All language subtitles for American.Homeboy.2023.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.BZ]

We couldn't
figure out why we were there.

Do they have gold here?

What do they have?

You know, we couldn't
figure out why we were there.

And still people don't...

don't agree what the war was about.

We didn't know the terrain.

They always send us to new terrains.

So we didn't know the terrain.

I didn't know the terrain.

Okay, that's also very bad
for us if you're on that side.

We ran into the enemy
and we got in a firefight

and it was pretty
intense there for a while.

And then someone gave
me an M79 grenade launcher

and I shot it down at the enemy.

And then some other grenades
exploded as things going down.

But when I shot that,
that grenade launcher,

it hit... something hit
me too, the grenade.

I don't know if it was that
grenade or another grenade.

Boom. Oh, that hurt.

Can you imagine somebody
putting an ice pick in your eye?

Like, "Oh, shit."

So I went down.

And then I couldn't feel my body anymore.

I was just thinking,

and I was still religious at the time.

I was a Catholic.

And I began to pray to God.

I said, "God, if you let me live,

I promise I'll pick cotton
for you the rest of my life."

And I saw myself picking cotton.

I was doing... making
labor negotiations with God.

And I started coming to,

and I started thinking about my mother.

And then the pain, that's what
I started feeling my body again.

And the pain was really excruciating.

Oh, man, it hurt.

Soon as I got back home, after a few
months, after I recovered from my malaria

and my wounds and everything,

um, the border patrol stops
me out in the cotton fields.

I said, wait, wait a minute.

You know, and they had guns.
Too bad I didn't have a gun.

♪ Don't mind the tears ♪

♪ You see falling From my eyes ♪

♪ It must have been the years ♪

♪ Gone and caught me By surprise ♪

♪ And if my eyes seem red ♪

♪ Oh, baby ♪

♪ It's just smoke from the fire Rising up ♪

♪ Since you've been
gone It's been awful cold ♪

♪ Had to burn the pages
From the book of love ♪

♪ Hey, and I'm picking up now ♪

♪ The pieces of my heart ♪

♪ And I'm moving on ♪

♪ With this weight Upon my back ♪

♪ Yes, I'm picking up ♪

♪ The pieces of my heart ♪

♪ But it hurts so bad ♪

Hi! This is Juan Espinosa again,

and this is Barrio Expressions and we have

some young ladies with us today from.

Union City, Fremont, Hayward area.

Can you tell me a little bit
about what is Barrios Unidos?

Okay, it's a club where
we would like to unite

all the Chicanos together.

Yeah, it sounds like a really
good idea, especially with

what's going on this weekend
as far as a lot of tensions.

Is to fight each other
so we don't get ahead.

The term
Chicano, when that word came out,

man, it just, like, it went into your soul.

You know, this is who I am.

You know, I am different.
We were different.

I don't care what we
did, we were different.

If we dressed, we did it differently.

If we had bikes, our bikes were different.

Our cars, we did it different.

You know, that's just who we were,

because we were different.

To me,
homes, it's like, if you're...

if you don't know that you're
Chicano, then you're not.

You dig what I'm saying?

Odele. It's like, if you...

you know, if you're asking
yourself that question,

maybe try softball or
whatever, I don't know.

It's art. It's philosophy.

It's religion.

They are not identifying as Hispanic.

Right? Not identifying as Latino.

They're identifying as Chicano

as a political statement to say,

"No, we're not with that
European vibe," right?

We're going to go back to our indigenous,

where we come from, here on this continent.

I just want to say something
on behalf of the people that

do wear them type of clothes.

Don't make no difference

what you wear in this country.

You're just judging a
person right then and there.

There's people behind these
clothes that have a good heart.

One bad apple can't spoil the whole bunch.

I hope it may be said a
hundred years from now...

that by working together...

we helped to make our country more just.

I believe...

that at least it will be said...

that we tried.

You know, at that time,

being Mexican in this country,

it was heavily looked down upon.

And so what begins to happen is you have

this isolated culture.

Living in this country
and feeling very, like,

abandoned and very, like, shut out.

It was just neighborhood kids.

And they were so young

and out there pretty much on their own.

There wasn't that much work.

Their parents worked two, three jobs,

you know what I'm saying?

And they weren't able
to really watch those kids.

So there was a lot of kids in the street.

And it's funny because I don't think it's

a Mexican style thing.

It was the Chicanos
creating a third culture.

So how did you become
involved in this organization?

I joined the American Indian movement

on my return from Vietnam

because I realized
politically I became aware.

We're a native people,
we're indigenous to the land.

The Chicanos are
very different than the Italians

or the Germans or any
of those other Europeans

in that, as a group, we were
here already in this territory.

Mexicans are mostly indigenous people.

They're not mostly European.

You know, now it depends on what part.

If you're closer to the northern part,

you're more European.

Because even some Germans and others,

Irish and others, have
moved in there, you know.

But Mexico is more indigenous
in its genome makeup

than it is anything else.

Anytime we're trying to sort of understand

Mexican American history and culture,

it's very complicated.

The U.S./Mexico
war was the first war

that the United States
invaded another country.

President Polk, who was
the president at that time,

one of his main goals was to get the land,

right, that they wanted
for westward expansion.

He kept very detailed diaries.

Every day of what he
did and in his journals

and in his diary is the plan
for initiating war with Mexico,

since they refused to negotiate

and sell that land to them.

When Polk sent in the
military to that contested terrain,

he knew full well that the Mexican army

would see that as an attack,
would cross over the Rio Grande

and initiate, right, a
battle with the military.

