Tough-Talking Anti-Gang Magazine Hits Streets : Community service: Barrio Warriors targets Latinos and others, urging them to stay out of gangs and stay in school.

The front cover of Barrio Warriors is the first hint that you won’t find light reading in this new community-written magazine.

It portrays eight young men, all staring unflinchingly into the camera. Some are carrying rifles, the others schoolbooks, and at the bottom, the words: “Weapons of Wisdom Over Weapons of Death.”

This stark theme runs through the entire 52-page Barrio Warriors, a privately supported, nearly advertising-free publication now making its debut in Orange and Los Angeles counties. The magazine is aimed at school-age Latinos and is being distributed largely by members of the college and high school student organization, MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan).

“We see this as a special magazine with a very special, personal message,” said publisher Gus Frias, 33, who has long been active in crime-prevention education projects in both counties.

The overall message of “Barrio Warriors” is a classic one for ethnic-minority activists: raising self-esteem and ethnic community pride, setting sights squarely on college and a career.

In this, Frias has mixed more down-to-earth goals: steering young people away from potential crime, deglamorizing gang involvement and pointing out what he calls the self-destructive nature of gangs.

Frias characterizes the quarterly magazine project as a “strictly grass-roots” volunteer effort involving short commentaries, poems and essays written by Latino educators, professionals and community activists throughout the state. The project has been launched with $20,000 in private donations; the first-issue run is 10,000 copies, Frias said.

Although the regular per-copy price is $5, Frias said most of the debut issue will be given away to ensure “maximum outreach” to the magazine’s prime audience. He expects that while later issues will also be given away or sold at sharply reduced prices to many barrio youths, the magazine will become “self-supporting” as various organizations buy it in bulk.

“The timing for this magazine is really crucial,” said Frias, noting that gang membership has increased to an estimated 100,000 in Los Angeles County and 10,000 in Orange County.

“We know that young people join gangs for many of the same reasons they join other groups. They seek identity, respect, belonging and support,” said Frias, who since 1987 has managed a drug- and crime-prevention program under the Orange County Department of Education (the magazine is not connected to his county job, he said).

The attraction of gangs, he said, is often reinforced by the “glamorizing images” depicted on television and rock videos. This shows up in the fast-growing number of “gang emulators”--youth groups or “wannabes” who are not involved in criminal activities but who have adopted gang-like dress and other customs. The danger is that many such groups may “escalate” into criminal behavior, Frias cautioned.

For these reasons, Frias said the need for more preventive educational projects aimed at the high-school-age population is more urgent than ever.

This is where a magazine like “Barrio Warriors” comes in, Frias said--”a no-nonsense, straight-talking” format that underscores the dehumanizing, unheroic aspects of gangs.

The style is pure staccato: short bursts of highly intense, ethnically proud language that speaks directly to the barrio-raised readers.

The magazine portrays gang members as belonging to a lethal phenomenon--”hate, drugs, weapons, prison and self-destruction,” as one commentator described it.

There is an essay, “Please God, I’m Only 13,” depicting a boy, shot to death in a gang clash, speaking from the grave.

And the poem “Run Homeboy, Run,” penned by Frias, opens with this warning:

Don’t let the (gang) madness catch up to you,

Run homeboy, run!

Don’t let death get a hold of you,

Run homeboy, run!

The magazine is written only in English, which Frias said was done intentionally.

“We’re aiming at the youths--almost all of them born and raised here,” he said. “Even so, one purpose is to provide another publication to reinforce using and reading English, not Spanish.”

Using a magazine format in the anti-gang campaign is another way to reach the “high-risk” street youths. “We’re not supplanting the other methods, we’re only supplementing them,” Frias said. “We see our magazine as a small window opening to the reality of the crisis.”

He maintains that there is no other magazine like Barrio Warriors--devoted solely to the gang issue and written and packaged in a street youth-oriented manner. “All you have out there for the guys to read are ‘low-rider’ (car) magazines,” he said.

“We’re talking the same (street) language, but with an entirely different purpose,” he said. “We’re using some of the same kind of (low-rider) pictures and barrio group photos, but we’re also presenting a message that we hope will change people’s lives.

“Hey, we don’t expect the guys to read it right out there on the streets,” Frias added. “We’re hoping they will take it home with them, mull it over, let it sink in.”

In Barrio Warriors, the gang-connected dark side is profusely illustrated. There are charts displaying the mounting gang-related homicide rate and depictions of funerals and grieving families. There is a photograph of a slaying victim in his casket.

“We figure what’s going to catch the attention of these guys are pictures, and more pictures, with people and families they can identify with--and maybe even feel a sense of the grief and tragedy of these senseless deaths,” he said.

But as the dramatic counterpoint, Barrio Warriors also presents an unmistakably hopeful side: sketches of Latino achievers in education, business, government and community service and other career fields.

They range from the Mexico-born Ramon Martinez, who became a student activist with MEChA and other groups while at Cal State Fullerton, to Los Angeles teacher Jaime Escalante, the hero of the movie “Stand and Deliver.”

“What we’re telling (readers) is that they do have a choice--and a very clear one,” Frias said. “They can find those same things--identity and group belonging--and much more away from the gang environment. They can become true leaders in their community.”

It is a far-from-impossible dream, as Barrio Warriors likes to relate it.

“Some of the role models (in the magazine) have been to hell and back,” Frias said. “But they survived. They changed. They made it--in college and in careers.”

The second issue, due out in February, is already in the works, Frias said, with articles that will also discuss role models for African-Americans and for Asian immigrants. He said he is confident that enough private underwriting will be found for future issues.

Overall, Frias sees the magazine project as signifying a momentous transition in images for many ethnic-minority children. It will be the theme of the front-cover portrait for the next issue of Barrio Warriors.

“We’re going to show this bunch of young school kids,” Frias said. “They are all standing in front of a school bus. And they are all wearing something special. Ivy League sweatshirts!”

It’s too early to gauge the impact of the new magazine, which is just now making the rounds of the neighborhoods and other areas, Frias noted.

But Barrio Warriors has won praise from adult activists who have seen the first issue, such as Dorothy Castillo, a Santa Ana-based job counselor who has worked closely with street youths and student dropouts.

“We believe that a lot more young people are getting the message--that (gang life) is dangerous,” Castillo said. “This magazine shows that it isn’t just two or three persons who have put it together and made it educationally and in jobs. The role models are many--and hard to ignore.”

In a recent attempt to get on-the-spot reactions, Frias distributed free copies to several Anaheim gang members, who said their group has been involved in shooting incidents with rival gangs.

As the youths stood around a neighborhood street corner, scanning the magazine, most of them seemed engrossed by the contents but remained noncommittal about the publication.

“It’s interesting, OK?” said Philip, 18, who asked that his full name not be used. “It gives you a lot to think about.”

Alex, 18, said he agreed with the emphasis on education.

“Yeah, a lot of us dropped out, but some of us have gone back (to continuation high school). We know we need that diploma to get the jobs,” said Alex, who hopes to land a job with one of the federally supported job programs.

Paul, 18, glanced at the magazine and then said: “You can’t stay out here (with gangs) forever. You have to do something else with your life, right?”

Then Paul, who said he served eight months in prison for shooting at members of a rival gang (no one was hit), added: “But you can’t wait too long. You can’t wait until you’re 6 feet under--when you’re no good to anyone.”

For a moment, he stared at the pallbearer funeral scene on the magazine’s back cover. “I didn’t want to put (my parents) through something like this. I didn’t want to have them grieve like this.”