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HOMIES AND HERMANOS


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H O M I E S A N D H E R M A N O S

God and Gangs in Central America

by

ROBER BRENNEMAN


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Oxord University Press, Inc., publishes works that urtherOxord University’s objective o excellence

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Library o Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataBrenneman, Robert E.

Homies and hermanos : God and the gang in Central America / Robert Brenneman.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical reerences (p.) and index.ISBN 978-0-19-975384-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-19-975390-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Church work with juvenile delinquents—Central America. 2. Ex-gang members—Religious lie—CentralAmerica. 3. Christian converts—Central America. 4. Evangelicalism—Central America. I. itle.

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For Rachel Sueand or América Gabriela


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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: JJ’s Second Marriage 31. From Pandilla to Mara 21

2. “Christian, Not Catholic” 493. urning Shame into Violence 634. Dodging the Morgue Rule 117

5. ¡A-Dios, homies! 1536. Samaritans and Crusaders 189

Conclusion 235

Appendix A: Methods 247

Appendix B: Selected Characteristics o Interviewed Ex-gang Members 263

Appendix C: A Primer o Gang Vocabulary 267

Notes 271

Reerences 277

Index 287


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BRENNEMAN-Acknowledgments-Revised Proo ix August 12, 2011 3:08 AM

Acknowledgments

Where to begin? A work o this nature passes through many, many stagesand I am grateul to everyone who read and commented on a chapter ora paper that became a chapter. Among them are Chris Smith, Andy Wei-gert, Jessica Collett, David Smilde, Chris Hausmann, Steve Offut, GeorgiDerlugian, Randall Collins, Ed Flores, Andrew Johnson, Gaby Ochoa,Meredith Whitnah, Mark Baker, Claudia Dary, Lily Keyes, NatalieElvidge, and the members o the Research on Religion and Society sem-inar at Notre Dame. In addition, many scholars provided comments onpresentations o my work at the University o Illinois at Chicago, theUniversity o Vermont, Calvin College, Boston University, and NotreDame, as well as at multiple meetings or the Association or the Soci-

ology o Religion and the Society or the Scientic Study o Religion.John Hagedorn, Randall Collins, Nelson Portillo, Robert Fishman, andLuis Vivanco stand out among those who offered thoughtul comments.wo anonymous reviewers at Oxord University Press provided excel-lent, detailed critiques o a rst draf o this manuscript that helped meto ocus my efforts and improve the book. Cynthia Read’s expert adviceand strong encouragement throughout the process was also crucial.

Much earlier in the process, a number o Central Americans helpedorient a sociologist o religion who was obviously wading into new ter-

ritory. Emilio Goubaud, Maricruz Barillas, Fr. Julio Coyoy, Marco Cas-tillo, Rodolo Keper, Harold Sibaja, and Willy Hugo Perez in Guatemalaas well as Ernesto Bardales, René Correa, Ricardo orres, and OndinaMurillo in Honduras all gave me valuable insight and crucial leads thathelped get the project off the ground. Dennis Smith, whose insight onCentral American evangelicalism and Guatemalan politics has aided thecareers o many a gringo scholar, took the time to sit down and talk


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religion and politics with me on more than one occasion over the years.I owe my curiosity about the sociology o Central American Pentecos-

talisms to having interpreted dozens o his pláticas . In graduate schooland beyond, Carlos Mendoza has been an important conversation part-ner and an extremely knowledgeable connection to the world o CentralAmerican scholarship.

Tomas Scheff once compared academia to an urban street gangcomplete with its own set o rituals o belonging and status hierarchies.He was certainly on to something, and so I have many compadres andraneros to thank or walking with me through chequeo and (nonvio-lently) jumping me in. At Eastern Mennonite University, Omar Eby,

Loren McKinney, Barb Graber, and Jay Landis instilled in me a love ohuman stories and a deep respect or the power o storytelling in acili-tating human connection and transormation. I hope you will toleratethe act that my rst book is a work o social science and not a piece oliterature. Ray Horst taught me to love Spanish and encouraged apreacher’s kid rom rural Michigan to think about graduate school orthe rst time. More important, in the classroom and abroad he intro-duced me to the violently beautiul Central America that he himsel hadallen in love with decades earlier. ¡Gracias Ramoncito! Around the same

time, Doug Frank encouraged me to pay attention to the role o shamein social relations, though I ignored the advice or many years. At NotreDame, Christian Smith proved an invaluable supervisor and mentorwho never tired o hearing me doubt mysel and my work—or nevertold me so i he did. Tat this book exists is at least as much to his creditas to mine. Other aculty whose encouragement must be mentionedinclude Maureen Hallinan, Rory McVeigh, Erika Sommers-Effl er, Rob-ert Fishman, Lyn Spillman, and David Sikkink. Te Center or the Studyo Religion and Society provided an excellent place to air some o the

ideas contained here both in seminar ormat and in inormal contexts. Igreatly value the input o ellow graduate students Jonathan Hill, BrianMiller, and Chris Morrissey. Although we have no tattoos bearing wit-ness to our solidarity, the encouragement and collegiality o this littleband o lunchtime sociologists and cultural critics helped me survive alonely patch o dissertation writing and sel-doubt. At Saint Michael’sCollege, Vince Bolduc has made me eel at home by being a good riendand capable mentor.


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xiAcknowledgment

Several institutions provided me with crucial nancial support orresearching and writing the dissertation. Te Kellogg Center at Notre

Dame provided me with unding or travel, and the Institute or Study inthe Liberal Arts at Notre Dame as well as the Society or the ScienticStudy o Religion provided grants that subsidized the writing process.Mennonite Central Committee also awarded me a small (Mennonite-sized) alumni grant or research. More important, the MCC offi ce inHonduras provided me with ree lodging and a nighttime offi ce in SanPedro Sula, and gave me a blessing that opened doors or me in a varietyo neighborhoods and institutions. Tanks to Darrin, Julie, and Jeff orgoing out o your way to help me. Perhaps most important o all, MCC

taught me how to get around Central America on a very tight budget.Afer years o living on a $62-per-month volunteer’s stipend, my rstgrant o ve grand seemed like a bottomless war chest.

In Guatemala, the staff at ¡Adios atuajes! opened wide its doors orme due to the remarkable trust and passion o Edgar Franco. Te currentand ormer staff o SEMILLA must also be thanked both or the manyyears o riendship offered me prior to graduate school and or pro- viding me with a place to work during the early stages o the disserta-tion. Raael Escobar, Mario Higueros, Willy Hugo Pérez, and Hector

Argueta have all contributed greatly to whatever knowledge and pas-sion I possess regarding the intersections o religion and violence inCentral America.

Ondina Murillo and the staff at Proyecto Paz y Justicia in La Ceiba,Honduras practically dropped everything whenever I was in town inorder to help me. In particular, Dennis Mata, PPyJ’s local peace and jus-tice promoter and gang interventionist, introduced me to many ormergang members o La López Arellano barrio and spent multiple afer-noons discussing religion and lie on the streets over ried chicken or

plaintain chips. Te respect that the jovenes o that neighborhood haveor Hermano Dennis was obvious wherever we went, and allowed me tohit the ground running rather than spend weeks or months trying todevelop leads and generate interviews. ¡Mil gracias vos!

In San Salvador, the staff at JovenES and Proyecto San Andrés allowedme to tag along and went out o their way to help my project on shortnotice. Idalia Argueta at CRISPAZ and Fr. José Morataya at El Polígonoalso gave me generous, extensive interviews and contacts.


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xii Acknowledgment

A veritable support group o amily and riends kept me going onthe project when I wondered i any o it would amount to anything.

Norma and Jeremías Ochoa provided me ree room and board (andgrandkid-sitting) whenever I was in Guatemala, and Jeremías espe-cially offered the unique advice and support that only a sociologist andather-in-law could provide. Mark Baker deserves to be singled out ortimely support and encouragement that helped me name and escapemy own “shame spiral” during multiple moments o writer’s block. Mythree brothers gave patient support to their “black sheep” academicbrother and tolerated my occasional sociological rant at amily gather-ings. I have my ather to thank or passing on to me a sociability that

disarmed skeptical gatekeepers and won over many an interviewee.But it was my mother who inspired me to the intellectual lie and tosocial and cultural critique. More o a “kitchen sink intellectual” thanan “armchair intellectual,” or she could never sit still or a moment,Mom taught me to be curious about the world around me and to relishhonest debate. Tat I have been the beneciary o so many academicand travel opportunities not available to her is a knowledge that makesme all the more determined to make the most o them.