Thousands of
people were lynched and shot,

and murdered and put in prison.

The U.S. was
described as a go ahead nation

sort of symbolized by
like the American railroad.

It was all about moving
forward progress, right?

Sort of civilization.

They didn't see Mexicans
as having that capability

to sort of build cities and
towns right in the West.

Mexicans learn about this war
because they were occupied.

They call it the second conquest.

That's very telling, right?

We don't learn about this war
because it mostly happened

in another territory.

And so when that border is drawn,

it divides, right,
nations, it divides people.

And overnight, people,
where this was their territory,

now they become
foreigners in their native land.

The Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo promised that,

former residents of Mexico

who are now living in the American West,

would be afforded all

and full and complete
rights as American citizens.

Well, that wasn't always honored.

It promised respect for Mexicans,

that their culture, their
language, their religion,

if they stayed in the United States.

- Hey, somebody's a shootin.
- No.

Why, they are too. I heard them.

Sound like it's over to the dam.

Let's get goin'.

Today, you know, in the 21st century,

we think about the American cowboys,

the quintessential American.

But if you go back to the 19th century

and you read newspapers of the period,

they hated cowboys.

Because for them, a cowboy
was a thief on horseback.

The newspapers and the
media also are very important

in portraying the Mexicans and the Chicanos

as bandits and outlaws.

So we have that to this
day too with the media.

We better get out of here.

No, wait.

Things really began to change because

of the revolution in Mexico

and there were a lot of
refugees who fled the violence.

In fact, there have been some studies about

how violent the Mexican revolution was

and it's considered to be among
the most violent of revolutions

that occur in world history.

And so there were a
lot of people, including

my grandparents who fled
the violence and they came

to the United States,
never intending to stay,

but they just wanted
to wait out the violence.

My grandparents,
both of them fought in there

and they were actually enemies.

And then my mom and dad got together,

kind of brought together
this two fighting factions.

There's a million people killed

and a million refugees

when Mexico only had 15 million people.

That's about the size
of Guatemala right now.

So it was very impactful.

There's a lot of suffering, a lot of death.

It wasn't as heavily
populated or urban, you know,

until maybe post the Mexican Revolution.

Then it started to go bigger,
'30s and '40s more coming over.

But those were the first barrios.

Once the border
patrol gets established,

it becomes a little bit
more policed, right?

So it becomes more difficult.

So Mexicans have to make a choice.

If I cross over and work here,

I might not be able to come back, right?

So you actually see the development

of Mexican American communities

and places like San Antonio

and Tucson and Los Angeles.

So today in the 21st century,

we're largely color conscious

when we think about race, right?

And so when we invoke the terms of race,

we think it has everything
to do with skin color, right?

It has a lot to do with
prejudices that already exist

about your place of
origin, about your accent,

about... just all these ideas
about what it meant to be Irish

or to be meant to be Jewish or Italian

or, I mean, the list goes on and on.

They're all thrown together in
these segregated neighborhoods.

That's what makes things really interesting

when you start studying the
social dynamics is you have

white working class kids

living right next to Mexican Americans,

and African Americans
as well because that's...

that kind of ghettoization

is where all the
racialized individuals went.

And it was... again, it
was more than just color.

We have to
understand and accept that

it's not like today, whereas

today if we see Irish
people, we see Italian people

we think of them all as white.

This was not the case back in the day.

You know Italians and
Irish, Jews, Russians,

they also had their little
share of discrimination

because they were non Anglo.

They were
forced to live in these areas.

They had nothing to do.
They couldn't go to the parks.

They couldn't go to the movies.
They weren't allowed to.

You know, Mexicans weren't
allowed to go to those places,

so they had nothing to do
but hang out on the corner.

Gangs is a later phenomena,

but what happened is these
young people would gather,

and sometimes they would
play in... they would have clubs.

Whenever you get groups of people,

they tend to form, these little cliques.

It could be a varsity football team

that likes to go out and beat up
another football team, you know?

With my neighborhood,
it was a football team.

And then after that there's
another football team.

So one football team
starts fighting another, right?

And that becomes a fight,
and after that it becomes,

"Hey, those guys are
from here, we're from here,"

and they become a gang.

Our west coast became
a potential combat zone.

Living in that zone were
more than 100,000 persons

of Japanese ancestry.

Two thirds of them American citizens.

One third, aliens.

Well, Pachuco was something,

you know, these Mexican Americans that

liked to be a little rebellious.

They wore the zoot suit,
which was frowned upon

because of, you know, war rationing.

They wore more fabric than they needed.

El Paso is where it was formulated

into an example of a label

for Mexicans who dress differently.

Who spoke differently.

Pachuco actually comes from El Paso.

Because the Mexicans were coming through

El Paso more than any place.

El Paso was the big opening.

So the Zoot Suiters were
an interesting combination

of street, urban, Mexican slang and talk.

It was a really that Caló.

They talked that different Spanish.

The slang was very elaborate.

It took a lot of the
boogie woogie music thing,

but they Mexicanized it

and I think that's important part of it.

What Pachuco's came to
represent was anti American

in a time, in a wartime climate

where anything that was perceived

as outside of the parameters

of what was considered to be American

was looked down upon and incriminated.

I think with the
zoot suit, you know, obviously

when you sort of think about
what did the zoot suit mean

to sort of that Mexican
American generation?

Because you know,
wearing the zoot, you know,

represented pride, right? Sort of respect.

They've all came about
through being up against the wall.

Whatever oppression was going on.

It's like, okay, I'm not
going to be like the norm.

