|
It's been about six years since I did one of these, but I remember the last one was pretty well-received, so I thought I'd open one up again. I am an upstanding, white-collar professional now, but in my youth, from ages 12-19, I was a low-level member of asian gangs. I realize this isn't the same as a Blood/Crips thread, but if you were ever curious why the "model minority" would ever become violent in the 90's and 00's, ask away. A friend of mine recently passed away, which got me thinking on how many people I've known growing up have served jail time or been killed. In my time, I've seen cocaine/ecstacy/guns/weed/meth rings, people getting shot on my street, people getting stabbed, people working for massage parlors, people getting beat with baseball bats/pipes/katanas/bike chains/fists, people getting beat within an inch of their lives for no reason, and also how the same people who committed these acts are behaving 10-20 years from the asian gang heyday. I also grew up in suburbia, in some of the "nicest" neighborhoods according to Fox News. The only things I won't be answering: (1) specific names of people (2) what ethnicity I am (3) what state I live in Other then that, ask away!
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 07:42 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2013 18:07 |
|
|
Why did you join a gang? What did your gang typically do as far as crime? Do different ethnicity gangs tend to specialize in different areas of crime? Was there a lot of racism between different Asian ethnicites? Did you ever get in trouble with the law? Why did you leave? Was it easy for you to leave? Are there other former members that ended up successful like yourself? Are there things you look back on and feel ashamed about or regret tremendously? Did you take away positive experiences as well?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 08:07 |
|
|
How did your gang recruit kids at such a young age? Was it just acting as a sort of big brother to ensure later enrollment in the gang?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 08:13 |
|
|
Are the Asian gangs in the US related to organized crime in Asia in any way? Popular media likes to show all Asian crime as the Triad or Yakuza since those are basically the closest things to the mobs from the Prohibition era, and I'm curious whether or not there's even a link.
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 08:15 |
|
|
Stapleeer posted:Why did you join a gang? I joined because a lot of my closest friends growing up were recruited in elementary school, and I "showed heart" in physical fights so there was heavy peer pressure. What the gang mostly did was home-invasion robbery/burglary, extortion, slanging weed, meth, and MDMA, and "protection." There was a lot of racism between the Asian ethncities, but we also did a lot of business with each other. I've gotten in trouble with the law, but I was always considered one of the smarter ones, and I never let myself be directly culpable. It was fairly easy for me to leave. By the time I left, a lot of the upper-ups were locked up or going abroad to let the heat die down, and I always treated the whole thing like a videogame. It wasn't until I got older that I realized how serious the crimes we were committing was. I guess you could call me a naive suburban kid at heart. Out of my former gang member friends, only one could be described as successful. There are many things I regret and wish I could do differently. I've actually attended therapy to deal with the things I felt directly and indirectly responsible for, including calling in favors for my "homeys" to beat the poo poo out of people, extorting money, purposefully getting peers addicted to drugs to have a bigger market, and home-invasions. In particular, I wish I would have intervened when my friends were jumping some guy for the pettiest of reasons, because the facial expressions/screams are hard to forget. I'm trying to think of positive experiences I took from this. I had to unlearn a lot of it. I'll get back to that question
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 08:25 |
|
|
Andpie1 posted:How did your gang recruit kids at such a young age? Was it just acting as a sort of big brother to ensure later enrollment in the gang? Yes, in a way. The Hispanic community had a heavy gang population in my area, and they would "punk" all the other ethnicities. For me and my friends, in retrospect, it appeared as if the older asians were "scouting" us and seeing which ones would stick up for ourselves. Those that did were given platitudes, promises, gifts, and protection. It was almost like free agency in a sports world. Those that didn't stick up for themselves were left to fend for themselves. viewtyjoe posted:Are the Asian gangs in the US related to organized crime in Asia in any way? Popular media likes to show all Asian crime as the Triad or Yakuza since those are basically the closest things to the mobs from the Prohibition era, and I'm curious whether or not there's even a link. A lot of the clubs, massage parlors, and bars in any major metropolitan area with a predominantly asian clientele are owned by the corresponding ethnic mafia, be it the Triads or the Yakuza or Korean mafia. These types will never be seen in public, and operate from the shadows. People like me and my friends would drive the girls from the massage parlors out to the shopping mall on their off-days if they wanted to shop, or drive them wherever they wanted on their off-days, but we knew we were the lower-levels. We'd never see the highest level of the hierarchy, only the level directly above us.