O course, Mom and Dad also taught me the wonder and privilege o

being part o a amily—a privilege that can easily end up at loggerheadswith the demands o publishing a book while teaching a load o courses.Tus I cannot escape acknowledging the act that I have not alwaysexcelled at navigating the book-versus-amily demands effortlessly.Many thanks to Gaby, Nico, and Gabito or tolerating my our-year ob-session and or making real sacrices that allowed this book to becomea reality. In act, Gaby did more than just pick up the slack or a disser-tating husband. Her native ear was an invaluable resource whenever Ineeded to test a translation, which proved requent since the book is

lled with translated street slang. Even more important were the count-less volunteer hours she put into transcribing interviews in order tospeed up the transcription process and hustle up a stalled researcher. Ameasly agradecimiento here hardly begins to express the depth o mygratitude. Still, ¡De veras, te agradezco!

I owe my greatest debt o gratitude to the sixty-three men and womenwho made this project possible by detailing their own experience oleaving the gang. It is my rm belie that the orthrightness o their


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sharing and the streetwise articulacy that characterizes so many o theinterviews represent the key contribution o this book. I have tried to

be true to their desire to tell their stories by beginning each chapterwith extended pieces o a single ex-gang member’s biography in hisown words while incorporating the pithy phrases o multiple ex-gangmembers throughout the book. I sincerely hope that some element othe human resilience o these interviews has managed to survive trans-lation and conronts the reader as it conronted me when I rst con-ducted them. It is my prayer that sharing these stories may help todiminish the odds that any more o these youth will meet the ate o elPanadero and the many other ex- (and active) gang members whose

lives have been extinguished by social cleansing and the boomerango gang violence.


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Introduction: JJ’s Second Marriage

o get out o the gang alive is hard, HARD. Our leader, a ranero [gang

lord] once told me, “Here, there is only one way to get out, and that’s inyour pine-box suit.”1 —Nefalí, ormer member o Guatemalan White Fence

attooed in bold cursive script across the shoulders o Juan José obar2 are the words, “Why should I all in love with lie when I’m alreadymarried to death?”3 Juan José, or “JJ” as his riends today call him,spent sixteen years as a member and then leader o a violent GuatemalaCity cell o the transnational gang called the “White Fence.” Te twenty-eight-year-old Guatemalan has spent years o his lie in GuatemalaCity’s juvenile detention centers, prisons, and hospitals and has sur- vived three gunshots, nine stabbings, and the complete ailure o onelung due to substance abuse. He candidly admits, though without anypride or pleasure, to having killed or ordered the deaths o multipleindividuals, mostly rival gang members. Tese killings are symbolicallyrepresented by three tattooed tears underneath his right eye—the gangequivalent o a “stripe” or eliminating a rival. attooed on his eyelidsare the letters “W” and “F.” Beneath the slogan on his shoulders, amural o tattoos on his torso and arms depict the gang’s ethos, a visual

creed composed o emale genitalia, gang “homies” dressed in the“cholo” style, and marijuana leaves, as well as the skulls, graves, andames that represent his gang “matrimony.” But now JJ’s tattoos speakdifferently than they used to. oday they speak o a ormer lie—onethat ended three years ago when JJ took the dangerous step o leavingthe gang or good. JJ is an ex -gang member.

When I rst met JJ it was at his new place o employment, a computerhardware wholesaler located on a main thoroughare o Guatemala’s


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upscale “Zona Viva.” Our meeting had been arranged by cell phonethrough the recommendation o a ormer member and cell leader o the

gang, Mara Dieciocho , Antonio “the Bread Maker.” Antonio’s brother, alsoa ormer gang member, had been killed only two months earlier by theopposing gang, Mara Salvatrucha . JJ himsel had warned me over thephone that we would have to conduct the interview at his place o worksince he recently received a death threat and could not venture outside thewarehouse compound except to go directly to his home in another area othe city. In his home neighborhood, he later inormed me, he eels sae, buton public transportation or on the street, he always has to keep an eye out.

In the taxi on the way to the meeting, I worried about what to expect.

My wie, like most Guatemalans, ears gang members, “reormed” ornot, and worried that I had not taken enough precautions this time in vetting the interviewee. She insisted that I call just beore and immedi-ately afer the interview to let her know I was sae. While most o myinterviews with ex-gang members so ar had been arranged throughtrusted gatekeepers, through proessionals in substance abuse, or atrehabilitation centers or tattoo-removal clinics, this meeting had beenset up afer a short telephone conversation in which JJ, in his husky voice and direct manner, asked about my study and what kind o ques-

tions I wanted to ask and then told me to meet him at work on the ol-lowing day. When I arrived at the warehouse and inquired at the securitygate, a small, thin man emerged rom the building wearing long sleevesunder his dark company polo and a hat pulled low over his eyes.Although his coworkers are aware o his past and treat him cordially, JJwears a baseball cap and long sleeves whenever he leaves the home inorder to hide his tattoos and reduce the risk o being spotted by a ormerenemy or by off-duty police offi cers. He wants to avoid the ate o somany other ex-gang members, killed on account o decisions made in a

ormer lie. Te company manager, upon learning o the nature o myinterview had offered the use o a plush boardroom to carry out theinterview. Te boss, a sof-spoken Guatemalan about JJ’s age but withlighter skin and a degree in engineering, had hired JJ six months earlierbecause he is a rare businessman who believes in giving ex-gang mem-bers a second chance. In the boardroom, JJ began to tell the story o hislie in the gang—a story alternately dramatic and tragic, all too commonin the barrios o Central America. He spoke slowly at rst but afer a


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time he began to relax, demonstrating eloquence well beyond his threeyears o ormal schooling:

I entered the gang not because anyone told me to join but because my

amily was so poor that they could not provide me with an education,

shoes, or clothing. And in addition to being poor, they treated me hor-

ribly. My mother would beat me. My brother would kick me. Tey would

torture me—a six-year-old—and it made me look to the streets or reuge.

O his immediate amily members, JJ spoke well only o his ather,who was killed by poisoning when JJ was only eight years old. When

that happened, “It was as i everything had died,” he said. “I saw him,dead on December 25, 1989 and I got on my knees and promised that Iwould avenge his death. It was a promise I made to mysel.” It was apromise that the young gang member would ulll only a ew years later.Originally rom Escuintla, a rough-and-tumble industrial town aboutan hour south o Guatemala City, JJ moved with his abusive olderbrother to the capital afer his ather’s death. Tere he hoped to nally beable to go to school and “become someone—maybe a doctor or a lawyer.”But the abuse continued and even worsened. “My brother wore cowboy

boots and he would kick me in the ace until my orehead bled. I couldn’tstand it so I took to the streets. Tere I ound riends, companions wholistened to me. Tey would say, ‘Yeah man. What a jerk. Why don’t youhang out with us?’”

But their moral support also carried an expectation. When JJ wasnine, a group o older gang members asked him to “prove” his loyalty byrobbing a corner store using a.38 revolver. Although the request appearsto have been as much a dare as an assignment, JJ nevertheless decided totake the opportunity to show his mettle. He burst into the store, aimed

his gun at the young man behind the counter, and told him to give himthe money in the cash register.

“Hey you, this is a stick-up!” I said. “Give me your money please, but

right now!” Te guy started to laugh. When he started to laugh, all at once

I saw in his ace the ace o my brother and then I snapped and started

shouting, “I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you!” I’m not sure what

he saw in my ace but right then he opened the drawer and gave me the


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money and told me, “Get out o here but don’t kill me.” I went back to the

gang and that’s when they knew I had potential. Tey started taking me

with them to rob other places and pretty soon they didn’t do the robbingany more. Instead they would send me in to do it. I worked or them. But

through this I started catching the vision o the gang.

