Ethnic Kinship Lured ‘Good’ Boy Into Gang : Drive-by: Robert Delgado was killed in a feud between his Filipino gang and young Vietnamese toughs. Such ethnic conflict may be on rise, police say.

Each morning before Robert Delgado left for school, he made his bed and kissed his parents goodby. When he came home, he cleaned the kitchen and bathroom before setting rice on the stove for the family’s dinner.

A junior at Leuzinger High School before he was killed earlier this month in a drive-by shooting, Robert had decent grades and teachers spoke well of him.

By all accounts he was extremely close to his parents, who came to Gardena from the Philippines in the mid-1980s. But what Romeo and Cleofe Delgado did not know is that four weeks before his death, Robert, their eldest son, had joined a Filipino gang.

He was lured, friends said, by a sense of cultural kinship and pressure to belong. And he was killed, police said, because of a rivalry between his Filipino gang and a group of young Vietnamese toughs.

The conflict is “not over drugs, and it’s not over money,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Ed Milkey said. “It’s based on nationalities more than anything else.”

Several law enforcement officials in anti-gang units throughout Los Angeles County said the shooting does not reflect a widespread conflict between Filipino and Vietnamese gang members.

But one local gang specialist said he expects more trouble between the two ethnic groups in the future.

“Only because they are rapidly growing and their presence is being felt now by some of the other organizations,” said Ernie Paculba, director of the Harbor Area Gang Alternatives Program, a private, nonprofit group that sponsors gang prevention programs for children in elementary school.

Shortly after he came to the United States and began his freshman year at Leuzinger, Robert Delgado met members of a relatively new Filipino gang called Hellside. Although he had other friends and interests, family and acquaintances said, language and culture helped forge an irresistible bond between him and the gang members. At school, they often could be heard talking in Tagalog, their native language, and sometimes they lifted weights together at the gym.

For two years he resisted joining the gang, friends said. But four weeks ago, Robert agreed to be “jumped” into the gang, accepting a ritual beating that marked his affiliation. As part of the ritual, he received the gang name “Angel” and a cigarette burn on his left wrist, a fellow gang member said.

Although police and Robert’s parents say they are puzzled by his decision, some of Robert’s friends and acquaintances say they saw it coming.

“The people he was hanging out with, they were all in the gang,” said Leuzinger senior Roy Zirpoli, who sang with Robert in the school’s award-winning Select Chorale.

Joining the gang “wasn’t something he did because he wanted to be in the gang,” Zirpoli said. “He did it because his friends were in. There was a lot of pressure on him to do it.”

Police and gang specialists say the Hellside gang is composed of about 20 teen-agers, many of them students at Leuzinger in the Centinela Valley Union High School District. While members are known for having fistfights with rivals and occasionally spraying graffiti on walls around the South Bay, they “are not out there running the streets, jumping on people and doing dope deals,” Deputy Milkey said.

For the past several weeks, Hellside had been sparring with Vietnamese gang members, most of whom were drawn from separate gangs from as far away as Orange County and the San Gabriel Valley, authorities said. Many are high school dropouts who police said engage in property crimes.

Animosity between the gang members led to a series of pay-back beatings in recent weeks, police said. Then, on Nov. 5, police said, Robert and several Hellside members beat up a Vietnamese gang member, a former Leuzinger student who had sung with Robert in the school choir and had been suspended from school for fighting in mid-October.

Shortly after classes were dismissed that day, the Vietnamese youth returned with a group of friends to settle the score. They drove to a house on 147th Street where Robert was standing with friends.

Shots were fired.

A bullet struck Robert in the head. He died on the sidewalk, clutching his schoolbooks.

In that moment he became one of the more than 550 people killed in gang-related shootings in Los Angeles County this year, according to law enforcement officials.

Last week, the Vietnamese youth involved in the earlier beating was charged with Robert’s murder. The 17-year-old Hawthorne youth’s name was withheld because of his age.

For Romeo Delgado, a former Filipino police officer who came here in 1985 looking for a better life for his family, Robert’s death left many questions.

After taking two years to establish himself in Gardena, Romeo, now a medical lab assistant, sent for Cleofe and Robert in 1987.

The Delgados, who left three younger children behind in their hometown of Bacolod, were planning to reunite the family once they could afford a larger apartment. Now, they said, they probably will let their children finish high school in the Philippines.

Robert, they said, had been a model son: He kept his room immaculate and regularly attended church. Knowing his parents couldn’t afford to send him to college, he had planned to join the Air Force to earn tuition.

After showing off Robert’s room, his papers, his wallet with their picture in it and a computer that only Robert knew how to use, Romeo said of the gang: “If I knew about that group, I would stop him. But I never heard Robert made trouble. For us, he was a good one.”

At Robert’s funeral at St. Jerome Catholic Church, the disparate elements of Robert’s short life came together.

While members of the Select Chorale sang “One Moment in Time,” about 15 of Robert’s “home-boys” sat in the audience.

At the Delgados’ request, the priest spoke candidly about Robert’s gang affiliation, urging his friends to do their part to stop the cycle of violence.

“There’s so much peer pressure out there to get involved,” noted Father Gerard G. King. “The gangs here in Los Angeles are a terrible thing, and we should all try to do our best to work against that mentality.”

But Romeo Delgado said he still worries that the pay-backs will continue.

“I don’t want revenge,” he said. “My son already is dead--it hurts so I cannot take it. But I don’t want the story to repeat. All I’m asking for now is justice.”