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 08:34 |
|
|
Were these "massage parlors" trafficking sex slaves?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 08:54 |
|
|
Gravity Pike posted:Were these "massage parlors" trafficking sex slaves? I have no idea. The ones I met seemed pretty garrulous and high-spirited.
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 09:17 |
|
|
Have you ever covered a machete in human excrement and then chopped someone's fingers or hands off with it?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 11:33 |
|
|
Pyramid Scheme posted:Have you ever covered a machete in human excrement and then chopped someone's fingers or hands off with it? What is this a reference to? I was actually going to ask about the katana mentioned in the OP. It just seems oddly stereotypical that an Asian gang would use katanas.
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 12:05 |
|
|
How was the money?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 12:22 |
|
|
Did you ever have any doughy white guys try and join the Asian gang because they were into Anime and stuff? ...Were these the guys beating people down with Katanas? Did you have people who were jointly members of gangs in other countries? How would you classify the average income of the Asian gang member's family? I ask, of course, because Asian communities do not typically have the poverty problem associated with gang activity. ...and if a member's family wasn't impoverished, do you think this affected their general behavior in the gang or their perception by other members? Like I imagine if one guy is trying to pay his family's medical bills, and another guy's dad is a doctor and he spends his money playing DDR, I can imagine some bad blood there. Did you like Gran Torino? edit: for typos/missin' words
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 13:38 |
|
|
particle409 posted:What is this a reference to? I was actually going to ask about the katana mentioned in the OP. It just seems oddly stereotypical that an Asian gang would use katanas. Standard HK triad practice. See, for example, this link http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4385153.stm. Oddly enough, I went ten pin bowling with the victim a few years after. He was better at bowling than I.
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 14:06 |
|
|
Was your family aware of your involvement? If so, how did they react to it?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 17:17 |
|
|
Did the gang have a team of lawyers willing and ready to bail members out when they got into trouble? How deep did the gang's influence go into outside systems such as law and politics? Do you know (since you were a low-level member)?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 18:55 |
|
|
Aggressive pricing posted:How was the money? For me, personally, the money was good for a kid, better than any normal job, and steady. Plus it was all cash. I wasn't some kind of kingpin though. bagshotrow posted:Did you ever have any doughy white guys try and join the Asian gang because they were into Anime and stuff? No. Jocks and white people in general were hated immensely, and there was a time we would fight/bash their cars/jump them on sight, but this died down because they did not hesitate to call the cops. With that said, there were a few brothers who had grown up with the asians, and they hung around a lot like the token "white-guy-on-the-couch", but they weren't involved in any of the extracurricular activities. bagshotrow posted:...Were these the guys beating people down with Katanas? This wasn't a normal thing, but I have seen times people pull out swords from their trunks in lieu of bats or golf clubs. bagshotrow posted:Did you have people who were jointly members of gangs in other countries? It gets murkier past the level directly above me, but there were many upper-level people who would be out on bail for murder, grand theft auto, etc. who just disappeared to Asian countries. They'd never be allowed to return to the US obviously for skipping bail, but a lot of them to my knowledge are still free in other countries basically doing the same type of activities. bagshotrow posted:How would you classify the average income of the Asian gang member's family? I ask, of course, because Asian communities do not typically have the poverty problem associated with gang activity. The average income was in excess of $60,000 at least. A lot of the people I knew came from very, very wealthy families though, with income in excess of at least $150,000. bagshotrow posted:...and if a member's family wasn't impoverished, do you think this affected their general behavior in the gang or their perception by other members? Like I imagine if one guy is trying to pay his family's medical bills, and another guy's dad is a doctor and he spends his money playing DDR, I can imagine some bad blood there. It definitely affected my general behavior in that even as a kid I knew I would eventually have to transition from my "youth organization" activities. Therefore, I didn't ever allow myself to stab or shoot anyone, to deal large quantities of drugs, etc. I was basically just a low-level brute who fought and extorted, but never any of the serious felonious stuff. There weren't many like me with that mentality though, and some of the people I knew from an early age have been locked up for decades for poo poo they did at 14, 15, 16. bagshotrow posted:Did you like Gran Torino? I thought it was an interesting movie. A lot of the asian gangs did start up in response to pressure from Hispanic communities. Bean Bandit posted:Was your family aware of your involvement? If so, how did they react to it? Eventually, yes. They were mortified, and tried to intervene in every way except law enforcement. Zombie Raptor posted:Did the gang have a team of lawyers willing and ready to bail members out when they got into trouble? How deep did the gang's influence go into outside systems such as law and politics? Do you know (since you were a low-level member)? Not a team of lawyers, but there was cash readily available to bail people out. Mine did not extend into outside systems. On the other hand, the people we reported to were heavily entrenched into local city politics, and controlled huge swathes of the nightclub and bar industry. A lot of the city council and police officers were bribed to turn the other way for establishments openly allowing various violations of state law.
