United States - Gangs

America's willingness to absorb large masses of refugees resulted in the importing of some of the nastiest and hardest groups of street gangs in any Western country. In New York, rival gangs of Puerto Ricans, Irish or blacks don't actually break out into spontaneous choreography when they want to settle a dispute. West Side Story has become Apocalypse Now. In L.A., fast cars and even faster weapons have elevated gangs into small armies. The weapons of choice are full-automatic weapons with semiautomatics reserved for rookies. Assault weapons, like the AK-47, Tec 9, MAC, UZI or shotguns are preferred. Most gangs are created along ethnic and neighborhood lines. Bloods and Crips are the new Hatfields and McCoys. The gangsta look has become big business now. Baggy pants, work shirts, short hair, and that unique gangsta lean have all been adopted by freckle-faced kids from Iowa. Gangsta music has towheaded kids reciting tales of inner-city woes, just as their parents were able to recite "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini." The new proponents of this violent/hip culture seem to live life a little too close to their lyrics. Rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. both probably wish they had been singing Barney's theme of "I love you, you love me." In Los Angeles, there are over 800 gangs with 30,000 members. There are at least 1,000 homicides every year and well over 1,000 drive-by shootings. According to figures presented to the White House, there are 500,000 gang members in 16,000 gangs in the United States. Eight hundred American cities are home to these gangs, compared to 100 in 1970. Fifty-seven percent of towns with over 25,000 residents have reported gang-related incidents.

But gangsterism in America is not black, white and Hispanic. Gang members come in all flavors. The most dangerous gangs in America are the new Asian gangs, groups of Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laotian and Filipino youths whose families came from the refugee camps, killing fields and dung heaps of Southeast Asia. Chinese-American gang members are being blamed for the February 25, 1996, murder of Cambodian actor Dr. Haing Ngor, a former refugee of the Khmer Rouge and the star of the 1984 movie The Killing Fields. After enduring four years of savage brutality under the Khmer Rouge during the guerrilla group's reign of terror between 1975 and 1979, the Academy Award-winning doctor was ironically slain in the land of the free, for a Buddhist amulet.

Crips

www.crips.com

Bloods

www.bloods.com