Ex-Tough Makes the Grade

Most of his fellow students at Santa Ana High School never knew it, but four years ago Janain Ang belonged to the Wah Ching, one of the most notorious gangs in San Francisco.

As part of a band of toughs who have terrorized Chinatown for years, Ang started fights, extorted money from merchants and was convicted for petty theft and robbery.

He had liked “the excitement. Going around. Getting money,” 18-year-old Ang remembers.

Now a resident at the Boys Republic of Santa Ana, Ang is a success story.

Once a failing student, Ang has earned $2,000 in scholarships from the Boys Republic and this June graduated from high school with a 3.4 grade-point average. He held a job all summer as a counselor at a center for blind children. In his spare time, he rides his bicycle 40 miles a day and competes in triathlons.

In two weeks, Ang will leave Boys Republic’s two-story home for an apartment near Cal State Long Beach, where he plans to major in biology.

As Ang and his counselors tell it, Ang escaped a criminal career and a life in the bars and pool halls of Chinatown through a combination of determination and luck.

“Janain is goal-oriented,” said George Chance, residence resident director at the Boys Republic. “Had Janain stayed in the community (in San Francisco), he probably would have risen through the ranks” of the Wah Ching.

Ang was 11 when he immigrated to San Francisco from Hong Kong with his parents and their two other children. In Chinatown, Ang’s father often was unemployed or held occasional jobs as a dishwasher and cook. And Ang hung out in bars and on the streets.

Ang was convicted of robbery in 1981.

“I was just there with friends,” he said. “And somehow I got involved.”

He was placed in a juvenile home near San Francisco. But after he testified against a “higher echelon” Wah Ching member (who later was stabbed to death), the San Francisco Police Department’s gang task force determined that Ang’s life was in danger and that he must be moved out of the Bay Area, said Edward Vasgerdsian, Ang’s San Francisco probation officer.

Locked in Center

Ang stayed several months in a locked room at San Francisco’s Youth Guidance Center, and then, on Nov. 12, 1981, “we snuck him out of town,” Vasgerdsian said. Ang and Vasgerdsian took a 6:30 a.m. flight to Orange County and drove to the Boys Republic.

Youths at the Boys Republic--20 at a time--usually stay about a year for counseling, discipline, mandatory chores and study halls. Attendance at the local high school also is required. Ang’s 4-year stay was unusual.

“After a while it was almost like a blessing,” Vasgerdsian said. “I knew I was dealing with somebody with potential. And maybe this boy should never go back to San Francisco.”

Although Ang initially was quick to fight with other youths at the home, the longer he stayed the more his attitude improved, Chance said. Ang’s English also improved (initially he spoke more Chinese than English). So did his grades. He had failed most of his courses in San Francisco, Ang said, but in Santa Ana he earned a C-plus average in ninth grade, his first year at Boys Republic, and finished high school with a B-plus average.

‘I Decided to Change’

“I didn’t like the place to begin with,” Ang said of the Boys Republic. “But I decided to change. I thought I’d start all over here. Here was a good place. School was a good place. There were few Orientals. There were a few gangs, but I don’t get involved with them.”

Since June 30, Ang has been off probation, and his juvenile records have been sealed. For the past two months, he has continued to rent a room at the Boys Republic, but he said he is looking forward to finding an apartment near Cal State Long Beach.

Whatever happens to Ang, Vasgerdsian said, “I don’t see this kid falling back. I think this kid is going to be a member of society.”

Ang agreed. “I was more of a street person--getting into fights. But as time progressed, I changed. I see the better side of life.”