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 20:46 |
|
|
JaggyJagJag posted:I have no idea. The ones I met seemed pretty garrulous and high-spirited. Do you have any first-hand knowledge of human trafficking at all?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 21:34 |
|
|
Hey there. This is kind of a touchy subject, but part of my family has been terrorized by an Asian gang for the better part of a decade due to a wayward cousin's debt. I'm not saying it's you, or anything, just that I've seen some stuff from the other side. Some dudes even broke into my Grandmother's house. I'm guessing this was unusual stuff, but I was wondering if the gang draws a hard "line" when it comes to ethics, or is it pretty much freeform?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 22:08 |
|
|
Did you ever use numchucks?
|
| # ? Jan 5, 2013 23:34 |
|
|
JaggyJagJag posted:The only things I won't be answering: Is this because it would make it easier to identify you, or you don't want to portray your ethnicity in a negative manner?
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 02:55 |
|
|
Doctor Malaver posted:Is this because it would make it easier to identify you, or you don't want to portray your ethnicity in a negative manner? Because it would make it easier to identify me. While all asian gangs I've seen are extremely, violently ethnocentric, I like to think I've long since moved on from that mentality where I don't give a rat's rear end how my ethnicity is portrayed. photomikey posted:Do you have any first-hand knowledge of human trafficking at all? No. Me and my friends did a stint where we drove massage parlor girls from their work to their homes, or out to shopping outlets when they wanted to splurge, but to be honest, in my experience, they seemed like they were doing it voluntarily. Lieutenant Dan posted:Hey there. This is kind of a touchy subject, but part of my family has been terrorized by an Asian gang for the better part of a decade due to a wayward cousin's debt. I'm not saying it's you, or anything, just that I've seen some stuff from the other side. Some dudes even broke into my Grandmother's house. I'm guessing this was unusual stuff, but I was wondering if the gang draws a hard "line" when it comes to ethics, or is it pretty much freeform? It would depend. I guess I can only speak on what I've seen and/or heard of. I've seen houses get stripped, from all the usuals (electronics, jewelery, cash,golf clubs, valuables, even goddamn macadamia nuts) and transported away in any cars in the family garage. The cars would be taken to Mexico to be stripped. When people aren't home, this wasn't a problem. When people were home, the houses were stripped in the same way, except grandmothers were tied up, threats were made, weapons were brandished. Two of my friends got caught doing this, and went away in the party bus for a few years. While this is technically hearsay, there are other fates which have been corroborated by enough people I know well to pretty much stand as truth. People who spent too much at pachinko parlors, gambling debts etc. and such have ended up in lakes in the mountains. I never had anything to do with the crazy poo poo like this though.
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 11:40 |
|
|
Were you ever close with another member who lost their life in violent confrontation?
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 17:14 |
|
|
Are you living on borrowed time?
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 20:09 |
|
|
How old were most of the people in the gang? Is 12 a common starting age, it seems really young to me, but then again I don't have much to compare against.
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 20:09 |
|
|
Tell us about the cruelest, meanest person in your gang and some of the hosed up poo poo they did.
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 20:35 |
|
|
Was your gang less, as, or more violent and cruel as other gangs? Black and Latino gangs, for example? Also, what do you think is the source of the anti-white racism among Asians? In the mainstream, Asians and whites are perceived as, generally, getting along well (as race relations in America go)
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 20:41 |
|
|
Did you leave on good terms? Did they let you leave? Are you in hiding? When you were still in it, was your family "protected" like nobody in their right minds would want to mess with you/your family?