In the experience o the armed robbery and through the ensuingcrimes, JJ was learning how to translate shame rom childhood abuseinto anger, and anger into intimidation and violence. He was capturingthe “vision” o the gang. During the next decade and a hal, JJ dedicatedhimsel to expanding this vision. When “Skinny,” the local cell leader

who had recruited him was killed, JJ saw his chance to become the newleader or ranero . He called a meeting where he presented his “creden-tials” as the man or the job.

As a new ranero I laid out my vision o making my clique the worst o all

cliques—the most subversive, the most evil, the most powerul, the most

murderous, the one that moved the most drugs and had the most power

in prison, the most respected on the outside by all Guatemalans.

By then JJ’s resume was long. He had proven his ability to handleweapons and move drugs. Unimpeded by anyone else, he took the po-sition and immediately began recruiting. Under his charge the cellgrew to thirty-our gang members in his own neighborhood and feenin a start-up cell in Escuintla. “I started bringing in more people andthey weren’t coming in because I was orcing them. Te same thing washappening to them that happened to me. Tey were being abused too.Tey were looking or attention and they ound it with me. I gave themattention and took an interest in them.” He also gave new names to in-

coming members—English nicknames with an oddly affectionate ring.A young girl with striking good looks he called “Baby.” A young boyknown or his cleverness he called “Flipper” afer the dolphin in thetelevision series.

But as the gang grew so did JJ’s reputation, and his growing notorietymade him a target to both other gangs and the police. His list o enemiesgrew and the police began arresting him or more and more seriouscrimes. In prison he continued to direct gang activities and his “homies”


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brought him news, money, and drugs. Afer spending several years inand out o juvenile detention and then prison, JJ began to suffer rom

lung dysunction due to regular consumption o marijuana and cocaine.Meanwhile his growing list o enemies was making it almost impossibleto sleep at night. “I would sleep with three or our weapons by my side.One in my belt, one under my pillow, another under the mattress andsometimes even one in my hand.” Even his mother’s concern had turnedto ear. “My mother came to ear me greatly. Greatly. And she decidednot to speak to me anymore. She would just give me whatever I asked orand then some.” By the time JJ reached his twenties he had succeeded inestablishing “respect”—he was eared by many—but only at the price o

trust. Unable to trust or be trusted by anyone, his “marriage to death”had made him the ultimate outsider, cut off rom everything but thegang and connected to that institution only through his weapons andhis tattoos.

CONVERSION: THE MOVE TO ANOTHER PLANET

JJ’s descent into criminal violence tracks the wider phenomenon ogangs in Central America in the 1990s. Te “White Fence” to which hebelonged is a lesser-known group compared with the ar more prevalent Mara Salvatrucha and the Mara Dieciocho , but like these gangs, theWhite Fence traces its roots to the immigrant communities o SouthernCaliornia (Vigil 1988). Tese gangs became established and powerulin Central America afer a series o deportation initiatives by the LosAngeles Police Department brought thousands o immigrant youth withcriminal records back to Central America (Arana 2005; Quirk 2008).

Te increasing availability o drugs and weapons coupled with minimalsocial spending and a weak and corrupt police orce allowed the gangsto grow exponentially during the 1990s while orging transnational tiesthrough the increase o cell phone communication and migration. Tisgrowing effi ciency and organization was accompanied by more rigidrules regarding membership. Te slogan etched on JJ’s body illustratesone o the major themes characterizing these new “transnational” gangso Central America—a rule I heard so ofen that I came to call it “the


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morgue rule.” Most gang members are told when they join one oCentral America’s transnational gang cells, that their new commitment

must last hasta la morgue —that is, “all the way to the morgue.” Andmany Central Americans, both gang members and onlookers, haveconcluded that the morgue rule is true, believing that “once a gangmember, always a gang member.” And yet, here was JJ, ully tattooed andlooking very much like a gang member but working, paying bills andhelping other youth to leave the gang or stay out altogether. Is it possibleto truly leave the gang with no strings attached—to remain sae, leavedrugs and violence, nd work, start a amily, and start over again?

Many would say no. Father José “Pepe” Morataya o San Salvador, a

Spanish Salesian who goes by “Padre Pepe” is one o them. Although hehas helped a number o gang members leave the gang in the past byteaching them trades such as bread baking or metalwork, he made it very clear to me that he believes that the Salvadoran gangs o today nolonger allow or deserters. At best they allow gang members to becomewhat some call pandilleros calmados, or “settled-down gang members”who reduce their criminality and seek reintegration but continue to holdallegiance to the gang and ofen are expected to continue paying dues orweapons or to help out in the event o a major operation. But or Padre

Pepe, severing all ties with the gang by becoming an “ex-gang member”is not an option or the gang youth today. Other experts are nearly asskeptical. Te well-known Jesuit sociologist Ricardo Falla likens thegang to “a prison cell with many bars.” Many gang members are trappedby the threat o physical death rom the homies who view the exitinggang member as a traitor as well as the threat o a “social death” at thehands o a society that loathes him or what he represents (Cruz andPortillo 1998). For who can trust a gang member who has taken an oatho solidarity, burned his allegiance onto his body, and “married death”?

In act, when I asked a Guatemalan psychiatrist who treats incarceratedgang youth what can be done to help a gang member leave his gang andreintegrate into society, he shook his head in silence or several momentsand nally offered a suggestion: “ake them to another planet.”

With a ew exceptions, the only alternative “planet” that governmentshave offered gang members like JJ as an attempt to persuade them to leavethe gang is that o the prison. Police and military orces have taken toconducting neighborhood sweeps, which have led to massive arrests


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ofen based on little more than the presence o a tattoo. But in CentralAmerica’s overcrowded and underunded prisons, gang members have

simply congregated, honing their skills, networking with drug dealers,and directing operations with their homies on the outside. Instead o“corrections” or reorm, the prisons have become “graduate schools ocrime” where homies enhance their skills and “earn their stripes” by doingtime or the gang. Understandably angry about the government’s inabilityto arrest the spiraling crime in the region, many Central American’s haveconcluded that the best way to “deal with” the violent and incorrigiblegang youth like JJ—especially given his vow o lielong commitment tothe gang—is simply to eliminate them. Evidence o “social cleansing,” or

extrajudicial killing o gang members by off-duty police or hit men asso-ciated with the military , has begun to mount as bodies o gang membersappear daily on the streets, ofen bearing the marks o torture that hearkenback to the political violence o an earlier time (Moser and Winton 2002;Payne 1999; Ranum 2007). In Guatemala, a national newspaper reportedin 2007 that 60 percent o Guatemalans polled supported social cleansingas one means o dealing with gang violence (R.M. Aguilar 2007b).Supporters o social cleansing seem to believe in effect, “I the gangs areso enamored o death, then why not let them have it?”

But despite the pessimism on the part o the government, the media,and even some social scientists, and despite ominous warnings romtheir erstwhile gang mates, JJ and hundreds o others like him haveindeed managed to nd a way out o the gang leaving violence and drugsbehind, land a steady job, and start over. Despite his tattoos and his crim-inal record, and in spite o the “morgue rule,” JJ has managed to live downhis tattoo by “alling in love with lie.” But in order to do this, he has donethe next best thing to “moving to another planet”—he has become anevangelical Christian. o listen to JJ today is to hear the voice o an old-

ashioned evangélico who has thoroughly adopted the identity o un her-mano , or “brother in the aith,” in place o his homie identity. He peppershis speech with Bible verses and thanks the Lord or everything. He hasbegun a ministry out o his home called “Freed by Christ” aimed at con- vincing gang members to leave the gang and join the church, and hespeaks at evangelical and charismatic Catholic revival meetings or youth.Even his hair is combed in the decidedly old-ashioned evangelicalmanner, parted on the side instead o slicked back as it used to be. JJ took


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the long route in leaving the gang by going in a very short time rom thedecidedly rough and hyper-macho homie to the domesticated hermano .

On the ace o it, JJ’s approach to leaving seems both easy and un-likely. On the one hand, joining a church is uncomplicated. What couldbe easier than running into the open arms o the spiritualistic, conver-sionist Christianity o the Central American evangélicos ? On the otherhand, succeeding as a member o an evangelical congregation, with itsteetotaling moralism and “cold turkey” expectations or liestyle changesseems less than likely. Evangelical congregations do not seem to presentmuch in the way o attractions or the hyper-macho male gang memberaccustomed to trading emale partners, toting weapons, and generating

instant and sometimes plentiul income through thef and extortion.What on earth could make possible such a drastic reversal o identityand what would cause a gang member to opt or what seems like themost unlikely o identity transormations?