I'm gonna stand on my
own and do my own thing.

For the women I
believe there was even more

rebelliousness and more anti-traditional.

The people who originally
came here from Mexico,

you know, they were fighting
for freedom, fighting for progress

and fighting for success on some level.

And then, you know, generations go by

and you have these
younger generations of kids

who are more modern thinking.

And they're like, you know
what, chale homes, like,

I'm not going to tone this down.

Matter of fact, I'm
going to turn it way up.

There were plenty
of Mexican American Chicanos

that were represented in
World War II as soldiers.

My great uncle was one of them.

He's in his nineties now.

Um, you know, and he
was... still is very patriotic

and a lot of the youth were,

but there was definitely
some in the barrios

that did not want to go and fight.

It's like other wars, you
know, that we can think of.

There was a lot of them that
either joined or got drafted.

Mexican population was pretty
much decimated by the war.

People were fighting.

The ones that stayed
were generally the women,

like the other communities,
that worked in the industry

to help the war effort.

L. A. became the largest
manufacturing center of

the country during World
War II because of the ships,

the shipyards close to the harbor had

a lot of defense industries.

Defense industry is big in California

and L. A. was the heart of it.

The interesting thing is that

while the Chicanos were
fighting the sailors here...

in Los Angeles, their
brothers were fighting

a war for democracy
somewhere else, supposedly.

So, you know, there's a
big contradiction there.

It's the biggest
contradiction of World War II.

While we are fighting oppression abroad,

we are oppressing people domestically.

During World War II,
right, I think it's, again, this,

it kind of reveals like
we're all fighting, we're all...

we're all the good guys,

we're spreading democracy in Europe.

But the reality is that

we're still treated as less
than here in the United States.

On the night
that José Díaz was killed,

there was a birthday
celebration happening at a ranch

in rural Los Angeles County.

And they had a reservoir,
they had a couple reservoirs,

but the largest one local kids
would use as a swimming pool

because, again, because of segregation

you couldn't go down to the
local swimming pool and swim.

There was a party that
night, a birthday party,

some uninvited guests came.

There was a group of Russian
immigrant kids from Downey

that crashed the party, the birthday party.

They want beer, they
want to join the party,

and they get thrown out.

They're driving down
the road to get out of Williams Ranch,

and they happen to pass by Sleepy Lagoon

where there's a couple couples
from 38th Street that are there.

Words are exchanged and a fight breaks out

between the Downy Boys
and the young men and women

who are parked around the reservoir.

The 38th Streeters
go back to their neighborhood,

come back in a few carloads,

and no one's at the Sleepy
Lagoon anymore. It's quiet.

Downy Boys are now long
gone, but they're looking for them.

And somebody says, "Well, maybe
they're still at the party up the road."

And so that's when 38th Street
kids then go up to the party.

And a fight broke out.

And then the 38th Street
kids left immediately.

Someone said, "The cops are coming."

And they all hopped in
their car and they took off.

So the party goers at the ranch,

the ranch hands, they're
picking up after the fight.

They're trying to see who's hurt.

This is when they find
the body of Jose Diaz.

So they had dragnets
all throughout LA County.

And they just ran kids
through, fingerprinted them,

took their pictures and things like that.

And eventually, they land
on the 38th Street kids

who happen to be at the place

near the time that Jose Diaz was killed.

The Zoot Suit Riots
happened about a year later

around different parts of LA.

And it spread to different
parts of the country, in fact.

Pachucos were rounded up, beaten down,

had their clothes cut
off of them, their hair cut.

Publicly humiliated and then arrested.

There's no weapon produced ever.

There's no eyewitness produced ever.

There is no confession
that was ever produced.

And a lot of it had to do with the media.

The media saying that these Mexican
gangs were terrorizing neighborhoods.

They were robbers. They were
rapists. They were murderers.

Criminals. They're
thieves. They're immoral.

And again, I remind
you that studies have looked at

arrest rates and all these kinds of things,

and there is no
demonstrable evidence that...

that juvenile delinquency
was actually a problem,

but people were worried about it.

Here you had kids, young people,

that were freely engaging and enjoying

their First Amendment right
to freedom of expression.

And they were beaten for it

because they were perceived
as an anti-American threat.

The zoot suiters
might have had a more...

they had a more communal understanding of

the representation of their neighborhood.

But when that evolved
from Pachuco to Cholo,

that all changed and that became...

that's when the gang culture really spawned

and it took on a whole new meaning.

So if you put your neighborhood on you,

you were gonna either
live, die, or kill for that tattoo.

It was Pachuco, but then
it became eventually Cholo.

It became a whole
different way of doing things

that nobody had done before.

After World War II, technology had changed.

So black folks, they went from doing jazz

and swing to doing rock and roll,

you know, to doing doo wop.

The reason why black
people and Mexicans interacted

and started taking from each other

was because they're living close.

A lot of people argue
about the origins of lowriding.

You know, what we can agree upon is that

the lowriding begins in the
Mexican American experience

in the southwestern
part of the United States.

Now remember, during World War II,

Detroit is not making new cars, right?

Because Detroit has
shifted to wartime production.

So after the war, right,
returning veterans,

they get a little bit of
money to buy cars, right?

Also, there's a turnover in secondhand cars

because people after the war want new cars.

So I think what's really interesting

about low riding is
that you're sort of taking

sort of these secondhand cars

and turning it into something beautiful.

Because older
cars, nobody wanted them.

Everybody wanted the new cars.

So old cars, you could
get an old car for like $300

and we would just modify
'em a little, you know,

put rims, lower 'em down.

