. Sixth grade.
So even though you weren’t part of the gang, they saw you together with them and they just assumed?
Yeah. So my parents found out and they sent me to a private school closer to my house, a Catholic private school, a middle school. And that’s kinda when I started separating from the little gang thing ’cause, uh, no gang bangers were right there at the private school. Like, absolutely none of them. Nobody that had gang banged went to that school or nothing like that.
So what did you do once you started that private school? You got a new group of friends?
Yeah, I got a new group of friends. I was always playing sports like basketball. That’s another thing my brother did; he would coach my basketball team.
What age were you when he coached your basketball team?
Ah, it was probably, well, I started playing when I was 7, ah, he didn’t start coaching my team ’til I was like 9. Yeah, and uh, where was I? Oh, at middle school. Oh, and people that I met there, they were all into sports, and I started getting into basketball, like, a lot more. And I started to get into football a lot more. And I found out that I was pretty good at it, so, I mean, I started playing it and I kinda like forgot about that whole gang banging thing. And, um, I think my brother tried to, you know, get straight too, ’cause, like, that’s when he started looking for jobs. He wasn’t just layin’ around the house anymore, he was actually like trying to do something.
Was he still involved in the gang at that point?
Uh, well, yeah, you can’t get out that gang. You can’t get out. Unless you’re dead or you have a kid or a family or something. Or you move away. That’s the only reason you’ll get out that gang. You can’t just say, "Oh, I wanna be out." No.
You’re there for life?
Yeah, basically.
Now, what else did you do at the middle school? You told me before about this tagging crew.
Oh, that wasn’t until freshman year of high school.
Ok, tell me about that.
Hold on, um, what kind of lead to that was ’cause, oh, my eighth grade, um, that’s when I kinda started getting a little bad too. But not so much on gang banging, but drugs. Yeah, I started using drugs a lot.
What’d you use?
Well, uh, I started off with weed. It’s cause I had, I aint gonna lie, my eighth grade year I was like, I was big, I was chubby. And I was like real short.
After playing all those sports?
I know, but I was still chubby. I mean, I liked girls a lot, and they didn’t like me back, so I remember my brother being big too and then all of a sudden when he started using cocaine he got skinny. So I, I wanted to get skinny, so I started sniffing. And, uh, yeah, I was sniffing until the second semester my freshman year.
And did you get skinny?
Yeah, I lost a lot of weight. My eighth grade year I was 200. Uh, the beginning of my eighth grade year I was 200 [pounds]. By the beginning of my ninth grade year I was 160. And then, uh, let me see, let me see, let me see, oh, and then I started kickin’ it with my cousin, the one that got shot. He didn’t die. Yeah, so, um, I started kickin’ it with him even more. And he went to a public high school. And at public high schools it’s all about, you know, tagging and gang banging and stuff. So, he was into the tagging thing. I started tagging ’cause I started kickin’ it with my cousin and my cousin started tagging so I started tagging. And yeah, we were in a tagging crew. We would, we would, uh, everywhere we would go we’d take a marker or a spray can and just tag.
And what did you tag?
[laugh] We tagged N-E-G. Negative Crew.
And what does that mean?
I don’t know, it was just a name. I really didn’t know what it meant.
Really?
Yeah, I was just in the crew.
And what kind of places did you put this? You said everywhere you went.
Yeah, basically. Busses, street poles, walls, tables, everything, floors, everywhere. Wherever, wherever I got a, like, chance to do it I did.
And what was the objective?
It was fun. Oh wait, the objective? It was to, uh, make the crew known, so the more you have it up, the more people are gonna see it and the more people are gonna know about you and yeah, it’s just to get popular. That’s all a tagging crew is. It’s like a uh, popular game. Like, whoever puts it up the most is the one that’s known the most. And I don’t know, it’s, now that I think about it, it’s dumb. But at the time, it was more of an adrenaline rush ’cause I used to like the feeling of getting caught, but I didn’t get caught, so yeah.
