Method Acting as Motivation : UCI Latino Drama Club Pushes Anti-Gang Message

When 22-year-old Jaime Cruz performs in the play he wrote to warn students about the hazards of gang life, he doesn’t have to use much imagination.

He was beaten severely by four gang members during an initiation rite at age 12.

Now a senior at UC Irvine, Cruz is a member of a different kind of group. Three years ago, he founded the Chicano-Latino Drama Club, an association of Latino UCI students who put the hard lessons of gang life into their performances. The 30-member group performs for schools and community organizations, trying to persuade young people to leave gang life behind and concentrate on education.

From age 12 to 16, Cruz was a gang member in South Central Los Angeles, where he says he committed “small crimes” and fell into drug abuse. He followed the example of his two older brothers.

“My mother left us when I was 9, and my dad passed away when I was 13,” Cruz said. “The only people I used to look up to were my older brothers, but they were mostly in jail.”

A 24-year-old brother is currently in prison, he said, serving time for burglary.

At UCI, Cruz is working toward a teaching credential and plans to attend law school after teaching for a few years. He began the slow process of change at age 15 after seeing a play performed by ex-gang members. By the time he graduated from Fremont High School, he had a 3.8 grade-point average.

None of the drama club members have studied acting, but they are inspired by the potential of the play, “The Town I Live In,” to change lives.

“What we’re trying to do is let kids see the entire life of a gang,” said club member Arturo Cervantes, a 22-year-old civil engineering major at UCI. Cervantes was a gang member from age 11 to 13 in East Los Angeles. “When you’re young and you’re involved in gangs, you don’t realize that eventually you’re either going to get killed or paralyzed, or you’re going to regret everything that you’ve done.”

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Last week, the club performed for students bused to the UCI campus from Santa Ana High School. The play tells the story of three brothers who each become the leader of a gang. The leadership passes down each time an older brother is killed by a rival gang member.

The middle brother, played by Cruz, tries to leave the gang, but his wife and child are killed in retaliation. At the end of the play, he is killed while trying to save his younger brother from rival gang members.

Club member Estela Gonzalez, a 22-year-old sociology major, grew up in Compton surrounded by the kind of gang member she portrays on stage. Though not in a gang herself, she said many of her friends at Compton High School were gang members and some of them were killed. But even the death of friends does little to convince young people to quit gangs, she said.

“I have friends who are still in gangs and I try to talk to them to make a change, but for some it’s hard,” Gonzalez said.

Members of the drama club try to win the trust of the students who attend their performances, talking with them after the play and giving out their phone numbers. They know that leaving a gang is not easy, especially for those who have little or no home life.

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When Cruz was 12 years old, his gang was his family. He had no parents and lived with an older sister. By the time he was 14, Cruz said, he was using an unloaded gun to rob people to get money for food, clothing and bus fare.

“It was mostly old ladies,” he said. “Whenever they didn’t want to give me their purse or their wallet, I used to scream at them and say, ‘I’ll kill you!’ and that would scare them and they would just give it to me. For some reason, I never got caught.”

But Cruz says he now wants to help fight against the kind of life he left behind. Someday, he hopes to found a community center for youths to provide alternatives to gangs. “Everything that I took away from society, I’m trying to give back,” he said.

“It’s real hard to reach a lot of the kids, because the main reason why so many of us join gangs when we are young is because we’re missing a dad or we’re missing a mom. You feel the lack of love. So what the homeboys do, they make you realize they’re going to be your second family. I just want the kids to know that there is the possibility that they can change.”