And the hydraulics came because

we used to lower these
cars 'cause it was cool.

And the law was you
couldn't have a lowered car.

So they would have it so
that they would lift them up

so they can be legal and then drop 'em down

so they can be party.
You know what I'm saying?

There was a surplus

of aircraft parts and the hydraulic lifts.

So it just took the ingenuity

and mechanical knowhow

to install those on a
car in order to be able

to raise up to a legal ride height.

We're the, I think, the only, you know,

culture that is identified by our cars.

Where you see a car.

That's a 64 Impala with Virgen
de Guadalupe airbrushed on it

or the pin striping on the sides

and you go that's
Chicano culture on wheels.

When you customize a car

the whole goal is for you
to assert your individuality.

You can have 10 '64 Impalas lined up

and they're all going to be different.

What do you think of today?

- What do I think of today?
- Yeah.

It's pretty feed me right now.

- And who is this right here?
- Juanita.

Juanita, what do you
think is happening today?

- It's pretty live.
- Yeah?

Well, what are you doing out
here, checking out the cars?

- Checking out the guys.
- Checking out the guys. All right, okay.

You're tuned to
Community Access Television, Channel 3,

serving San Leandro,
San Lorenzo, and Hayward.

Hello, thank you for tuning
in to Barrio Expressions,

and tonight we have
some information for you.

Men are cool with us. They accept us.

There's a lot of men
that they congratulate us.

They're happy for us. They're proud of us.

And then, there's the men that are quiet.

You know, they kind
of just, like, look at us.

Like, you know, they give us the looks.

I think what we're thinking about,

whether it be hot rods or low riders,

is how the car, particularly for men,

right, becomes a way to express.

To me, the candy paint,

the pinstriping, it's all just, you know,

it takes time and effort and
detail, you know what I mean?

Those cars you can't drive
that fast back then, you know?

They're on 13-inch rims,

the suspension's cut and it has hydraulics,

like they're swaying all over the place.

I think that we've
always done things our way.

So car customization is just one of...

one of the variables in the equation.

Lowriding is an artistic
and linguistic expression,

and by default, it's political.

If you follow the lifestyle

and you're one of us, you are one, man.

We don't look at you as color, you know?

And we never did see 'em as color.

My homeboy, my black
homeboy or my white homeboy,

that was my homeboy regardless, you know,

I didn't see 'em as a color.

So we used to
have two or three homeboys

that were white, that were just homies.

We never saw them as white.

They talked Pachuco too, Cholo.

They talked Caló, you
know, they talked our style.

I've seen a lot of car
events, lowrider events where

there was a lot of black and brown and

everybody had nothing
but love for each other.

Anytime you key in solely on race,

you miss, you know, the big picture.

You know, it's a very narrow view.

Johnny Marvin is
now in the hands of the law.

This is the first time he's been caught,

but his delinquent
tendencies began long before

in the complex of an unhappy home

and in the hangout of the
gang, which was his refuge.

When I worked in East LA,
I wound up in the gang unit

because I love working gangs.

So then I went to Compton,

I got to work my own
neighborhood, Willowbrook,

and I got known for being
the guy who works gangs.

I used to describe what
I did as a police officer

as being the referee at an
incredibly violent hockey game.

I came from Compton.

I came from a very poor neighborhood.

Some of my best friends
became gang members.

They became prison gang members.

That could have been me.

If circumstances were different,

maybe I could have been one of them.

In 1966, after I
graduated from high school

I went into the military,
and the military put me

through a battery of tests.

It was the military who decided that

I should be a military policeman.

I came out of Vietnam.

I went to Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

I was by then a sergeant
and they had a program

where you could get
out of the military early

if you enlisted in the LAPD

or LA County Sheriff's Department.

My mother and father were anti-pachuco.

My father, he was in
the military in the '40s,

and, all my uncles, all my uncles.

So this idea that it was a rite of passage

and all Latinos, you
know, were involved in this?

No, no.

90% of the Latinos in
the communities I know,

they joined the army, they got jobs,

they went to school, things like that.

Some of the young
people are doing bad things,

but most of them are not,
they're just grouping together.

But eventually, if the
police start messing with you

and start detaining you,

holding you for little things,

eventually you start getting records,

and pretty soon you're becoming a gang.

Chicano culture, it came from youth.

We have to understand that those pachucos,

they weren't like grown
men and women, you know,

they were kids, you
know, so it came from kids.

If you were there at that time

and you ask my uncles or my father,

they're banderos.

They're... my grandma
called them marihuanos.

You know, don't hang around
with those pieces of trash.

By the way, the zoot suit is a...

is a an open sign of rebellion
against the United States.

Did everyone walk
around, you know, odele ese,

you know, this guy? No, they
didn't. there's no evidence.

As a matter of fact,

the play Zoot Suit, which revolves

around the 38th Street Kids,

they didn't speak Caló.

They didn't speak Spanish.

These were Americanized Mexican Americans.

This is the 7.62 machine gun system,

known in the army as the XM6 kit.

Good evening, my fellow Americans.

I have asked for this
television time tonight

to report to you on our most
difficult and urgent problem.

The war in Vietnam.

When I was there at Travis Air Base,

I was there in the bed
watching on August 29, 1970,

those riots going on in LA.

Well, you know, being a soldier,

but my political thinking had changed,

I said, "Oh, I know how
to deal with those sheriffs."

I know how to deal with them.

Just give me a gun.

I changed.

The war's at home.

Now the war's here, and
these people are attacking...

our people, so it's my duty to attack them.