You never got caught?
I got caught, oh, my freshman year I got caught, but not by, like, a cop or anything. I got caught by some, some gangsters. I was in Paramount, and I was tagging on a wall. It was, ah, I think it was just a wall right there. It was on a big street, too, and some gangsters had seen me and I was with my, it was me, my friend, one of my homeboys, and, uh, another one of my homeboys that I don’t really consider my homeboy anymore because of that day. ‘Cause, uh, like, the gangsters, they went up to us, and they asked us where we were from. And I had to say I was from N-E-G. I didn’t say I banged, I told him that I write, I didn’t bang. And he goes, "Alright, well, what you write?" And I was like, "Well, I write N-E-G crew." And he goes, "Oh, I’m from Locos Trece [a gang]" or whatever and I was all, "Alright, alright." Then what’d he say? I think he seen my phone in my pocket and he, no in my hand, ’cause, I think, I don’t know why I had my phone in my hand, but he seen it and he wanted me to give it to him. And I was like, "Nah, it aint happenin’." And it was like five, six of them. And I remember him just socking me, and he spit on me and that’s when I socked him back and then they all rushed in. Yeah, so I got my a** beat right there too. And my other homie, he helped, he helped me out. But the other one? He ran. So that’s why I don’t really consider him my homeboy anymore. ‘Cause he wasn’t there. And, oh, from that day on I was like, oh, I kinda wanted to stop. ‘Cause, I mean, I don’t want to get my a** beat anymore. So, yeah, I kinda stopped from that day.
And were you able to get out of the tagging crew?
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. It’s not like a gang. It’s different. It’s, you can get out if you want to. It depends though. There’s, uh, there’s a tagging crew that just tags and there’s a tag-banging crew. A tag-banging crew is kinda like a little, small gang, a small gang that tags. But I wasn’t like that. Tagging was just to write. We just wrote, we just tagged everywhere. We didn’t actually, like, go ask people where they were from if they looked suspicious or anything, if they looked like gangsters or anything. We didn’t ask them where they were from. We didn’t have beef with any crews, meaning that we didn’t, like, fight any crews just because. I don’t know. The only reason we would fight is, uh, if somebody had our names, and we would fight for the name. At that time, uh, they called me Glass. I’ve had, like, two names. They called me Glass ’cause I used to do the, the drug. They called me Glass and I remember another dude was named Glass from another crew and me and him had to fight ’cause, fight for the name. But that was like the only reason we fought. We didn’t fight ’cause, like, we hated each other. We, we didn’t have beef with other crews.
So what happened when you fought Glass?
I kept my name. [laughs] Yeah.
What about the sense of camaraderie? These were your "brothers" and you stuck up for each other, right?
Oh yeah. Yeah. We was boys. We was bros. And, um, I would only kick it with them on the weekends ’cause, uh, on the weekdays I would, you know, go to school, even though my freshman year I messed up real bad.
How so?
I mean, I would go to, you know, Verb [Verbum Dei High School, where David is currently a senior], and, like, you know how I’ve always had a job, you know, at my school? So, um, I would hardly show up. I didn’t like going to school. I didn’t like going to work. So, uh, I wouldn’t even show up. I was, like, on the verge of, like, getting kicked out. I don’t know why I didn’t, but I didn’t. So, yeah.
So what were you doing while you were not going to school? Were you tagging?
Uh, sometimes. Sometimes I would tag, sometimes I would go with girls, sometimes I would go to parties.
During the day?
Yeah, ditching parties.
Ditching parties? Tell me about that.
Um, ditching parties, well, it didn’t really happen at my school ’cause there are a lot of, like, smart people at my school so not a lot would, you know, would ditch. But I would kick it with my cousin, and he would always have ditching parties ’cause at public schools they don’t really care. They have ditching parties all the time. And yeah, we would just kick back.