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 21:04 |
|
|
I can already tell this is going to be an interesting thread, thank you very much OP for starting it and answering our questions. Sorry for the block of questions to come... Could we have all the details that you are comfortable with sharing on your background? How would you have described your upbringing and social situation, such as family situation, education, etc. prior to joining the gang, and would you call it an influence in your decision to join? How did the gang recruiter come into contact with you all as teens? How was it at the beginning, when you were first picked up? Scary, or exciting, or any other range of emotions/feelings? Did they start you off slow and build up to bigger jobs, or was it straight into the deep end? Retrospectively, what would you call the life you have led so far? If you could go back and stop yourself joining, would you? You said you would have stopped some of the brutality after all. What did you spend the money on as a teenager, and how would you explain where it came from to your family? Were you personally in any extreme danger at any point in your time with the gang? Any specific stories about your experiences that you are willing to share? What would you do if you were called/pulled back into the fray? It may be out of your life now, but people do not stay in prison forever. Please say you have prepared for the possibility, and have no owed favors/debts that might pull you up. Now for the precaution questions... Do you have any advice for others who may/know somebody who might get into a situation similar to yours? How, in the best of your knowledge, do you deal with a gang confrontation? Cops? What if the police are not a real option? Kind of a dumb and broad set of questions, but since you started this thread, we are eventually going to ask it all anyway. Also, has there ever been a gang centric thread on SA before, as in, one with a focus on ex-/members and not law enforcement doing the telling?
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 21:07 |
|
|
Zombie Raptor posted:Were you ever close with another member who lost their life in violent confrontation? I haven't had anyone lose their lives (thank god). Some of my friends have taken lives. TheGreySpectre posted:How old were most of the people in the gang? Is 12 a common starting age, it seems really young to me, but then again I don't have much to compare against. 12-13 was when we would start getting scouted. Each grade-level was akin to a different "draft class" in a sports team. Anyone who could fight or showed heart or was the younger sibling of other members were usually quickly recruited. The gang was a "subcontractor" that was more or less subcontracted to do stuff for a "general contractor" (upper-level gangs). We were little kids, so we were basically used to scout houses for home invasions, look-outs for deals, and as mules. As we got older, our "subcontracting" responsibilities changed, and became far more violent. The people directly above us would be the ones moving large pounds of drugs, organizing car-stripping, firearm sales, managing various businesses, etc. The people above them we would only rarely see, as they preferred to be inconspicuous. Constipated posted:Tell us about the cruelest, meanest person in your gang and some of the hosed up poo poo they did. There are two that pop up in my head. The first I will name "Harvey." Harvey was the younger brother of a very well-established gang member, and he was untouchable. He was the de facto leader of our age group, and I am convinced he was a sociopath. At age 10, he started smoking cigarettes and shoplifting a bunch of poo poo from stores. At age 12, he raped some girl over the weekend, and openly taunted her about it in public. That girl eventually had a host of other issues which I believe was related to this incident. As we entered our teens, he was responsible for "holding it down", which essentially meant ordering beatings on gang members and civilians who he found offensive. There was a large scale operation where we extorted money from dozens of our peers. Anyone who didn't comply were literally stalked, from school to home, and any time the opportunity presented itself, they would get the poo poo beat out of them by at least 5 people on one. The worst beating I've ever seen was 30 of my friends jumping one wrestling athlete from a neighboring city because he didn't take the rims off his car to give to Harvey for free. This happened in a gated community. I can't even count the number of people who were bashed and beaten with weapons and fists on Harvey's orders. He took a perverse thrill in doing so. He would roll up to people for no reason, pummel them, maybe molest their girlfriend as a show of power, laugh, and walk off. Eventually, he was also responsible for determining which houses to invade. Probably the worst thing I've ever seen him do was order a surprise sex-hit on a girl. There was some girl he used to date that I guess offended him somehow, so he contracted younger underlings to sexually assault her. I am glad I no longer know Harvey, and he is a textbook example of what crystal meth can do to a person. I can share more detailed stories of Harvey's exploits if you guys want a better understanding of how the mechanics worked. The other one I will call "Melvin". I took Melvin under my wing, as he was a new kid in the area, impressionable, eager to move up in the ranks. He was treated as the "omega male" of the group, and was open to taunting and head-slapping and basically doing the "charlie work" (It's always sunny in philadelphia reference). Melvin was one of those kids that just relished in the power that gang membership gave. He'd randomly kick people in the hallways for no reason or with no sanction, he'd "punk" civilians to do stuff for him, he'd kidnap pets and torture them, etc. Something happened between Melvin and Harvey, and long story short Harvey ordered Melvin to get beat. There was a