That was what I was thinking as a soldier.

One of my friends
in the Army, he grew up with me,

went into Ralph J. Bunch Jr. High School

with me and all that.

He's a lifer in the military,

and one day he came home on leave,

and I went to go pick
him up at the airport.

And when he got in the car, I tell him,

Hey Johnny, I got a 9mm on my side,

I got a 45 under my seat.

And there's a.380 on my right leg,

and there's a.38 in the glove box.

And he looks at me and goes,
"Richard, you're paranoid."

I was.

Right, I was ready for that fight.

If it was gonna come, I was gonna be ready.

Our communities were especially impacted.

Poor white as well, working class people

were getting really hit with Vietnam.

Vietnam was the war that
brought more conscience,

I think, to those issues
than any other war.

You know, to me,
especially as a Vietnam veteran,

it's difficult for someone to admit

that they fought for nothing.

They fought for... we fought
for nothing, and we lost,

and we lost a lot of people,

and the Vietnamese lost a lot of people.

Three million people.

Forget about them.

♪ I don't recognize These streets ♪

♪ Streets I used To call my own ♪

♪ Feel the days Are getting longer ♪

♪ As the anger Grows and grows ♪

♪ And I'm tired ♪

♪ I'm just so damn tired ♪

♪ You hear the people In the streets ♪

The anti-war Chicano movement

became a catalyst for other,

or a rallying point for other...

for other causes such as the
black civil rights movement,

the anti-war movement,
the hippies and all of that,

you know, the counterculture movement.

What I disliked was the agitators

who would come into the
community and agitate the locals

and when the time came
when confrontation would occur,

guess where they were.

They were somewhere
else. And you know what?

They usually weren't from
our neighborhood, right?

They were some rich
kid in college you know,

a privileged guy,

who was coming down to the neighborhood

to create a problem and then leave.

Some of these guys, were backed by.

Red China and Russia.

So we're building that
conference and we're also hoping

to invite all of you to
come on Sunday at 3 pm.

At the corner of Clifton and Sherman

at the George I. Sanchez Center.

And again, I remind you

that most of us will have to
think about what this means,

because it is true.

I feel very much that they
do not know the difference.

They don't see different
thing when they look

at Mexicano or Chicano.

They see the same thing.

And these two things
are integrally tied together.

In the '60s and '70s,

there was a very clear distinction

between Mexican Americans and Chicanos.

Chicanos were those who

self consciously embraced a
politicized agenda and identity.

And we made a very clear
line between us Chicano

and those Mexican Americans.

I would say Chicano was a term

that was used a lot in my household.

Um, my pops, you know,
growing up in that era,

I would say, you know,
being real young in the '60s.

To me growing
up, Chicano and Mexicano,

I didn't even think, I didn't even know

there were two different words.

We used them interchangeably.

Okay, but then it became politicized.

Chicanos, the term
was already used in the streets.

And I know even when I was growing up...

growing up in Watts and eventually

in the east side, the San Gabriel Valley,

before the Chicano movement,

we were calling each other Chicanos.

For me, Chicano growing up meant

being two things at the same time

and not enough of either one.

Born in America with Mexican parts, right?

So we're trying to be
American, but we have this

big influence of Mexico and our...

our heritage, our relatives,

trying to combine the two.

I think now that we have social media,

is now you see how many
homies really aren't Mexican.

When I met my wife, she didn't
know I was from Central America.

I think she found out after we got married.

Or she found out maybe a few years after

we actually were together.

I consider myself Chicano,

and there's nobody
going to tell me different.

If I would have never came out and said,

"Hey, I'm from Honduras." You
would assume, yeah, Gil's Mexican.

There's a lot of us out
there, but it's not that

I'm trying to be Mexican.

It's not that I'm trying
to be anything else.

I'm a guy from North Hollywood that, yeah,

considers himself Chicano
because that's what I am.

What do you think about police who say that

if you wear tattoos that you're
a potential gang member?

False.

False.

False statement.

'Cause a lot of people
that are having tattoos

don't belong to no gang.

I don't think, I don't
think he should be there.

He's put in a different, like group.

Because he got tattoos.

You know? There's a lot
of people that have tattoos.

My father has tattoos.
You know, he's 50 years old.

Does that make him a gang member?

No. No.

I think that that was like
one of the strongest ways

that they could say, "No,
look at me, you know,

and I'm not going to go and hide."

And I am proud of...

because I remember getting my last name

on my back when I was a kid.

That was the first tat I got.

And I went to school the
next day and I wore a slingshot.

I wouldn't even wear a t shirt because I
wanted everybody to see that tat, homes.

And You know, the homeboys are like, odele,

you know, you got... you
got tatted, that's firme.

But I saw teachers and other people

and they looked down their nose at that

marking on my back
that meant so much to me.

And I just remember
thinking, you know what?

I don't care, man.

Like this... this emblem,
this badge of armor

that I'm wearing right now,

it's way, way, way more
magnetic and powerful to me

than their opinion of what they think I am.

I was brought up as a Catholic

because of, my grandmother,
you know, as a child.

So, it's always, has a meaning to me.

My religion is who I am, you know?

And culture, and I guess family.

I mean, that's who you love.

You know, that's the closest thing to you.

Your ethnicity, your family,
you know, or your culture.

And these are the things
that will never change.

And these are like the core of our...

of our representation
when it comes to tattooing.

And if you look at any
true vato from that lifestyle,

the look at the image
they wear, they're all similar.

I think that going back to

the '70s and certainly

the presence of Good
Time Charlie's Tattoo Shop

on Whittier Boulevard.