Tis book is a sociological exploration o the transormation thatmany gang youth take rom “homie” to evangelical hermano .4 Whatmakes a gang homie trade in his gun or a Bible? And what does thetrade teach us more broadly about the nature o youth violence, oreligious conversion, and o evangelical churches in Central America?

o answer these questions I interviewed a total o sixty-three ormergang members, fy-nine men and our women, in all three countrieso the “Northern riangle” o Central America—Guatemala, El Salva-dor, and Honduras—the only countries with high concentrations ogang members and gang violence.5 I rst learned o the phenomenono conversion as a pathway out o the gang when reading a chapterwritten by Ileana Gomez and Manuel Vásquez (2001) on Salvadoranex-gang members and evangelical ministries. As I read urther in theedgling literature on Central American gangs, the claim about evan-

gelical conversions out o the gangs kept on suracing, whether citedby skeptics as a naïve rumor (Foro Ecuménico por la Paz y la Recon-ciliación 2006) or noted in passing by researchers recounting interviews with residents o gang-controlled neighborhoods (López 2004;Winton 2005). Because I wanted to know whether the phenomenonwas an overreported rarity or a relatively requent occurrence, I con-tacted and interviewed ex-gang members in a variety o set-tings including evangelical and Catholic-sponsored organizations and


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nonreligious nongovernmental organizations, as well as prisons anddry-out centers. I contacted some o the ex-gang members via “snow-

ball sampling” using interviewees to generate new contacts. Otherswere contacted through trusted gatekeepers such as priests, pastors,and government rehabilitation offi cers. Generating a random samplewas out o the question, since no gang membership lists exist, muchless a list o ex-members. But by interviewing all ex-gang memberswho sought services at a walk-in tattoo-removal clinic over the courseo several weeks, I was able to improve my sample by reducing theodds o encountering only ex-gang members who had been pre-selected on the basis o their lie history or because o their “success”

afer leaving the gang. While none o these measures guarantees thatthe ex-gang members I interviewed are representative in a statisticalsense, both the variety o geographic contexts and the stories I encoun-tered allow me a certain condence in trusting that the sample is notoverly biased toward religious ex-gang members.6 Afer all, I wantedto hear more than just conversion stories. I wanted to compare thesestories with the critical and comparative perspectives o those ex-gangmembers who lef the gang without converting.

In addition to my interviews with ex-gang members themselves, I

interviewed more than thirty experts and practitioners working attwenty-seven organizations and ministries aimed at reducing gang vio-lence. Tese interviews proved invaluable in helping me to understandthe broader social context affecting gang exit. Because many o theseexperts knew the ex-gang members I interviewed, they were able to veriy some o the incidents and experiences reported by the ex-gangmembers themselves. Finally, in addition to the interviews with ex-gangmembers and experts, I took eld notes during trips to prisons, pastoral visits, excursions in “red zone” neighborhoods, and an evangelistic cam-

paign aimed specically at “winning” gang members to evangelical aith.

RELIGION AND THE PROBLEM OF GANG VIOLENCE

My interest in the role o religion in Central America began in the early1990s during a semester o cross-cultural study in Guatemala City. In a


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region marked by crippling oreign debt and political violence, westudied issues o poverty and war in the nascent democracies o the

region. I returned to Guatemala shortly afer the close o the civil war tolive and work as a member o the Mennonite volunteer corps, leadingcross-cultural seminars dealing with violence, poverty, and culture inthat country and its neighbors. During these years, the central issuesacing Central Americans o the “Northern riangle” o Guatemala,Honduras, and El Salvador began to shif perceptibly rom land reormand political violence to ghting political corruption and addressingrampant crime. oday, when Central Americans in these nations areasked to rank their most pressing concerns, addressing street crime is

usually at or near the top (Latinobarómetro 2010; Pew 2002). During sixyears o working and living in Guatemala City, I watched and listened asthe gangs became a daily topic o conversation, and a political and mediaobsession. Gang graffi ti grew more and more common, the murder raterose, and by the early 2000s it seemed that no evening news report wascomplete without ootage o police offi cers parading “captured” gangmembers into the back o a police pickup—tattoos and hand signalsashing, and heads held high or the cameras. In Honduras and El Sal- vador, conservative presidential candidates promising “iron-st” polices

rode a wave o anti-gang sentiment into offi ce. Meanwhile, in Guate-mala, the inamous Guatemalan army had ound a new raison d’être inthe “joint” military/police orces dispatched to combat gangs by patrol-ling the streets rom pickup trucks mounted with gun turrets andautomatic weapons. Avoiding assault by a gang member had become adaily concern or anyone riding public transportation to and rom aneighborhood “controlled” by the gang. By the time I lef the region in2003, gangs were collecting thousands o dollars in “war taxes” throughmaa-style extortion o bus drivers, homeowners, and small business

operators. Tough the masterminds behind the ar more lucrative bankrobberies and kidnappings continued to be the organized crime bosses,gang members’ low social class and high visibility made them easy tar-gets or politicians and other “moral entrepreneurs” seeking a scape-goat. Las maras (the gangs) had become public enemy number one.

But my interest went beyond the gangs and gang violence. I was alsointrigued by the role o religion in an increasingly violent society. Mywork in Central America had been at a Mennonite seminary with a deep


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commitment to nonviolence and a “holistic” gospel o social andspiritual liberation. My colleagues on the theological aculty strove to

“wake up” pastors and lay leaders to the realities o structural and polit-ical violence around them and a key concern in many o the courses wasto counter the emotional, Pentecostalist tendencies increasingly ap-parent in many o the congregations o the denomination. For someamong the aculty, the emotionalism o amped-up religious services andthe emphasis on spiritual conversion smacked o escapism that couldeasily get in the way o the “real work” o teaching the aithul to practice justice and promote peace. And yet the Pentecostalized churches thatmade up many o our constituent congregations seemed mostly to be

thriving among Mennonites as well as other historic Protestant churcheso the region (Chesnut 2003; Smith and Higueros 2005). Te memberso these congregations ofen seemed more interested in a spiritual oremotional liberation than in liberation o a political nature. Some othese congregations were very involved in addressing the nagging socialproblems o their local communities. But invariably they used spirituallanguage to rame such involvement. Tus, my entrance into graduateschool back in the United States came by way o the sociology o religionand an attempt better to understand the intersections between religion

and society in violent, impoverished communities. Does religion incontemporary Central America make any difference now that the energyo Pentecostals and charismatics has eclipsed that o the liberationists?Specically, what do the churches in Central America—evangelical andCatholic—have to say or do about the gang violence that now scourgestheir neighborhoods?

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

In Chapter 1 (in this volume) I give a brie overview o the currentresearch on the Central American gangs, much o it published byscholars in the region, especially rom the Jesuit Universidad de Cen-troamérica in San Salvador. By reviewing the ndings o much o theempirical literature to date, I set the gang phenomenon in its sociohis-torical context and briey explore some o the key social and political


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actors that contributed to the emergence o transnational gangs innorthern Central America.

It is clear that the Central American gangs o today are not the mildlydelinquent street gangs o a generation ago. Nor are they the same astheir counterparts in the United States, where most gang members areexpected to “age out” o the gang by early adulthood. Te inux onarco-business brought on by the squeezing o the traditional drugroutes o the Caribbean in the early 1990s has vastly increased theincome-generating opportunities or the gangs and helped them toacquire increasingly sophisticated weapons. In addition to providingopportunities or income through drug sales, many gangs have taken

“tur protection” to a new extreme by levying “war taxes” on neighbors,bus and taxi drivers, and small business owners in their own commu-nities, orcing them to pay hefy extortion ees or ace the threat o deathor abduction. In Guatemala alone in 2008, there were eighty-ve mur-ders o bus drivers, many alleged to be ordered by a single gang boss othe Mara Dieciocho (Notimex 2009). Te income rom drugs and extor-tion allows gang leaders to buy off woeully underpaid local police andgain a measure o impunity, at least or a time. It also makes recruitingand keeping youth much easier by allowing them to offer “real money”

to active members.Chapter 2 turns the attention to evangelical religion. Here I intro-

duce the concept o “barrio evangelicalism” to describe the evangeli-cal-Pentecostal congregations o small to medium size which populatethe working-class and marginal neighborhoods o Central America.Tese congregations share the social space occupied by many gangcells and they are the congregations to which many o the convertedex-gang members I interviewed now belong and where they partici-pate actively. While I ound no evidence o an illicit connection or re-

lationship between gangs and churches, I point out similaritiesbetween the social structures o evangelical churches and transna-tional gang cells, including their ranchise-like organization and theirentrepreneurial growth model. But the differences between the twosocial phenomena are considerable and these differences are clearestwhen examining the value systems o each. While the gang promotesa hedonistic vision o pleasure pursuits, evangelicals, especially thepietistic hermanos o barrio evangelicalism, promote strict moralistic


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prohibitions aimed at eliminating alcohol and tobacco use and curbingand domesticating sexuality.