taskforce of maybe 8 guys who would literally follow Melvin from the minute he left school, and sometimes just camp in front of his house. Melvin was beaten a few times. Privately, I urged Melvin to lay low and just get out of the area for a bit. Melvin said gently caress that. He moved away, and eventually started a new gang in an attempt to get back at Harvey. He wanted to get some "street cred" for this new gang in order to get the numbers to challenge Harvey. Eventually down the line, this thirst for street cred led him and his new gang to gun down 7 people. LankyIndjun posted:Was your gang less, as, or more violent and cruel as other gangs? Black and Latino gangs, for example? I think we were less violent and cruel compared to the big Black and Latino gangs one hears about in the media, but we seemed in line with the Latino "subcontractor" gangs who we mostly fought with. In essence, we were just all little dumb kids taking orders from our big brothers. I've thought a lot about what is the source of the anti-white racism among Asians. I used to hate white people with passion, and obviously I've moved on from that, where today many of my best friends and fondest ex-girlfriends are/were caucasian. Many of my friends from my hometown still virulently hate whites though. 1. Intense ethnocentrism and nationalism. There is intense ethnic insularity in some of the asian groups, and it really fosters a bunker mentality, where it's us vs. them. These people literally go their entire lives without making any friends who are not of their ethnicities. Their rhetoric is pretty much yellow supremacist, and whites, blacks, mexicans, etc. aren't really even thought of as "real people." 2. Whites basically represented the police. Police officers, as you would imagine, weren't very fond of asian gang members. Somehow, this became conflated to the white population as a whole, and they were thought of as snitches or little bitches. 3. There was and is a deeply held belief in insular ethnic groups that all whites are invariably racist against asians. As "proof", it might be something like a white person asking say a Vietnamese "where are your parents from?" or asking a Cambodian "do you speak Chinese?" Due to the ethnic insularity, asians expect all other races to know precisely what ethnicity they are, and any questions, even if they come from a place of curiosity, are assumed to be racist. 4. I think some of it had to do with socio/economic competition. Many of our parents' generation, while rich and wealthy, were never assimilated into American culture or could even speak English. Therefore, we were all raised with the attitude that we could never trust white people, because they'd pull some obscure law out of their rear end or whatever and try and cheat us in business.
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 21:35 |
|
|
Boris Galerkin posted:Did you leave on good terms? Did they let you leave? Are you in hiding? When you were still in it, was your family "protected" like nobody in their right minds would want to mess with you/your family? Our gang dispersed because the police anti-gang unit intensely cracked down on our upper people. Nearly all of them are still in jail, or fled to our ethnic country of origin. At that point, my age group almost all of us decided to get clean and "grow up". There are a few ex-members who started splinter cells and tried to be the big cheese in the area. I don't know how successful they have been, but the "heyday" of asian gangs in my state is over, as the police really started taking asian gangs seriously did a lot to crack down. Another Person posted:Could we have all the details that you are comfortable with sharing on your background? How would you have described your upbringing and social situation, such as family situation, education, etc. prior to joining the gang, and would you call it an influence in your decision to join? I was the second-generation kid of immigrants. My parents were wealthy, and I never wanted for any material things growing up. I had access to all the best educational resources. On the other hand, there was an extreme generational gap between old-world values and America, and my father was never around because he was constantly on international trips for his import/export business. Another Person posted:How did the gang recruiter come into contact with you all as teens? As mentioned above, Harvey was the link to my age group because of his older brother. Three guys tried to start poo poo with me once at a McDonald's, and tried to jump me. I defended myself well, word got around, and next thing I know, Harvey and his crew were asking me to come by the place and hang out. I also grew up near a lot of the older guys who eventually became gang related, so I had a friendly relationship with them from childhood. Another Person posted:How was it at the beginning, when you were first picked up? Scary, or exciting, or any other range of emotions/feelings? Honestly, and embarrassingly enough, I felt proud. I felt I had "made it." I would never have to worry about being extorted or randomly beat up, I'd have social access to the "hot girls", etc. Sound stupid in retrospect, but I was a 12 or 13 year old kid. Another Person posted:Did they start you off slow and build up to bigger jobs, or was it straight into the deep end? Yeah, at first we were taking orders from 15 year old kids who were taking their orders from 18-19 year olds who were taking orders from higher ups, etc., so there wasn't really much for us to do. We would start fights with other peewee gangs of our age group, etc. It was basically a time for us to show heart and show we'd be down to do what is needed later on. As we grew older, we became look-outs posted outside while our big brothers were burgling houses. That moved on to muling as drugs, then eventually selling larger and larger amounts of weed, meth, cocaine, ecstacy (that was the big one), knives, weapons, etc. Even further down the line, we'd scout cars for the higher ups to steal and