So that’s what you did freshman year. Then what did you do after that?
Um, sophomore year, my first semester I was kinda doing the same thing, but it wasn’t as much but I was still kinda doing it. I was still kinda tagging a little bit, I was still doing just a little bit of drugs, I wasn’t sniffing any more, though. I was still smoking weed though. And, um, oh yeah, my sophomore year when my first semester was over I remember I had like a point five [0.5] GPA. So, I had basically, like, all Fs and a couple, like two or three, Ds, I don’t know. And I remember, I saw my mom’s look like she looked all disappointed and stuff and I was like, "Aww, man." I mean, ’cause they were actually paying for the school and yeah. And then they kicked me off the football team too. I was playing football too, my freshman year, my freshman year and my sophomore year I was playing football. And they kicked me off the football team, so I, you know, I had to step my game up. I had to work hard and get good grades.
And did you do that?
Yeah.
When did you finally turn it around?
Well, I had a point five GPA for my first semester of sophomore year. By my second semester I had a, I had a 3.1. And then they bumped me up to honors. Yeah.
Wow that is quite an about face, huh?
I know.
And what are you doing now? You’re a senior, right?
Yeah, I’m a senior.
Are you going to school next year?
Yeah, I’m going to school next year.
Where are you going?
It’s either between UC Merced and Cal State Long Beach.
That’s great. And what about your brother?
My brother right now? Oh, well, he doesn’t live at home anymore. He found a girl and he’s living with her. And he basically, like, she’s pregnant too. So he’s about to have a kid. Um, he’s doing good; he has a job, he’s cool. He’s actually doin’ real good right now. He stopped doin’ the drugs, he doesn’t go around the house anymore, he doesn’t, like, mess with all that gang banging stuff. He’s 30 now. Yeah.
What do you mean, "go around the house?"
Like, the only times he would go to the house before was to, you know, gang bang and stuff. Now, he just goes to the house to, you know, say hi to my mom and my dad, but he doesn’t even, like, go outside. He doesn’t kick it. Well, most of the people that he would actually hang out with are either in dead or in jail. Yeah.
What about your friends, the ones you used to hang out with in public school?
Uh, I know two, two are dead. And one, his name was Ernesto, he was, like, my best friend. Uh, I don’t know where he went, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him. And I think, like, four are in jail. Yeah.
So are you glad you never did that [joined the gang]?
Yeah. I thank my brother for beating my a** that day. Yeah, ’cause, ah, I didn’t want to end up like most of the friends that I have, well, that I had back then, either in jail or dead or, nah, I’m cool.
Did you ever know anyone else who had an older brother, or someone who was involved with a gang, who told them not to join? Or would you say that it’s the opposite, that they try to recruit?
I know that happens a lot, the recruiting. Yeah, that happens a lot. It happens a lot a lot. But I think I know like two people that actually go to my school now, so Verbum Dei [High School], that have brothers like that, that have gang banged, but didn’t let them gang bang. As far as that, I don’t know anybody else. I know around the block, a lot of my homeboys that are, like, either in jail or dead now, um, they, um, they had older brothers that were in the gang too. So, yeah.
What if you had a younger brother?
Well, to me my younger brother is my nephew. Yeah, and he aint coming close to that, I’m gonna make sure of that. He aint comin’ near it. I don’t even want him to go outside right now.
Why?
‘Cause I don’t even want him to have friends, like I had friends. I told my sister that she should, like, put him in a private school from, like, kinder[garten] all the way to twelfth grade.
You think that’s the best place? In private school?
Yeah. Yeah, no doubt.
And what about when you have a son?
I’m not livin’ around here! Nuh-uh, I don’t want to live over here.
Where do you want to live?
Anywhere but here. Uh, no, I’m cool. Nah, I’m alright. I’m tryin’ to move outta here. Not in Watts, not in Compton, not in South Central. I’m cool.