Chapters 3 and 4 (in this volume) shif ocus back to the gang, butthis time at the micro-level o everyday experience. In Chapter 3 I minethe stories o ex-gang members or clues as to why Central Americanyouth join the gang in the rst place. o date, most research on gangentrance in Central America has identied the “usual suspects”: poverty,unemployment, and dysunctional or abusive amilies. Tese explana-tions are not untrue, but they do not explain enough. I employ the toolso symbolic interaction theory and the sociology o emotions to morecareully speciy what it is about the experience o poverty or abuse that

“pushes” youth toward the gang and what it is about the gang that “pulls”them toward becoming a homie. Drawing heavily rom testimonies oex-gang members, I argue that joining the gang is not a one-time,momentary decision but an interactive process in which youth “try on”the gang member identity by becoming a gang “sympathizer” andspending time with the gang, learning about its rituals and symbols.Although not all sympathizers eventually join, those who do ofenreported “eeling good” when they experienced violence, even when itwas directed at their own person, as in the jumping-in ritual called a

“baptism.” Borrowing rom Tomas Scheff’s work on shame as a keyactor in human interaction (Scheff 1988, 1991, 2004), I argue that dis-enranchised youth are drawn to the gang because it offers the opportu-nity to avoid acknowledging eelings o shame, “bypassing” shamethrough the experience o violence, “adult” pastimes such as sex anddrug abuse, and solidarity rom eeling part o a group.

But the “good eeling” experienced through participation in crimeand violence tends to wear off afer a while and can in act become a newsource o shame. Chapter 4 examines what happens when the violence

o the gang begins to “catch up” with the homies and the gang tattoosstart to eel more like a “stain” than a source o pride. I examine the var-ious motivations that ex-gang members reported began pushing themto consider leaving the gang, as well as the enormous obstacles standingin the way o their ollowing through on that desire. Remarkably scantresearch has been published on the matter o gang exit since most studieso Central American gangs have instead examined the actors causinggang members to join. Tis emphasis makes sense up to a point. Afer


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all, i the object is to arrest the growth o the gangs, then the old adageapplies: “An ounce o prevention is worth a pound o cure.” Unortu-

nately, the ocus on prevention means that we know very little romempirical research about why and how some youth manage to leave thegang and what actors stand in the way o their doing so.

In spite o the of-repeated warning that joining the gang commitsyouth “all the way to the morgue,” more than a ew gang members havemade successul exits. Among the sixty-three ormer gang members Iinterviewed or the study, I know o only one so ar who was unable toovercome the rst obstacle, that o staying alive. Among the other sixty-two, many are thriving, while others are getting by through help rom

amily or riends who encouraged them to leave the gang in the rstplace. A majority o the ex-gang members I interviewed reported expe-riencing a religious conversion during or soon afer leaving the gang.Like JJ, they ound in evangelical religion an effective means or address-ing the obstacles to leaving and starting over outside the gang. Chapter5 examines the nature o these religious conversions and explores howex-gang member converts ound evangelical religion to be both advan-tageous and effective. Te story there is both surprising and instructive.Multiple inormants in all three countries told me that many gang

leaders extend a “pass” to members who report a conversion or have joined a church, though the sel-described convert will be observed tomake sure his conversion was not simply a ruse to escape the morgue rule.Since nearly all evangelical churches, especially the small evangelical-Pentecostal congregations o the Central American barrios where gangsare common, practice teetotalism, restrict sexuality, and require requentattendance at worship, ex-gang member converts possess a relativelysimple—i not particularly easy, given its strict behavioral standards—means o “proving” the genuineness o their conversion. Although some

ex-gang members reported avoiding the morgue rule by other meansthan evangelical conversion, no exception was as widely reerenced asthe evangelical exemption.

But evangelical conversion offers more than a “pass” on the morguerule and a means o proving one’s sincerity. Te converted ex-gangmembers reported a variety o other benets, both social and psycho-logical, such as helping them to nd work, reorder their priorities, andrebuild networks o trust afer the gang. Tus, my research builds on


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the work o others who have ound that evangelical religion provides aresource or Latin American men who struggle with addiction, vio-

lence, and chaotic relationships by helping them to establish healthyroutines through the social support and accountability o a small con-gregation with strict behavioral guidelines and an emphasis on thedomestic sphere (Brusco 1995; Burdick 1993; Smilde 2005). Myresearch adds depth to the eld by exploring the role o emotion in theprocess o conversion and identity reconstruction. I argue that theemotional experiences o conversion reported to me by several ex-gangmembers worked in part by allowing young men to acknowledge andeffectively discharge chronic shame in a public setting, thereby escaping

the vicious shame spiral underlying their attachment to the gang andits violent code o respeto . Although emotion-laden conversion experi-ences tended to be brie and were usually ollowed up by months i notyears o identity work, their power in engendering attachment to evan-gelical religion and to orging new lines o action and new identitieswas diffi cult to ignore.

All o this adds signicant depth to our understanding o the role oevangelical religion in Central America but there is more to learn.Chapter 6 begins with a discussion o the religion-inspired initiatives

aimed at gang violence reduction in the region. Neither the Catholicnor the evangelical churches have launched massive programs or cre-ated large organizations or arresting gang violence. But within each,congregations and parishes, as well as priests, pastors, and lay workers,have made impressive attempts at addressing the issue. Catholics havetended to ound programs and invest in approaches that promote gang prevention through social programs and community development,while evangelicals have tended almost exclusively toward promotinggang exit , especially by means o religious conversion. Each o these

approaches ts both the theology and the social shape o the traditionto which it belongs. Interestingly, not a single gang member in thesample o sixty-three participants I interviewed chose to embraceCatholicism as a means o addressing the challenge to un becoming ahomie. Perhaps this nding should come as no surprise since Catholicgang exit initiatives are relatively ew. Yet, even youth who passedthrough one o the ew Catholic-affi liated gang exit programs wereofen evangelical converts themselves.


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I conclude the book by summarizing my ndings regarding gangsand religion and briey suggesting broader strategies or arresting gang

violence. One point I must make very clear. I do not by any means wishto suggest that a religious conversion is exactly what is needed ordealing with the violence o gangs in Central America or anywhere else.I a surprising number o aging gang members have ound a reuge olast resort in the evangelical churches o the region, this act hardlymeans that religion, evangelical or otherwise, is the antidote or CentralAmerica’s struggle with gang violence. I would not be a sociologist i Idid not believe that the principle actors leading to proound socialproblems such as the growth and hypermilitarization o the transna-

tional gangs were linked to historic patterns o structural violence. Tereligiously inspired gang prevention advocates and promotores ambu-lantes (walking neighborhood gang-exit promoters) are playing a cou-rageous and important role in helping aging gang members ndnonviolent pathways toward social reintegration. But these programsare a single component o a much larger effort necessary or controlling,reducing, and, someday, eliminating gang violence. Arresting gang vio-lence must be an effort that is both deep and wide, including local, na-tional, and international efforts to undermine the structures that

produce the conditions or shame among thousands o youth in theimpoverished barrios o the region while severely eroding access to theweapons and drug money that provide these youth with a quick andeasy route to bypassing shame. Congregations and parishes can andshould increase their efforts to provide nonviolent pathways out o thegang, but religious institutions will be hard-pressed to provide long-term solutions that keep children rom viewing the gang as an attractivealternative in the rst place.