That Chicano style black and gray tattooing

moves to the shop,

where historically it
was a prison experience.

The plaqueazos, you know, the graffiti.

You know, Chicanos have
a very distinct style of graffiti.

It wasn't just tagging.

The Chicanos were creating
these really large, elaborate pieces.

A lot of it came from, from the YAs,

you know, the YA system, you know,

that's where Freddy Negretti
and all these people come in,

is because they started in there,

and I know the people
that were in there with him,

and they would do it
for the guys, wouldn't,

you know, start any fights
or violence, would let them,

okay, you guys could tattoo
each other or whatever,

you know, just stay
out of trouble, you know,

so they would start
practicing it on each other,

and those patterns started turning

into collages and stuff, you know.

I'll never live this down.
My peers are gonna kill me.

Okay, working in a prison is...

Okay.

Working in a prison is not
always what people think

or what the community thinks.

We like to have the community come

and tour the prison so
they don't have the idea that

we are the old stereotype
James Cagney type prison guards.

We're professionals.

Well, all
the traditional gang, uh,

dress from the '60s and '70s

all came out of prison.

So like you said, a shirt
folded neatly over the arm,

the white t-shirt, the khakis,

the white tennis shoes,

all that stuff was county
issue or state issue.

So guy walking down the street

who deliberately was dressing in that way

was telling everybody,

hey, I just got out of jail, you know,

or I got out of the joint.

It was completely different

and there was a big awe.

It was like I don't even
know how to describe it.

And I just knew when I was in kindergarten,

when I was in first
grade, all I wanted to do

was be a cholo, you know what I mean?

The cholo style can be khaki, iron,

certain shoes that can allow
you to run, but also be cool.

The baggy pants, the
Nike Cortez, dark lipstick,

the sharpie eyebrows.

Pants were perfectly creased

and you couldn't have
a wrinkle on your shirt.

You know, you couldn't
have a hole in your jeans.

You couldn't have a scuff on your shoes.

White tees
eventually became the thing

that Chicanos made big.

You know, the wool caps and then paletnas,

you know, and then keeping button two...

two because it actually
flared out a certain way

if you had two buttons up here.

They started stylizing

everything just like the Pachucos did.

They were still wearing their pants

like they did with the zoot suits,

except they were replaced more so

by clothing that reflected
their social conditions.

So I would say three different things.

One is the military, two is labor,

and then three is the pinta.

I ran a teen
center program in Willowbrook

for troubled kids under the
Catholic Youth Organization

and the War on Poverty.

So if you would have saw me then,

you would say he's an activist,

a liberal, a Chicano, right?

That's what I was.

But when you become a policeman,

you get to see things from the other side.

I got committed in
'91 for shooting at some cops,

and so, obviously, I
didn't like the cops for

a certain point in my life, right?

When you become a gang
member, a lot of people

believe that off the bat,

they're just killers and, you know,

they're just... they're
cold blooded individuals,

and that can be the
farthest thing from the truth.

It has a lot to do with prison.

Prison has had a huge influence over us

in a negative way.

It's made us believe that

that's where we want to go.

I think we're the only culture that

strives to go to prison.

African Americans don't do it.

Irish never did it. Italians never did it.

No other race has ever
said I want to go to the joint.

Us, as kids, even now,
I want to go to the joint.

Because we glamorize the hell out of it.

Why do you
think the cops are younger.

Basically, I don't think
they like too many Chicanos

crowded around at one time.

So they see that and then
they get... they get afraid.

They're afraid that we're
all congregating in one.

See, we don't have
adequate facilities down here

for the youths around this neighborhood.

I think it would be a good idea

if they can get some money together

to provide for them to
have some place to go,

so they would stay off the streets

like a little club house.

There's plenty of vacant
buildings around here,

which can be leased out, you know,

on the government funds or what have you.

Put the money to use,

rather than take it from us and
not use it for nuclear weapons,

or what have they, you know?

Use it for the community,
you know, use it for the kids

so they can have someplace to go

so they don't hang
around like they always are.

And then they won't be harassed.

Thy don't have no right
talking about the way you dress,

you know, the police think
that La Raza is a big gang,

you know, we just come to have fun,

meet new people, everything like that.

We ain't a gang, we just
people like to have fun.

Nicholas Rosenberg here, punching back.

I'm a private criminal defense attorney

in the Los Angeles and
Southern California area.

I'm considered to be a
certified specialist in criminal law.

And I tend to do a lot of
cases with gang allegations

and serious and violent felonies.

There's a lot of racial profiling

that happens around the gangs,

and if you see somebody, you know, 5'8

20s, 20 year old, HMA,

bald head, big white t-shirt, baggy pants,

then someone's gonna say, hey,

I think that guy might be a gangster.

So law enforcement can
initiate contact with that person.

Well, you know, everybody profiles.

We see a car.

It's driving erratically.
It's got a busted taillight.

You know, then we pull the
car over, but we didn't profile

whether he was black or white or Hispanic.

We profiled the car and the way it acted.

To just blame police
officers for all our issues?

No. At this point in time, we already know.

You're gonna sell drugs?
You're gonna go to jail, homie.

You're gonna carry a gun?
You're gonna go to jail, homie.

You're gonna shoot and kill somebody?

You're gonna go to jail, homie.

You're gonna try to pull a gun on a cop?

You're gonna get shot.

It's like, these are basic
gang banging 101 rules, homie.

You're gonna do this stupid shit?

Stupid shit's gonna happen to you,

but it seems like society is so woke.