strip. Another Person posted:Retrospectively, what would you call the life you have led so far? If you could go back and stop yourself joining, would you? You said you would have stopped some of the brutality after all. I'd call my life colorful. I only hint at it to the current people in my life, and they cannot believe that I'd be basically a sociopathic piece of poo poo in my youth. I had great times, met interesting people, and had a diverse range of experiences that is atypical for the upper-middle-class kid. With that said, I could have done without the lingering guilt, personal trauma in terms of friends getting beat/locked up/fugitives, and all of that. All in all I'd say it was a mixed bag, but it made me who I am today. Another Person posted:What did you spend the money on as a teenager, and how would you explain where it came from to your family? Drugs, girls, my car, clothes, etc. My parents never asked, so I never told them. Another Person posted:Were you personally in any extreme danger at any point in your time with the gang? - A rival gang came looking for me specifically in a local netcafe. About 20 of them came in, there were 8 of us. All but me and one other guy were stabbed, one of my friends in the lungs, it was quite an emergency. - Rival gangs would come to our town, stalk our cars, and jump us on sight. I've gotten jumped outnumbered 4 to 1 before, and that was not fun. - A drug deal with another asian-ethnicity was going bad. This was at a parking lot in Sizzler. The guy pulled out a gun and fired it in the air. I was pretty scared that time. - There were lots of "rumbles"= mass brawls consisting of 20 guys fighting another 25 or so. Think The Outsiders. That moment before a rumble starts is hard to describe; I imagine that's how soldiers feel before war starts. The biggest rumble I've been in was about 50 of our side vs. 40 of theirs. Many were brandishing bike chains, bats, brass-knuckles, swords, etc. Thankfully I didn't get hurt. - I've gotten caught by the occupants in a home-invasion burglary before, and my partner at the time was a hothead. While I personally wasn't in extreme danger, I was praying to the gods that my partner wouldn't do anything stupid like hurt the occupants. Another Person posted:What would you do if you were called/pulled back into the fray? It may be out of your life now, but people do not stay in prison forever. Please say you have prepared for the possibility, and have no owed favors/debts that might pull you up. I'd totally ignore it. I've gone completely corporate, and I have no desires to go back to anything resembling such a shaky lifestyle. This happened more than ten years ago, and I just sometimes like to fondly look back as mistakes I made as a youth. Another Person posted:Now for the precaution questions... Do you have any advice for others who may/know somebody who might get into a situation similar to yours? How, in the best of your knowledge, do you deal with a gang confrontation? Cops? What if the police are not a real option? It depends on if they are civilians or gang members. As a civilian, I'd tell you the biggest mistake is assuming gang members wouldn't be "crazy" enough to do something. I've seen guys get jumped by 15 people right in front of a Nordstorm's at a shopping mall, one guy was walking down his OWN street bashing all the cars with a bat because he was pissed, people will not hesitate to pull a weapon to "convince" you of something, etc. Be calm, diplomatic, firm but obsequious when trying to de-escalate tensions. Don't disrespect them, don't patronize them, just speak calmly, and sometimes they will just let you go. Cops are a double-edged sword, unless they are in the anti-gang unit in my experience. Most of the time, Joe Cop has no idea about the Crazy Rice Dragons or American Burgers or Nunchaku Ninjas or whatnot, and he has a hard time telling Wang from Hwang from Chang. Their investigations really take time, and they'll ignore your input because hey, it's hearsay. If they're already in the anti-gang unit, they'll have full on dossiers of each and every gang member in a gang, will know them by name, face, tattoos, etc. If someone you know is IN a gang, or is starting out as a peewee, I'd just advise three things: (1) if you're going to run away, run with the smaller mass of people, not the bigger; (2) don't tell the cops anything, because most of the time they don't know poo poo, and they will try and trick you into telling more than you need to; (3) don't ever get your hands dirty. Another Person posted:Also, has there ever been a gang centric thread on SA before, as in, one with a focus on ex-/members and not law enforcement doing the telling? I believe there was one in the past involving crips and bloods, with a guy who used to be a member of the crips. Also, some girl's boyfriend was in the Mexican Mafia or something.
|
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 22:07 |
|
|
Is it strange that I take some comfort in knowing that an extent of 'Harvey's madness can be speculated to be due to meth? With this in mind, could you tell us more about hard drug addiction within the ranks of the organization and how that drug use affected gang business? e: Did the racism have ANY exceptions? Even considering certain celebrities? Is there any truth in the stereotype of Asian criminals (or Asians in general, but in this case, within the gang) being skilled in martial arts? Zombie Raptor fucked around with this message at Jan 6, 2013 around 22:35 |
| # ? Jan 6, 2013 22:16 |
|
|
Thanks for the thread OP - interesting stuff. What role (if any) did tattoos play in your daily life? Were you and most of your friends inked, or was that something that happened later on in the food chain? Did you have close friends not in the gang? Girlfriends unaffiliated with it at all? Basically anyone close to you that wasn't a part of it? Did they have any knowledge of what you were doing? Were there any moments that you particularly enjoyed or appreciated during your time in the gang?
