Happy She’s Left the Gang Behind : ARETHA JOSHUA

I’m 24, and I’ve lived in Los Angeles all my life. I grew up on 36th Street. I went to junior high at Foshay and I went to high school at Los Angeles High and Manual Arts. I got involved in gangs, mostly from school. That was the group to be in. I was in a gang from junior high to high school.

There were mostly guys in our gang. There were never any problems with them. But if they had a problem with a girl, they would come and get us to beat up some girl.

This was from 1982 to 1986. It was not like a gang. They were my friends and we just hung out. There was not a lot of shooting and killing. We’d just beat you up and you’d go home and cry.

Gangs have just gotten senseless. Before it was just your neighborhood. We were real close. Not many of us had guns back then. And if we did, we didn’t use them. And we didn’t use drugs. We drank a lot of beer. That was as far as things went.

I wasn’t in a gang when it was real dangerous. Things are different now. After I left, I didn’t get to see it change. But I went to a lot of funerals. And that made me know it changed.

There was Shark--he was my cousin. He wasn’t in a gang. He had gone to a club and somebody was going to jack his friend for a Rolex. And Shark tried to intervene and got shot and killed. We started a memorial fund in his name, to keep his spirit alive. I see his mom from time to time. She’s always nice, but I know it still hurts her. I’d rather not talk about this. It’s sad because I’ll never see them again.

The media always blows things out of proportion, especially when it comes to gangs and violence. Gang members aren’t all bad. If they had a job, they wouldn’t be hanging out.

I left the gang I was in because I got a job in a supermarket. After you get a job and you can buy your own clothes and shoes, it feels good.

I met my husband at my job. He’s not in a gang or anything. He was surprised that I was. I’m so different now--it’s hard to believe that I was in a gang. I go to church. I sing in the choir. It makes a difference when you have the Lord in your life.

We got married on Sept. 5, 1991. I have a family now. That makes me happy. I don’t know too many married people my age, but I like it. I want my daughter to have everything that she wants out of life. I’ll make sure she goes to school.

I wish all the drugs, AIDS and gangs would just disappear because it’s going to be hard for her generation. Ten years from now, just think of how the world will be. And she’ll only be 11. I’m going to have to explain a lot of things to her. By then she’ll have to know about sex, AIDS, drugs. What she doesn’t know might kill her. And if I don’t explain these things to her, somebody else will.