‘I’m the Original Gangster Godfather’

SEY YES (Save Every Youngster Youth Enterprise Society), a bilingual agency, was started in 1969 as a youth employment service. It has grown into a prevention and intervention program for gang activity. The group is now funded by the Gang Risk Intervention Program of the county Office of Education and Los Angeles Unified School District. Cofounder and executive director V.G. Guinses talked with MARY REESE BOYKIN about the scope of SEY YES’ work.

I started SEY YES with the help of a couple of guys from my machinists’ union in 1968 to help inner-city kids find jobs. The union agreed to hire kids who completed an apprenticeship.

Then in the early 1970s, when my daughter was in kindergarten at Sixth Avenue Elementary School, a teacher was raped after school by a gang member who had an 18-inch butcher knife. I thought, “If he raped a woman, he will rape a kid.” I didn’t want to go to school with a machine gun in order for my daughter to get an education. And, I wanted teachers who came to the inner city to feel safe. So at a community meeting when a school administrator said, “If anyone can do something about these gangs, please give us a hand,” I opened my big mouth and volunteered.

On the south side of Jefferson and 6th are the Crips and on the north side are the Bloods. Since kids from both sides go to the same school, I said to gang members that it could be your mother, grandmother, wife, sister or daughter who is raped. I asked them for help patrolling the streets as kids went back and forth to school. It worked so well that other schools wanted us to patrol.

Then, in 1973, Maxine Waters, then chief deputy to former Councilman David Cunningham, gave SEY YES 30 summer jobs. [It was a program that gave money to nonprofits to create jobs for disadvantaged youths.] I gave the jobs to the young people who had helped with the patrolling, some of them gang members, others not. Because those who were in gangs were from different sets, I had one rule: “If one of you messes up, everybody in your gang is fired.” I didn’t allow anyone to curse or touch any of my females, whom I called V. G. Angels after the popular “Charlie’s Angels” television program. I never gave a guy a job because he was a gang member. I gave him a job because he wanted to turn himself around. By the way, SEY YES was the first program to address the problem of female gang members.

We started off working with students from third grade through 12th grade. Now, we begin with preschool, for it is in pre-school that some kids learn hand signs, call themselves Crips or Bloods, get a nickname.

They come to the program by word of mouth, referral from schools, referral from the police department or D.A.’s office. Say the kid is 8 or 9 years old, a first-time offender for shoplifting, but not a gang member. Instead of sending him to a juvenile detention center, the D.A. sends him to SEY YES. Some of the young people in SEY YES are children of former members.

We have blacks, Latinos, Asians and whites in our program. Not only do we address the concerns of black and brown gangs, but also of devil worshipers, skinheads, Asian gangs, Eastern gangs.

One thing that is important in working with gang members is to understand their language. When a reluctant kid is referred to me and he says, “Hey man, I don’t want to be talked to. I came here because I was forced to. I’m strapped down,” I have to know their language so that I understand this kid is telling me he has a gun on him. Then I tell him, “I’m called the O. G. (original gangster) godfather. I’m not strapped; you can’t be strapped in my domain.” They know where I am coming from. They relate to me and respect me.

The goals and objectives of SEY YES are: providing correct information to law enforcement, school officials, parents and community through our on-the-street grapevine; a counseling outreach; a crisis intervention and conflict management program; a transfer of knowledge among schools and agencies, and a youth skills development program.

SEY YES works with the Dorsey/Crenshaw cluster of the LAUSD for preschool through high school to deter kids from gangs, teach them survival tactics, train teachers to recognize signs of gang membership. The biggest problem kids have is going back and forth from school. We make sure that a homicide on the street does not come back onto the school campus. Through our grapevine, we are hooked up in a way that we get information citywide. This is demanding work. But you know what makes it worthwhile? The success of many former members. They are attorneys in private practice, a deputy D.A. in Santa Barbara, teachers, coaches, our staff at SEY YES.

It’s the cards, the calls, the pictures of young happy families that come for Father’s Day. It’s young people like the 15-year-old girl I saw at a high school basketball game who came to me and said, “V.G., I love you. I’m making As and Bs. I’ve turned my life around.” When I met her she was 12 and she didn’t go to school. She messed around with older men, she dressed provocatively. But she’s changed now. Yeah, that’s it. The kids are worth it.