Still, it is hard not to be impressed by the impact o conversions in the

lives o ex-gang members themselves and o their amilies. One yearafer I rst met JJ, I received an invitation to a wedding. Tis time thewedding was a real one and the bride was not the gang but rather JJ’slong-time partner and mother o his young son. Even though JJ hadgiven up womanizing along with drugs, weapons, and the rest o la vidaloca, as an evangelical Christian, he elt the need to “ormalize” his con- jugal relationship with a church wedding that included a long guest listand cake, a tamal , and a Coca-cola or everyone. Te wedding service


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was long and included the required legal marriage ceremony ollowedby a estive religious program, complete with a sermon rom the Bible’s

most romantic book, the “Song o Songs.” By the end o the ceremony, JJhad wept several times, soaking the tattooed tears with his own andshedding any scrap o gang pride he had lef. His marriage to death hadbeen permanently annulled.


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BRENNEMAN-Chapter 01-Revised Proo 21 August 19, 2011 8:49 PM

1From Pandilla to Mara

Back in the 70s and 80s we had pandillas but not maras . Tat’s a newphenomenon and it came imported. It is not rom here. In 1992 theU.S. started sending gang members back to El Salvador. . . . And myhats off to the U.S.—at least they waited until the war was over to startsending them back!—Fr. José Morataya, Director o Gang Prevention Center

Shit homes! I’ve never been here. I mean, I know I’m rom here,homes, but I’ve never been here.—Deported Salvadoran Gang Member (rom Zilberg 2004)

Enrique was thirteen years old when he rst met Ninosa. Te year was1993 and the ink on the Peace Accords, signed between the Salvadorangovernment and the guerrilla group, the Farabundo Martí NationalLiberation Front, was barely dry. In an interview, Enrique, a young,well-dressed Salvadoran, recalled to me how his ather, a laborer, hadbeen killed in a workplace accident when Enrique was seven, and howhis mother struggled to eed and clothe her ve children. Nor could hismother depend on extended amily. wo o Enrique’s aunts had beenkilled in the war several years earlier. Like many young Salvadoran chil-

dren coming o age in a postwar society, Enrique remembered castingabout in search o a sense o security and identity.

You’re lef in orbit, without anyone. It was only by sheer strength that

mom was able to keep us going, you know? And [as a kid] you just want

something to get your mind off it all. And so this guy named Ninosa shows

up with a [gang] structure rom the United States and wants to set up shop

here and he’s telling us all about it. And what do you do? You join up.


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Ninosa’s arrival in San Salvador was not a random event. Tat yearthe Los Angeles Police Department had begun a major effort to deport

young Salvadoran men like Ninosa—gang youth with a criminal historyand precarious legal status—by the thousands. Like many other deportedyouth, Ninosa began organizing young males in the neighborhood,teaching them about survival and ethnic rivalries developed on thestreets o a mega-city thousands o miles away. Although Enrique wasalready “hanging out” with a local street gang, he described how Ninosahad “schooled” Enrique and his riends in the ways o the new gang:

Back then there were [local] gangs like la mara gallo (the rooster gang),

la mara chancleta (the sandal gang). Tere was no such thing as la MaraSalvatrucha . We had already ormed our own group when this guy,

Ninosa, comes along and starts eeding us the line. He’s like, “No, it’s not

about that. Here it’s all about the Mara Salvatrucha , the Salvadoran gang.

Tey hate us over there [in Los Angeles]. Te blacks hate us . . . and they

don’t want us up there and so we have to be strong.” He told us that ille-

gals suffer there and that they destroy them (los hacen pedazos ) and o

course we believed him. Tey sow hatred in you like that because they

come down with this hatred rom being deported and mistreated.

Enrique remembered being intrigued by the stories o racial-ethnicconict in the United States and in the Los Angeles gangs. Ninosa toldo being beaten and mistreated in prison and o the need to deend one-sel against Mexican-Americans. He also described the discriminationand deportation o Central Americans and o the need to opposeMexican-Americans. “We had to be against the Dieciocho [EighteenthStreet gang] because they’re Mexican and the Mexicans hate CentralAmericans. So my riends and I thought a lot about it. ‘Why would they

deport people like this?’” For young men in the San Salvador barrios,the hatred was contagious. Soon, he and his riends began affi liatingwith the “new gangs,” some on the side o the Dieciocho , but most withthe Salvatrucha . Indeed, Ninosa ound ertile ground or recruiting. “Hehad been in prison up there but here arrived ree, and he started layingthe groundwork. He raised up many clicas (cells or “cliques”).”

I asked Enrique i Ninosa was still alive today. “He was killed by theSombra Negra (Black Shadow). Tat’s what they called themselves, but


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in the end it was the government. Te death squad was breaking all othe leaders.” Indeed, the Sombra Negra , a secretive death squad alleg-

edly composed o police and military offi cers, claimed to be involved in“cleaning up” society by eliminating gang members and other “undesir-ables.” In a note sent to the press, the group claimed responsibility orthe deaths o seventeen gang leaders in 1994 alone, many o them killedin symbolic death squad ashion with a bullet to the skull at close range.Although several high-prole arrests were made in 1995, includingmembers and offi cers o the police, all those arrested were eitherreleased or eventually ound “not guilty” or lack o evidence. In theyears that ollowed, other copycat death squads would make similar

claims (Payne 1999).But i the death squad killings were meant to snuff out the gangs by

intimidation and through the “strategic” elimination o gang leadership,their impact was just the opposite. Enrique and his riends, until thenonly marginally associated with the Salvatrucha , took to the streets tothreaten revenge, their loyalty now solidied. “We went crazy. Westarted calling the media to try to make our presence elt. Some o useven went out into the streets with grenades in hand. We wanted tomake our presence elt. We thought we were going to put an end to the

Sombra Negra . We didn’t know what we were talking about.” Nor did thenew recruits have to look ar or new leaders. I asked Enrique whathappened in the wake o their new leader’s death. “A new leader arrived,”he said. “Tere was always someone else waiting. And here too, we werestarting to rise through the ranks.”

DEFINING GANGS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

As one o the oldest ormer members o the Salvadoran gangs I interviewed, Enrique’s account illustrates some o the most important ea-tures o the emergence o the Central American transnational gangs.Poverty, precarious amily structures ruptured by war and deporta-tion, the prison-ghetto connection, and the rise o “social cleansing”all played a role in the emergence o the transnational gangs o Cen-tral America. For while it is true that Los Angeles is the “birthplace”


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o the transnational gangs, it was in San Salvador that the gangs grewand evolved toward the violence that characterizes them today—a

violence that grips hundreds o urban neighborhoods across north-ern Central America. My aim is to sketch the demographics and char-acteristics o the gangs while critiquing some o the more exaggeratedand unounded claims about the power and reach o the transnationalgangs. I rely heavily on the work o a number o Central Americansocial scientists who have produced a growing body o scholarly liter-ature on the transnational gangs. Tese researchers, many o themassociated with the Center or Public Opinion at San Salvador’s JesuitUniversidad de Centroamérica, have completed empirical work that

provides a basis or understanding the emergence and growth o thegangs in recent decades. In addition to citing current research, I usepress reports and excerpts rom my own interviews to illustrate anumber o points. O course, gang lie in Central America sharesmany similarities with lie in a typical street gang in the United States,where members are predominantly male, rom the lower economicrungs o urban society, and, many, rom precarious amily back-grounds (Decker and Van Winkle 1996; Moore 1991). And yet thegangs o Central America have institutionalized in ways that set them

apart rom most youth street gangs in the United States. Under-standing the nature o the transnational gangs is essential to graspingwhy leaving the Central American gang presents such a unique set ochallenges to gang members—and why religion provides such a pop-ular pathway out o the gang.

