Gang Column Makes Her Ask: How Does One Get Out?

She lives in an apartment building on an Anaheim street that, unlike the last one she lived on, is free of gunshots and fear. She can leave her front door open without having to worry about who will show up. She doesn’t have to worry about her three young children when they’re outside.

Her name is Michelle. She’s 22 and she comes out of Orange County’s gang wars. It was the only world she knew in the Anaheim neighborhood in which she grew up, and the teardrop tattoo under her right eye signifies the year she spent in detention for stabbing someone when she was 15. She says she’s been stabbed and has had a cousin shot by the same man who stabbed her--a stabbing she bore without reporting it to police.

She recites her history as a way of establishing her credentials to talk about life in the barrio s, a world she assumes I know little about. She’s right about that, and she says she was upset by my column last Sunday in which I challenged gangbangers to quit killing and terrorizing and to turn their lives around.

“I’m not saying I agree with what they do,” she says, “because I don’t. But you have to be there, you have to live there, to understand what I mean. It’s not that we’re all tough, that we’re all bad. It isn’t like that.”

What is it like?

“It’s scary,” she said. “My uncle is a perfect example. He can’t go to a certain city because of where he used to live. He doesn’t do the gang thing any more, but you can’t go where you want, you’re not free. And it might be because of something he did 10 years ago, or what his friend did 10 years ago.

“In your column, you said (to gang members), why don’t you turn yourself around and get a life. What life is out there for them? I turned myself around and what is there for me? I had it better when I was doing what I was doing, you know what I mean? I had it better when I was stealing, being in gangs and dealing drugs. I had everything when I was dealing drugs. I had money in my pocket all the time, whatever I wanted. Now that I don’t do it anymore, I don’t have nothing.”

But, I said, you must not have really had it all, because you got out.

“That’s because I don’t want my kids to be scared of the same things I was scared of. Some people are smarter than others. I know it’ll catch up with you sooner or later. Maybe tomorrow, next month, maybe next year, maybe five years from now.

“I was brought up (believing) that gangs were OK. My dad never told me gangs were bad. I thought they were something to be looked up to. I idolized them. The more I grew up, the more I wanted to be like that. They got respect, they had money in their pocket all the time. Everything I didn’t have, they had.”

Of course, she knew the money wasn’t gotten legally. “I knew it wasn’t, but when you don’t have anything and someone offers you something, you’re going to take it. People say, ‘Why don’t you move out?’ That’s ridiculous. You can’t afford anything nowadays.”

Michelle, who didn’t want her last name used in the newspaper, said she dropped out of high school but went back and got her diploma at 19. She planned to attend Rancho Santiago College but just found out she’s too late to enroll for this semester. She has done volunteer work for local police departments and school districts on gang-related programs.

She fears some gang members, she said, because “they don’t care.” While most gang members will draw the line at some activities, like hurting women or children, some others, especially younger ones, show no remorse. “They don’t care, because they don’t have anything in life to care about. If you’re in a gang and running around with a gun in your pants, they know they can die. Maybe they don’t have nothing to live for, maybe some think they’re better off dead, I don’t know. I can’t speak for all of them.”

She agreed with at least one of my contentions--that, individually, many gangbangers want out. “A lot of them want to do it, they just don’t know how. They don’t want to be there for the rest of their life in the street. They may not admit it in front of their friends, but if you ask them by themselves, a lot of them will cry.”

In mainstream society, I said, making something of yourself translates to going to school and developing career interests.

That’s where my knowledge gap comes into play, Michelle says. “A high school diploma isn’t going to do anything for you nowadays. Kids know that. They’re not dumb. There’s nothing out there for these kids. They know what they do is wrong. The thing is, maybe give them a little hope, not even a guarantee. A little hope. What they have right now (with the gangs) is better than nothing, you see what I’m saying. Maybe their moms are working two jobs, there’s no dad, they’re doing what they got to do. A lot of time they’re helping their mothers out, selling drugs to help their mothers out.”

She won’t pass judgment, she said. “I can’t judge them because I’ve been there and I know what it is, I know what it’s like.”

Before I left, she wanted to reiterate one point: “I’m telling you the truth, the truth, the truth. If you could get them one by one, they would say they want to” have a better life. “They just don’t know how.”

What would they say, I asked.

“They’d say, ‘How are we supposed to get out of here? How are we supposed to get out?’ ”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.