|
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 03:47 |
|
|
When was the moment you decided to change your life and live a cleaner lifestyle? Did you live in an area with a large Asian population at the time? Like with a Chinatown? Does that make it easier for asian gangs to thrive? Or, Asian gang community could still be present even in the middle of nowhere suburbia? Do people from your former gang life still recognize you? Or, have you re-located to escape that? Did you have an initiation? Scars or tokens from gang insignia?
|
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 05:00 |
|
|
What language did you speak with your gang?
|
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 06:28 |
|
|
JaggyJagJag posted:It's been about six years since I did one of these, but I remember the last one was pretty well-received, so I thought I'd open one up again. I had some experience being a go-between between two Asian gangs when I was a teenager. I'm white. Is this at all a usual thing? You mentioned you doing business with the other Asian gangs-- was that usually face-to-face or did you often use intermediaries? On the other hand, my experience may be different since the gangs involved were Vietnamese, including the scariest fuckers I've ever seen on the planet, dead-eyed 14 year old stone killers, and the Chinese in Chinatown. The Vietnamese are incredibly lower-powered compared to the Chinese, so maybe the power differential meant they liked using a white guy for pride reasons or something. Anyway, any light you can shed?
|
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 06:41 |
|
|
Zombie Raptor posted:Is it strange that I take some comfort in knowing that an extent of 'Harvey's madness can be speculated to be due to meth? With this in mind, could you tell us more about hard drug addiction within the ranks of the organization and how that drug use affected gang business? I suppose. It is nice to know that someone isn't THAT sociopathic naturally. Hard drug addiction... Meth eventually became almost universal. Ecstacy use was rampant, and lots of us smoked weed and did cocaine on the regular. Not too much alcohol abuse, surprisingly. Zombie Raptor posted:e: Did the racism have ANY exceptions? Even considering certain celebrities? The racism was more of a macrosocietal rage against the machine kind of sentiment. There were, as mentioned, random white guys who would roll with us, and random white girls who adopted the asian gang culture. These were seen as more asians though. Anything "mainstream", such as Hollywood, jocks, etc. was vehemently hated. We would mostly listen to our own ethnic music, watch the ethnic movies, etc. The best I could liken it to would be a neo-nazi's view of race. Without the systematic ideology behind it. It was just inherent and everywhere. Zombie Raptor posted:Is there any truth in the stereotype of Asian criminals (or Asians in general, but in this case, within the gang) being skilled in martial arts? Not to the extent in the movies, but all of us were trained in martial arts as kids, sort of like how a caucasian kid might join little league baseball. Martial arts training only helped in that we knew how to block punches. Gaff Tape posted:Thanks for the thread OP - interesting stuff. Many of my friends were inked, with either the gang-name and the a.k.a.s tatted on their body, dragons, chinese characters, tigers, our ethnic flag, our ethnic names, etc. Also, cigarette burns in patterns were common. Gaff Tape posted:Did you have close friends not in the gang? Girlfriends unaffiliated with it at all? Basically anyone close to you that wasn't a part of it? Did they have any knowledge of what you were doing? I actually did. I was in advanced education and computer programming classes, so I had friends who were "geeks" or "nerds" and otherwise unaffiliated. In that, I was an anomaly amongst the gang. Even then, I wasn't anywhere near as racist as my peers, and I guess that foreshadowed my future when I left not only the gang, but that entire ethnic subculture completely. Most of my non-gang friends knew, and some would urge me to try and shape up my life, some would urge me to turn to religion, and some would try and use me to settle any problems they had-- this last one went unappreciated. Gaff Tape posted:Were there any moments that you particularly enjoyed or appreciated during your time in the gang? At the time, I enjoyed all of it. I felt on top of the world. Moments I enjoyed in particular were successfully ducking the cops, winning a rumble or a fight, or talking myself out of bad situations i.e I'm in the wrong place around the wrong people and they're trying to jump me, but I'll defuse the situation. Also, there was a certain satisfaction in having the power to rain pain on someone who might be trying to bully you or your siblings or whatnot. It was a rush, that was for sure. deviltry posted:When was the moment you decided to change your life and live a cleaner lifestyle? I was about 19, and I realized I wanted to do well in college and not deal with any legal bullshit or get locked up or stabbed or what have you. The drama didn't die down until I was 22 or so; I'd go somewhere, and someone still