Gang life examined: Convocation reveals aspects of hoodlum culture

Tuesday's convocation speaker UC Irvine Professor of Social Ecology James Diego Vigil spoke in the SUU Auditorium about poverty dynamics and the urban youth gang culture.

Life for a gang member means giving up your identity and becoming an actor playing a role, performing crazy acts in a crowded world, Vigil said.

"It's like street Russian roulette playing with locura (quasi controlled insanity), loco actors doing loco acts." he said.

Vigil said the history of street gangs is embedded deep in American history going back to the Irish immigrant's arrival to our country.

Vigil also said many socioeconomic factors contribute to the foundation of street gangs.

"(Teenagers) get sucked into gangs because of crowded homes, school, identity and the family stress of being in an underclass neighborhood," he said. "Many times when in a congested domain they go outside into alleys, hallways or on roof tops for space."

Outside the home is where teens meet dysfunctional people who are often involved with unlawful behaviors, Vigil said.

Through street social involvement teens assimilate then acculturate into a subculture of street life, he said.

"The culture of street gangs is the dress, appearance, signs, symbols, cliques and language," Vigil said.

The acceptance of a person into a gang depends on their socio-psychological involvement, such as the way they do their hair, their clothing style and their language, he said.

"(The) street identity of a gang member is the age, gender clarification, initiation ritual, fear management syndrome and locura (craziness)," Vigil said.

Vigil said the members of larger cities gangs such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York must go through an initiation.

"They are beaten by other members," he said. "The role of a gang member is how you act and think, a trade -off for group protection."

The members are subject to ego development tied with identifying with the group.

"They have fragmentation identity and when with their group they become whole," Vigil said. "When you grow up on the streets you gravitate to the street psychology."

The increase of street gang violence leads to institutionalization where members are forced to attend alternative schools for guidance and supervision. Instead of helping, these institutions lend to individuals meeting similar disobedient teens and become more involved with disobedience, Vigil said.

"Putting them into one school makes for a critical mass to escalate into a much higher level of deviancy," he said. "This problem is like a hot potato everybody thinks they have a solution."

In conclusion Vigil said there are basically two ways out of a gang.

"A gang member will mature and leave, or is killed while participating in street life," he said. "They wise up and get the hell out."