Streets ain't woke.

You're gonna get shot and killed.

When they first started
those gang injunctions.

I said no. That's not good.

That's not a good thing.

Everybody got mad at me and they said,

"Oh, well, these injunctions are working."

I said if you tell a gang member

that he can't associate
with other gang members,

who's he gonna associate with?

Rival gang members?

If he can't hang out with his cousin,

if he can't make a phone call,

if he can't live in his own neighborhood.

A gang injunction is basically
a civil public nuisance order,

and it's designed to prevent them

from associating together.

It can prevent them from
wearing clothes, for example,

Dallas Cowboy jersey.

It can impose a curfew on
quote, known gang members.

And it really can be
disruptive to the community

because you might have a
cousin or a family member

who's also served the gang injunction

and now you can't
associate with that person.

Once that gang injunction went into place,

you can kind of tell it
became more like a...

patrolled state environment.

I mean, a lot of homies
started dwindling down

or they were getting incarcerated for

hanging out with each other.

And you got, I'm talking about

cousins and brothers and siblings, family.

Another thing I didn't
like that we were doing

was called gang sweeps.

You know, you go into a neighborhood

and you find out
everybody that has a warrant

or a suspect in something,

and then you arrest 200 gang members

and you seize 500 guns.

Those things are not effective.

That's a Band Aid.

That's a for show for
the five o'clock news.

But that doesn't really
affect the gang member.

What affects the gang members

is when you catch the guy
who actually did the shooting.

You bring him before the court

and he gets sentenced and goes to jail.

Then the neighborhood knows

they're not just picking on
us because we're Hispanic.

I think I went to prison

at a time when even
a lot of prisoners that,

you know, that's their
home at the end of the day,

they've been in there for a
long time, some of the OGs,

and I think I went to
prison during a time when

a lot of Chicanos inside prison

were becoming political conscious,

or at least it was being
broadcasted to the public that

we're no longer just going to
sit back and accept the states,

what the state called rehabilitation.

Because there is no
rehabilitation in there.

If anybody's giving us rehabilitation,

it's going to be ourselves.

When it came to getting released,

and I would go to court,
I would tell the judge

I didn't want to go home.
I wanted to stay in there.

And, you know, and they
were looking at me like,

this guy wants to stay here?

I go, I actually did.

Because they were like my...

those were like my brothers
there now. You know what I mean?

I kinda... I had a bond
with these guys, you know?

Typically, when somebody's incarcerated

in a prison environment

where everyone else is already convicted,

if they're offered the
opportunity for rehabilitation,

then their chances, their likelihood

of reoffending goes down.

What are they going to do
when they're out of prison?

How are you going to help them?

How are you going to
give them the knowledge

and the skills and whatever
they need to make it?

I think most of these guys,
and I've talked to a lot of them,

thousands and thousands
of guys in prison, want help.

They just can't get it.

I'm sitting on the beach in.

Coronado Del Mar Beach, my favorite one,

in between Laguna and Newport Beach.

I have my little cooler with my chardonnay.

I have my New York Review of Books to read.

And I saw these three or four white dudes

that looked like teachers or coaches,

and they come down to the beach from the...

there's a little hill you
have to walk down.

They come down to the beach with about

40 or 50 kids in shorts.

Most of them were Mexican.

And I found out... I found out

they were part of a juvenile group.

These guys were kept in the
house separate from the jail

and were training them and teaching them

and I started crying.

I started crying because I said

that's all our kids need,
man. Just get them.

If they want to act bad, come on.

We'll get you in an organization.

We'll supervise you.

We'll feed you. Act bad that way.

Learn ways of acting that
you're not going to kill yourself

with drugs or alcohol

or kill somebody else,
some innocent person.

Sometimes I think as Chicanos,

I think what destroyed a lot of us is,

sometimes when you have too much pride,

pride destroys and you
start killing each other.

You know, too much pride is bad.

Hip hop, by the
way, was always black and brown.

It was the Puerto Ricans
that helped create hip hop,

all five aspects of it.

And then Mexicans right away got into it.

We started getting wind
of punk rock and hip hop.

And at that time, the
skateboarding, breakdancing,

that whole scene was real big.

I remember in the late '70s and early '80s.

When Mexicans were
already doing breakdancing

before anybody saw it.

Nobody did breakdancing
in LA except Mexicans.

It wasn't even black people.

One of my earliest memories as a person,

not even as a lowrider,

but one of my earliest
childhood memories was seeing.

The Gypsy Rose come across the screen

on TV in the opening
Chico and the Man credits.

♪ Chico, don't be discouraged ♪

When it came on Chico and the Man...

we're on TV it was like it was

that car was representing us, all of us.

When I seen that thing, it
was like, you got goosebumps.

Like, man, we're on TV, you know?

And I think that's what makes
that car so famous is because

it was the first car to break that barrier.

At that point, I realized that

lowriding was much bigger

than what I knew it to be on the street

or in the park.

Lowrider Magazine was such an important

sort of, product that really
visualized lowrider culture

around the world, right?

And it played a very big role

in sort of the marketing

and dissemination of lowrider culture.

You know, they took
something that was there

and they innovated

and they looked at it
with a different perspective.

And so Sonny Madrid had
started Lowrider Magazine.

He's originally from San Jo.

But I think it's also
important to know that

he was also an activist.

So he was heavily involved,
with the Chicano movement.

When it started, you know,
in 1977, it was a magazine

by Sonny Madrid, right? And Larry Gonzalez.

It was a magazine for Chicanos by Chicanos.