affiliated with another crew would recognize me, and try and start something. deviltry posted:Did you live in an area with a large Asian population at the time? Like with a Chinatown? Does that make it easier for asian gangs to thrive? Or, Asian gang community could still be present even in the middle of nowhere suburbia? Yes, yes, and yes in my opinion. I believe the entire asian-gang model does not work without being in close proximity to the organized crime groups in a major metropolis. Without them, the kids would have no access or real incentive to push guns, drugs, prostitutes, cars, etc. Although, some asian gangs have come up out of the least likeliest places and become infamous among not just asian, but all ethnicities, for their level of violence. But these gangs operate more traditionally like hispanic gangs, and not like say a little-league version of the Triads. deviltry posted:Do people from your former gang life still recognize you? Or, have you re-located to escape that? Yes, although that's died down in the past few years as time and distance separates me more and more from that past life. I never had to relocate or was in any danger as, I stated before, all the upper ones we would work under have fled the country or been locked up. deviltry posted:Did you have an initiation? Scars or tokens from gang insignia? I was jumped in by 10 members, and I wasn't allowed to fight back. I also have cigarette burns in a pattern. Bloodnose posted:What language did you speak with your gang? English
|
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 06:50 |
|
|
Obdicut posted:I had some experience being a go-between between two Asian gangs when I was a teenager. I'm white. Is this at all a usual thing? You mentioned you doing business with the other Asian gangs-- was that usually face-to-face or did you often use intermediaries? From my knowledge, it wasn't a usual thing. Most gangs I knew were extremely reluctant to trust a white person for business, as they were seen to be most likely to be snitches. Business was handled face-to-face, but the big joke might be that WE were the intermediaries, as we were the lowest level. Business could be tense, but most of the time, it went swimmingly. The Chinese in Chinatown are basically like the Italian Mafia. They're not really out banging on the streets, they hide behind a veneer of civility, and they're really more interested in the bigger scale organized crime. Gangs my level would consider it an honor to meet with a member of that level, or even be in a position where we could see them with our own eyeballs. The Vietnamese in my view were the lowest-powered in terms of having macro-societal pull, but they were absolutely insane. The Vietnamese gangs were extremely violent compared to the Chinese in terms of street-level crime, and they would not hesitate to cap people on the goddamn highway.
|
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 06:55 |
|
|
JaggyJagJag posted:
Yeah, that's what it felt like. I think maybe they used me as a deliberate insult to the Vietnamese, kind of a "We're in charge and you have to speak to this white dude you don't even get to speak to us" thing. It was definitely a trippy couple of subcultures to be around. Both the Chinese and Vietnamese gangs seem slightly different from what you're talking about, only in that the the Chinese, as you say, are kind of more established and they had a lot more of the glossing between legitimate and criminal. I saw Chinese dudes I knew were associated with organized crime at fundraisers for mayoral candidates and stuff. The Vietnamese gang was definitely not mainly recruiting from well-to-do, a lot were very recent immigrants, even the kids, a very high percentage. I'd say more than half the Vietnamese were still-barely-speaking English immigrants. The lack of assimilation was there in full swing, whereas in Chinatown there was a lot more assimilation and urbanity to the facade.
|
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 07:22 |
|
|
Did you also have rivalries within your ethnicity? Speaking from experience with Vietnamese and Chinese communities, there is always a lot of animosity between older nationalist (Taiwan/South Vietnam) and newer communist (Mainland/Modern Vietnam) immigrants. I've seen this actually get bloody in Vietnamese communities, not so much Chinese. Does any of that manifest itself in the gang wars or is it really just the political stuff it appears to be? edit: I guess this is a dumb question if you turn out to be neither Vietnamese nor Chinese. Tangentially, would you really be that easy to identify if your ethnic background was known?
|
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 07:44 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2013 18:07 |
|
|
Bloodnose posted:edit: I guess this is a dumb question if you turn out to be neither Vietnamese nor Chinese. Tangentially, would you really be that easy to identify if your ethnic background was known? Not based on this thread, but maybe he mentioned his home town or other stuff somewhere else on SA. And if you could piece together that he is say 23 year old Cambodian software engineer from Pasadena...
|
| # ? Jan 7, 2013 12:37 |
|
