“I Escaped a Violent Gang”
A Memoir as told to Cate Bailey
Name _________________
Pd. ____
Directions: MUTT w/
COMPLETE thoughts!!!
** When “Ana” was 11 years old, she joined a hard-core gang in California. Below, in her own words, is
the dramatic story of how she got out. She asked that her real name and the real name of her gang not
be used because she is still fearful for her safety as well as the safety of her family**
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Gang members don’t snitch on each other. That is the motto I was raised on. My dad once went to
jail for something he didn’t do because he wouldn’t turn in a “brother.” So when I was called to the
witness stand that fateful summer day, I was planning to lie.
Paco, my main man from our Latino gang, was on trial. I’d seen him shoot and kill a teenage
boy. John, a member of a rival, African-American gang, was also on trial. John was completely
innocent. I was the only eyewitness, so what I said would determine which one went to jail.
The lawyer started asking me questions. I saw Paco sitting confidently at the defendant’s
table. He was calm because he was sure I would lie. I looked at John, and then John’s mother. She
was crying because it looked like her son was going to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.
I started thinking about my mom and all the times she cried- when I got beat up, when my brother
was arrested, when my dad got stabbed and shot at. I forgot about gang rivalries and
prejudice. John’s mother’s tears became my mother’s tears. I just wanted my mom to stop crying.
My eyes got watery and something happened inside of me. It went against everything I’d ever
been taught my whole life. I told the truth. I said, “Paco did it!”
That was in 1994, when I finally got out of the gang. I couldn’t go back after testifying against
Paco. I was 15. Buy my story starts way before then.
I was raised in gangs. My father was in a gang; my brother was in a gang; my uncles and cousins
were in gangs. I didn’t know anything else. I thought drive-bys, drug deals, and beatings were
normal.
When I was 5 years old, I saw one of my uncles shot and killed by a member of a rival gang. It
took me a while to understand what had happened. I’d seen many people get shot before, but they
were always taken to the hospital and then they came back. But my uncle didn’t come back. At his
funeral, I still didn’t understand what was happening. I saw my mom crying, and she finally told me,
“Your uncle’s in heaven now.”
After that, I got used to all the death around me. I attended many more funerals of loved ones lost
to gang violence. And I watched my mom cry many more times.
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I officially joined the gang when I was 11 years old. I got “jumped in,” which means beat up y the
other gang members. First, three girls surrounded me and hit me hard over and over. Then, all the
girls in the gang made a circle around me and hit me and kicked me more. Then, the guys came and
about 20 guys lined up on one side and about 20 girls lined up on the other side, leaving a path down
the middle. I had to walk through that path, as they punched and kicked me. And I had to be
standing by the time I got to the end.
When I started down the path, my arm was already broken. It hurt so much. As I walked, they
kept punching me in the ribs. Every time I fell down they’d kick me. I thought I was going to pass
out. Toward the end of the path, I fell and they stepped on my leg and broke it. Somehow, I
managed to pull myself up and limp to the end of the line.
That was my initiation. It was what I had to do to prove that I would do anything for them, even if
that including dying.
A lot of people say that people join gangs because they want to fit in, but to me it was more of a
survival tool. In my neighborhood, you have to be from somewhere to be able to back yourself
up. There were rival Asian and African-American gangs after our territory.
Before I turned 12, I’d been arrested for carjacking, violating curfew, and drug possession. Each
time I was let go on probation. But when I was 13, I was arrested for possession of weapons. I got
sent to boot camp for eight months.
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Boot camp was the worst experience of my life. We had to get up at 5 a.m. and take cold showers
and the rooms were always cold. The guards would stand right in front of me and scream stuff like,
“You may be something on the street, but you’re nothing in here.”
For months, I had a bad attitude. I got into fights with other girls and talked back to the
guards. They wouldn’t let me see my mom until I improved my behavior. In the eight months I was
there, she could only visit me four times.
When I got out on probation, I knew I never wanted to go back there. I had to attend school
regularly, otherwise I’d be violating my probation and get sent back.
I hated school. I’d started “ditching” in the third grade. By junior high, I almost never went to
school. I planned to drop out as soon as I got off probation. To me, my life was kickin’ it with my
friends.
My ninth grade English teacher, Ms. Gruwell, changed all that. She took an interest in me, asking
where I’d been if I missed class and telling me I could be the first one in my family to finish high
school.
I thought she was crazy. I thought she didn’t know who she was talking to. I wasn’t used to
people being so nice to me. When you’re in a gang, you think that nobody cares about you.
I told Ms. Gruwell to stay out of my business. But she kept at it. In my sophomore year, her
words started to sink in. I began to see that there were other things out there besides gang life – that I
could have a future, that I could graduate. I started thinking about getting out of the gang.
*******************
For Ms. Gruwell’s class, I had to read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, the story of a
teenage girl hiding from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Anne’s words had a major impact on me. I
came across the line: “I feel like a bird in a cage and I wish I had the wings to fly away.” I couldn’t
believe it. She expressed exactly how I felt – I wanted to get out of the gang, but they don’t let
people out. They kill people who want out.
That book really changed my perspective. Before I read Anne Frank, I was prejudiced against
anybody I didn’t know. I thought if you didn’t look like me, you didn’t understand me. But here was
Anne, who was so different from me – she was Jewish and she lived 50 years before me – yet we felt
the same.
I remained a “bird in a cage” until the day of the trial in 1994.
When I was called to the stand, I said, “Paco did it.” I said it for myself, to get out of my cage. I
said it for my mother, and for Ms. Gruwell. I said it to end the horrible cycle of violence in my life.
Paco looked at me in shock. As they took him away to serve his 25- year sentence, he said, ‘Of all
the people in the gang, you’re the last person I thought would betray me.”
***************
I feel guilty to this day. I feel guilty that Paco is in a jail cell because of what I said, even though I
know telling the truth was the right thing to do.
After I testified, I left the gang. I got death threats. But no one came after me. I think they didn’t
kill me for what I did and for leaving because I have family in the gang.
My mother doesn’t cry for me or my dad anymore – my dad got out, too. My mom’s very
religious, and she thanks God for Ms. Gruwell everyday.
Today, I am a freshman at a college in California. I plan to major in English and then get my
Ph.D. in education. I want to be the Secretary of Education and change the way kids get labeled in
school as a “dropout” or a “slow learner.”
If gang members could see that they have different choices and that it’s never too late to change,
maybe they’d get out too. I’m not a miracle. Anybody can get out.
Respond to the following questions USING CGMSN NON-NEGOTIABLES:
1. Why do you think people join gangs? Why did Ana join a gang? How can we prevent kids
from getting involved in gangs and criminal behavior?
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2. Ana did not respond to the tough treatment from the boot camp guards, but she did respond to
Ms. Gruwell’s encouragement. Are there some troubled teens who might respond to boot
camp tactics or is the positive approach always better. Explain.
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3. Why was Ana so moved by Anne Frank’s diary? How did the book affect Ana’s prejudices?
How do you think the book affected Ana’s attitude toward John and his mother?
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MATCHING
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
________motto
________rival
________initiation
________probation
________perspective
A. enemy
B. ceremony for admission
C. point of view
D. freedom on the condition of good behavior
E. statement of belief
Total _________/ 15