And it was for the Chicano community.

And that just
created a big old explosion

because this is the first
time you could open a book,

a magazine and you could
see our people as we are

in our neighborhoods and
communities, you know?

The onset of
gangsta rap in the '90s.

You know, and that's where we
really see like the global exposure

to lowriding was through the channels

of the early '90s gangsta rap videos.

You see it in hip hop, right?

I see it with lowriding,
Chicano culture, where like,

because of globalization
and because of the Internet...

people are learning about our culture...

through the screen.

I tell you, when
I was in Japan, and you know,

there's a big cholo,
low riding culture there.

It's a subculture.

I was very amazed how

respectful the Japanese were.
'Cause part of me was saying,

"Ooh, they're appropriating our culture.

You know, part of me is,
"Okay, they're using us."

I didn't get that.

They totally love the culture,

and they give it props.

They say this is Chicano.

A lot of people take the
culture and don't say that.

And so they said this and
they really emulated it so good.

They followed it.

And so I began to respect
them for respecting us.

Yeah, like, Japan does
everything incredible.

Like anything like, artistically or...

or technically, you
know, they're like masters.

When they jump into a
culture, they go a 100% in.

Does one sole group
have ownership over lowriding?

That in and of itself is debatable, right?

So you know, it's like when I
talk about lowriding in Japan

and people that don't know any better go,

"Lowriding in Japan? That's crazy."

I'm like, is it?

What about a little white
kid in suburban America

who's taking karate lessons,

who's counting in Japanese?

Is that crazy?

But one thing I noticed,

they were all into the culture, beautiful

tattoos and everything,
but they're not gangster.

They're not killing each other.

And I'm saying, they kind
of picked up the beauty of it,

and not picked up the ugliness.

So any of you have any
questions about body of warfare?

About the conference
that's gonna be taking place

this Saturday at Mission
High School in San Francisco,

feel free to give us a call at 785-4917.

The thing that
worries me, though, is,

the body of warfare.

You know, like I'm a gringo,
and it kinda worries me,

'cause I'm in the south end of Hayward.

Mm-hmm.

And I know you're hap,

but what about all the other
dudes that's riding around,

you know, looking for some happenings?

You know, some action?

Okay, before anybody keeps calling,

I want to make some points clear.

There's a lot of youths,
there's a lot of razas

that are being murdered.

We gotta stop. We gotta stop

and realize that those persons,

regardless of their color,
regardless of their race,

are human beings.

There still are a
lot of us who live that lifestyle,

and I've seen my share
of war, and I'm over it.

I've been over it, homes.

Aggression and anger
and violence on any level.

Hey, homes, I am a
retired tough guy, for reals.

You know what I mean? I did all that.

But, to me, the strongest
gesture I can make

in this point in my life

is to totally move in a different direction

because it solves nothing
it never did and never will.

Unless you want to change,
you're never going to change.

It all comes from you, man.

You gotta want to change, you know?

Once you change yourself,

things will change with you, man.

Hey, homie, I was
wrong. I'm still in my hood,

but now when I see the
homies, instead of, you know,

trying to give them a
strap, I try to give them

a, you know, some advice,
work, get a hobbie, do this.

This is gangster, homie. People
get upset at me sometimes.

That's just being a man.
That's maybe to you.

But I'm trying to change the narrative.

Being gangster now is going to work,

taking care of your family,
putting food on the plate, man,

put a roof on top of the kid's head.

We have a beautiful culture,

Spanish, Indian, you know,

it's a beautiful culture.

Um, but they didn't
want us to be gangsters.

That's not what they wanted, right?

They built Los Angeles.

Anybody can go down to the placita

and look under that big tree at the plaque

of the founding families
that founded Los Angeles.

There they are. Their names are there.

That's the kind of people we want to be.

Making life better.

And they were Mestizos.

You know, they were
Spaniards, they were Indians,

Mulatos, whatever they were.

But they all worked together.

And we founded Los Angeles
and it became a great city.

We need that. We need that again.

You know, Howard Zinn said,

"You can't be neutral on a moving train."

And I think that that's
also true for low riding.

It's one of those things that

elicits a reaction one way or the other.

It's tough to kind of just
be like, yeah, you know,

use it for commercials, use it to look cute

because you know, it means
a lot more to certain people.

And, you know, but then me,

I just feel like, you know what, though?

At the end of the day, are we there still?

Let's, you know, let's make the best of it.

Well, you know, culture changes.

Culture changes, you know?

And that's...

I wouldn't say it's not
necessarily good or bad,

but we just have to understand
why and how it's changing.

I think that I've substituted
that hatred and the diversity

and the segregation for
a true love for our people.

And I just see it for what
it is, the cultural and how...

how strong and how amazing,
you know, our thing really is.

And so to see it tainted or harmed

by anything, you know, to
me, it don't sit right with me.

This place has given me the opportunity

to raise my family, to
be a successful person,

from being a gangbanger,
from doing six years in YA.

All that stuff and I'm still
here and I'm winning. Why?

Because America gives me that opportunity.

America's not gonna just hand it to you.

You gotta work for it.

We all swim in this economic political,

cultural matrix that is America.

You can't separate yourself from that.

And I think over time it became clear that

those dreams of kind of
creating our own autonomy,

is just not doable.

And so what you're left with
is then are the aesthetics.

Cause that is doable.

That you can do.

All that being said,
those were all good times.

Even the negative times, you know?

Like, they're... they made
cool stories now, you know?

As much as I don't think
Pachucos were a good thing,

you gotta admit, it was cool.