Warriors Unite for Gang Peace : Boyle Heights: A group that began in the classroom has nurtured understanding. ‘We got tired of going to funerals,’ one student says.

The group of teen-agers represented six gangs--from the Barrio Mojados to Hoyo Maravilla to 8th Street and Maravilla. Yet they sat in one room, whispered secrets, held hands, talked about their gang experiences and even laughed a little.

They are the Barrio Peace Warriors, a Boyle Heights group started in a homeroom class at Stevenson Junior High School by history teacher Jose Carmona. Three years ago, many of the students stayed in separate corners, keeping a suspicious eye on members of rival gangs.

Now they are friends, having spent the years learning about each other, talking each other out of fights, pulling friends out of skirmishes and more than once actually saving lives.

“We got tired of going to funerals,” said Isabel (Morena) Chavez, 15.

The group numbers more than 50 teen-agers from 15 gangs, Carmona said. Looking for leadership abilities and intelligence, Carmona handpicked each member for what had been a daily class at Stevenson. But his homeroom duties were taken away in August because too few students were in the class--15 to 25, compared to the average of 33 elsewhere at Stevenson, said Principal Edward R. Amarillas.

In addition, Amarillas said he has reservations about the Barrio Peace Warriors. The program is too dependent on Carmona, he said, and its goals should be expanded.

“I’m not against the program, but it needs some resources to it,” the principal said. “It’s really written around him. He has a unique personality and commitment, but we would have to clone him in order to make it work the way he has proposed.

“I would like to see more things come of it, more exact things” such as getting the youngsters to stop wearing gang-style clothing, striving for academic excellence and urging them to participate more in school activities, Amarillas said.

Carmona proposes that he train teachers who would institute the program at five other East Los Angeles schools. He said there are teachers who would take on the task because they know the depth of the gang problem on their campuses.

“Teachers need to have a commitment, a love for these kids and the time, and this offers the vehicle to do it,” he said. “If (the program) were just on me, yeah, that program would die. That’s the excuse that they use to kill this kind of a program.”

As for the dress codes and grades, Carmona said he hopes to bring the students in line with the rest of the school.

But the first things that have to be addressed, he said, are the family and emotional problems the students have grown up with.

“I’ve gotten the kids’ confidence because I’ve been able to move away from the pettiness,” Carmona said. “They also know that I do not tolerate drugs around me or drinking around me. I do have my standards, but I have my priorities too. The school’s priority is the dress code and certain grades that they have to get. I will get to that too, but I’m after the bigger game.”

Undaunted, and with backing from community groups such as Mothers of East Los Angeles and the Latino Mental Health Council, Carmona is pushing to have the “Warriors” class reinstated. He also hopes Los Angeles school officials will re-create the program at other junior high schools.

In the meantime, the Warriors, who formed a nonprofit corporation in May and received grants totaling $22,000 from World Vision and the Xerox Corp., hope to set up an office where they can talk about problems in their neighborhoods and find ways to help resolve them.

The grant money, which is administered through the Plaza Community Center, pays the teen-agers $100 to $150 a month to speak to community groups and work with younger children. Carmona volunteers his time.

“These people are heroes,” said 52-year-old Carmona, who has been a teacher for 16 years.

He recalled the time Chavez pulled another member, Miguel Ramirez, by the back of the neck to get Ramirez out of a fight. He talked about another student, Ben Gonzalez, 16, who alerted school security officers that an acquaintance was carrying a gun and planned to shoot a rival gang member. The targeted youth later shook Gonzalez’s hand--a significant gesture because he was a rival to Gonzalez’s 8th Street Latin Kings.

“To me, that’s bravery,” Carmona said.

When they had a homeroom class, the Warriors used it as a study group and kept tabs on each other, Carmona said. Now they meet after school on Wednesdays across the street at the Plaza Community Center.

The group has identified young gang members and tried to persuade them to change their ways--”adopting” some to guide, he said.

The Warriors themselves are finding that they can take part in school activities such as baseball and football. One member told Carmona he wants to become a teacher.

“Carmona once saved my life,” Gonzalez said, explaining that a boy he fought vowed revenge. But Gonzalez took Carmona’s advice to smile the next time they met; that seemed to startle the boy so much that the fight was averted.

Said Jose Manuel Ramirez, 17: “Let it be known that a gangbanger is not a criminal. . . but I want them to open their eyes because it’s brother killing brother. . . . I got tired of seeing different mothers crying.”