International gang scholars Malcolm Klein and Cheryl Maxsonoffer a widely accepted denition o the term “street gang” dening itas “any durable, street-oriented youth group whose involvement in il-legal activity is part o its group identity” (2006:4). Teir denition is

based on a consensus among many researchers who study gangs in theUnited States and Europe, but its minimalism allows application tocontexts such as Central America (Medina and Mateu-Gelabert 2009).Although it hardly begins to describe the many characteristics sharedby most Central American gang cells, the denition offered by Kleinand Maxson distinguishes conceptually the transnational gangs romother groups sometimes inappropriately conounded with them. Forexample, middle-class góticos (Goths) roam the upscale shopping


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malls in Guatemala City or gather to experiment with drugs, alarmingtheir parents with their clothing and piercings, but they do not engage

in violence or spend their afernoons in la calle . Nor are the gangs tobe conused with roqueros (hard rockers), groups o working-classyouth who listen to heavy metal and engage in mildly delinquentbehavior and drug abuse or pleasure. eenage roqueros are a source oconcern or neighbors and police, but i and when they engage inillegal activity, such “entertainment” only occasionally rises above thelevel o random delinquency and usually does not contribute to thegroup’s core identity. At the other end o the spectrum are the drugcartels that have grown in power and inuence, especially in Mexico.

Although the press sometimes reers to them as “drug gangs,” thesegroups are not youth-based, nor is their violence intended to elevate aparticular identity. Tey represent a orm o organization, discipline,geographic reach, and access to resources well beyond the scope o thegangs o Central America. Finally, a crucial distinction must be madebetween the street gangs, made up o youth rom marginal barrios,and the organized criminal rings that have taken shape in CentralAmerica during recent decades. Te latter involve shadowy networkso individuals rom the middle class and elites who wield considerable

political and economic power and who mix legal business and illegalactivities (including money laundering, drug traffi cking, kidnapping,and tax raud) in order to acquire and maintain considerable wealth(orres-Rivas 2010). Although it is well-known that organized crimerings can and do draw recruits rom the gang when in need o ootsoldiers or carrying out the “dirty work” o kidnapping and score set-tling, politicians and the media have a tendency to conate the two,thereby setting up a convenient smokescreen allowing them to ignoretax reorm and turn a blind eye to political corruption (Martinez

Ventura 2010).Nevertheless, as U.S. gang scholar John Hagedorn (2009) has pointed

out, gangs are not static but dynamic institutions, able to change andadapt to their own unique set o circumstances. Tis capacity to adjustand grow is especially apparent among the gangs o northern CentralAmerica, where weak state institutions and porous borders have allowedthe emergence o an institutionalized gang culture that is best describedas “transnational.”


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EXPORTING VIOLENCE: THE ORIGINS OF

TRANSNATIONAL GANGS

Enrique’s “on-the-ground” account o the prolieration o the Salvatru-cha in El Salvador makes it clear that it is impossible to talk about thegangs without starting earlier, in the civil wars o the 1970s and ’80s.Tese wars set the stage or the rise o the transnational gangs by sendingtens o thousands o Central American reugee amilies eeing to theUnited States or saety. In El Salvador, where by the late 1980s civil warhad enveloped most o the country, even reaching the outskirts o thecapital, the emigration ow was especially intense. By 1990 the U.N.

estimated that approximately 700,000 Salvadorans were living in theUnited States, primarily in Los Angeles but also in the D.C. area and inNew York City (Hayden 2004). Tis gure represented considerablymore than one-tenth o the tiny country’s entire population. Lacking astrong ormal education, useul network ties, or clear prospects oremployment, hundreds o Salvadoran youths joined local Latino gangs,especially the Mexican-American 18th Street (Dieciocho ) gang. Manyother young Salvadorans ound the local gang territory hostile, andormed their own groups, especially in the Pico Union area o Los

Angeles (Vigil 2002). Tese Salvadoran immigrant gangs eventuallytook the name La Mara Salvatrucha . Meanwhile, a thriving under-ground economy, buoyed up by surging demand or crack and otherillegal drugs, had provided U.S. gangs with increasing economic oppor-tunities (Jankowski 1992; Venkatesh 2000). Such opportunities wereespecially attractive to Central American youth, particularly those wholived in constant ear o being arrested and deported. For young,undocumented immigrants, it “made sense” to look to the street orincome rather than to risk being detained while trying to produce alse

papers or a job interview.In 1992, riots shook Los Angeles ollowing the innocent verdict in

the Rodney King trial. When Latino gang youth were accused o play-ing a major role in the looting that accompanied the chaos, the LosAngeles Police Department (L.A.P.D.) spearheaded a campaign toarrest and prosecute gang members, even minors, as elons, and ini-tiate deportation proceedings. Te signing o the Peace Accords thatsame year ended El Salvador’s civil war and gave the L.A.P.D. urther


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justiication or its massive round-up and deportation under anow-deunct program called CRASH—Community Resources Against

Street Hoodlums. Tousands o Salvadoran youth and young men,many o whom had lived most o their lives in the United States, werearrested, prosecuted as adults, and deported to their “home country.”Nor were local authorities provided with inormation regarding thecriminal background o the young men arriving in their communities.Set adrif in a context they barely knew and with even ewer prospectsor legitimate employment, these young gang members set about orga-nizing and recruiting a local youth population that treated the depor-tees with a combination o ear and reverence. For youths acing bleak

circumstances in the impoverished marginal neighborhoods o SanSalvador, tattooed young deportees like Ninosa, who ofen spokeEnglish ar better than they spoke Spanish, displayed a worldly wisesel-condence that was magnetic in the Central American barrio.

Gang developments in Guatemala and Honduras ollowed a similarpath. Altogether, more than 50,000 Central Americans with a criminalrecord were deported by the United States in just over a decade rom1994–2005 (Kraul, Lopez, and Connell 2005). Although ar ewer gangyouth were deported to Guatemala and Honduras, thousands returned

to these countries with gang knowledge and experience, ofen acquiredduring a prison sentence beore deportation. Just as important, Salva-doran gang members began traveling to Honduras and Guatemala inthe mid-1990s to organize gang cells there and to ee authorities seekingthem in El Salvador (Loudis, del Castillo, Rajaraman, and Castillo 2006;Sibaja, Roig, Rajaraman, Caldera, and Bardales 2006). aking advantageo porous borders and minimal inormation sharing between police,these gang organizers expanded their network o gang cells throughoutthe three countries o the Northern riangle. By the late 1990s, two

major gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha , also known by its abbreviation,MS-13, and the Mara Dieciocho , similarly represented by the abbrevia-tion M-18, had obtained a clear position as the dominant gang rivals inthe region. Tey accomplished this not only by recruiting disenran-chised youth in the impoverished urban neighborhoods o the Northernriangle but also by co-opting nearly all o the already-established localstreet gangs. Due to a combination o loose networks, access to weapons,and the thrill o belonging to a gang whose experience and connections


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stretched all the way to Los Angeles, the Salvatrucha and Dieciochoorganizers were able to replicate these local gang cells by the hundreds

in clicas , or “cliques.”Other social and economic actors played a role in the expansion

o the Central American gangs. he sheer size o the young, urbanpopulation—Enrique’s amily o six was typical—placed enormousstrain on already-underunded public schools and hospitals. Moreimportant, the burgeoning youth cohort expanded the audience o ado-lescents, curious about the new gangs and their connections to el Norte. In 1990 approximately one-fh o the population in each country werebetween the ages o feen and twenty-our, and the balance o the pop-

ulation was shifing, rom majority rural, toward becoming majorityurban societies.1 Each year, thousands o Central American youthmoved with their parents to the marginal neighborhoods and satellitetowns o the growing cities where they witnessed rsthand, many or therst time, the steep economic pyramids that characterize urban LatinAmerica. Public security was even less able to keep up with the demandso the population. In El Salvador and Guatemala, police had earned thedistrust o the people by collaborating with the military in their dirtywars and in all three countries many viewed (and continue to view) the

police as corrupt and inept. While a major overhaul o the police orcein El Salvador was able to restore a modicum o trust and proession-alism in that orce, Guatemala opted to recycle most o its wartimepolice orce, leaving the entire command structure intact. Te tinypolice orce in Honduras, also accused o corruption and participationin the civil violence o the 1980s, ared no better. In all three countries,local security orces were ill-equipped, poorly trained, and unmotivatedto provide effective security or the densely populated barrios where thegangs were establishing a oothold. While the rich and the middle class

barricaded their streets and contracted private security rms to keepthem sae, the gangs offered “protection” to their own neighbors—andalso charged a ee.

Finally, in addition to the migration-deportation cycle, poverty, aburgeoning urban youth cohort, and an inept and underunded policeorce, one other social actor contributed to the growth and evolution othe gangs—the “war on drugs.” Following the relative success o theU.S.-led drug war in shutting off drug routes rom Colombia to Miami


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via the Caribbean, the unagging demand or illegal drugs led to theestablishment o new Central American routes now under the control o

the Mexican cartels. As the drug shipments made their way northwardacross the isthmus, some o the product became locally available—indeed, the drug cartels oten used drugs as payment or servicesrendered—and the gangs took advantage o the opportunity to sellcocaine and marijuana in their own neighborhoods, creating newdemand where there had been little o it. With drugs came weapons andover time the gangs established networks or acquiring and trading inweapons, using them to protect their increasingly valuable “tur” and toconduct “missions.”

All these actors played a role in the transormation, or “evolution” othe Central American gangs in the 1990s. In effect, the gangs becameinstitutionalized in Central America due in large part to the weakness ostate and local institutions, ravaged by years o civil war and weakeconomic growth and unable to keep up with a rapidly growing popula-tion due to cutbacks in social services rom successive neoliberal ad-ministrations. Te institutional vacuum was most severe in the denselypopulated marginal neighborhoods o the major cities, where youngamilies came eeing the violence o the countryside (in El Salvador and

Guatemala) or ocking to maquiladoras (clothing assembly plants) andthe promise o an income (in Honduras). In these neighborhoods, thegangs were able to carve out what Hagedorn (2009) calls “deensiblespaces” or conducting business and building camaraderie based on abrotherhood with international reach.

WHO ARE THE GANGS?

Te institutionalization o the gangs was accompanied by a change interminology. During the late 1980s and early ’90s the term “mara” cameto stand or a street gang in Central America. Youth street gangs like the“Rooster Gang” to which Enrique reerred, had been around at leastsince the 1970s in places like Guatemala City and San Salvador, but theyreceived little attention, and were reerred to with the term “pandilla,”which translates roughly as a “band” o youth. As the gangs grew in size


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and came to be associated with criminal violence, the press beganreerring to them as las maras , perhaps in reerence to the marabunta

ants which overcome their victims by attacking in swarms (Smutt andMiranda 1998). Te most common gangs by ar are the Mara Salvatru-cha, which uses the initials MS-13 or simply “MS,” and the EighteenthStreet Gang or Mara Dieciocho, which uses the shorthand M-18 or sim-ply “18” to describe itsel. Many gang members sometimes reer tothemselves as belonging simply to las letras (i.e., the letters MS) or losnúmeros (e.g., the number 18). Other gangs exist, but in the Northernriangle o Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, the MS-13 and theM-18 have come to dominate the youth gang culture. In act, as I learned

rom the young men and women in my interviews, many local clicas have taken names that do not immediately identiy them with the largergangs. But at least by the early 2000s, nearly all o the local clicas hadaffi liated with one or the other o the transnational gangs. In a ew cases,other gangs with international ties managed to survive by brokering aninormal truce with either the M-18 or the MS-13, thereby earningdeault enemy status with the transnational rival. Te White Fence, anL.A.-based gang with roots reaching back at least to the 1950s (Vigil1988), is one such gang.2 Te gang, which developed several clicas in

satellite neighborhoods o Guatemala City in the 1990s, had been all butswallowed up or eliminated by the MS-13 by the mid-2000s. In Hondu-ras, a ew neighborhoods developed several cells o the Vatos Locos , agang with origins in Chicago and represented by the initials VL or BL.Like the White Fence clicas in Guatemala, the Honduran Vatos have allbut disappeared in recent years. Tus, while a ew other gangs haveoccasionally made headlines in the region, the Salvatruchas and theEighteenth street gang have come to dominate the street wars using amixture o conquest and co-optation and their presence in all three

countries as well as the United States has given them internationalstatus. Over hal o the youth interviewed or this study ormerlybelonged to one or the other o these two transnational gangs.

What made the gangs transnational was a combination o social andpolitical actors deriving rom the late-twentieth-century orces oglobalization, especially those o mediated communication and interna-tional immigration patterns. I the Central American gangs were sim-ply characterized by small pockets o street gangs sharing a name and


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symbols across two or three countries, the “transnational” descriptormight be unwarranted. I a gang has active cells in Los Angeles and

oronto, this act does not warrant the use o a new term or concept todescribe it. And yet the MS-13 and the M-18 display a variety o charac-teristics that both set them apart rom earlier maniestations o streetgangs and reveal a surprising level o international communication andintercultural hybridity giving rise to the transnational qualier. Indeed,it was the experience o international migration and coming o age in anew country that accompanied the birth o both gangs in the rst place.Furthermore, police records as well as empirical studies show evidenceo signicant MS-13 and M-18 presence in at least our countries—rom

Honduras to the United States—leading to membership and income-generating crime in each country (J. Aguilar 2007a; Loudis et al. 2006;Sibaja et al. 2006). Nor do the gangs limit themselves to simultaneousinternational expansion. An array o studies have demonstrated at leastsome international communication, by cell phone and through well-traveled migration routes, taking place between clicas and their leaders,called raneros (Arana 2005; Kraul et al. 2005; Ribando 2005; Vigil2002). One aspect that sets the MS-13 and M-18 apart rom other mul-tinational gangs such as the White Fence or the Vatos Locos is their

cross-border network savvy.In choosing the term “transnational,” I have avoided other pro-

posed terms. For example, some U.S. criminologists and military so-ciologists call the Central American maras “third-generation gangs.”Based on data gathered rom archives and interviews with SalvadoranNational Police, military sociologist Max Manwaring argues that theSalvatrucha and Dieciocho represent a “new insurgency” o “urbanguerillas” who desire nothing less than the overthrow o local andeven national governments in order to enlarge their territory or

extracting resources rom the population (Manwaring 2005). ForManwaring, the gangs ultimately seek power and enrichment throughcrime and thus engage the legal political structures in “political war”with the intent o promoting the ailure o state sovereignty. Manwar-ing borrowed the term “third-generation street gangs” rom JohnSullivan, a Caliornia gang researcher and member o the Los AngelesSheriff’s Department who considers members o the Dieciocho andSalvatrucha to be “non-state soldiers” involved in transnational


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criminal organizations on par with international organized criminalsand terrorists (Sullivan 2002). Sullivan’s term is part o a larger strategy

aimed at calling attention to all manner o “non-state actors” such aswarlords and maa and other “transnational networks o crime” thatare changing the “rules” o international warare. In my view, his in-clusion o gangs and gang leaders in this list is a stretch. For while it isundeniably true that the MS-13 and M-18 have become ar more vio-lent than their local, territorial predecessors, theirs is a violence aimedlargely at the poor and those at society’s margins. Far rom a war orgeopolitical dominance, the violence o transnational gangs is largely,as one Catholic priest put it, “A war o the poor against the poor about

which the state could care less” (Munaiz 2005). In short, while thetransnational gangs have clearly evolved in ways both economic and violent, the data rom the best empirical investigations simply do notsupport the view that a high level o sophistication exists, or that gangleaders manage clicas via tightly streamlined vertical structures likethose o an army or maa (Aguilar, Carranza, and Instituto de Opin-ión Pública Universidad Centroamérica 2008; Barnes 2007). Even thehead o the FBI’s special unit dedicated to tracking and countering theMS-13 conceded this act in 2007:

We tried to uncover a vertical structure but we couldn’t. What we see are

different clicas or cells that operate in different parts o the United States

and Central America using similar methods. (Boueke 2007a)

Although some o the ex-gang members I interviewed reported thatlocal cells and cell leaders do maintain contact with higher-ups and“pay it up,” especially when securing weapons or local tur wars, I alsoound interviewees reporting a wide variety o rules and policies rom

one cell to the next. Respondents reported that much o the rule struc-ture was a result o the local leadership. From an organizational stand-point then, it may be more helpul to think o the transnational gangs asunctioning more like a ranchise than a single, monolithic entity. In theranchise model, transnational gangs offer local clicas and raneros—“ranchisees”—incentives or affi liating with the transnational “brand”o MS-13 or M-18. Affi liates in turn receive a recognizable logo, accessto weapons, and a proven method or attracting “clients” and generating


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income. Tus, any youth with enough chutzpah and daring may create alocal affi liate as long as he remains clear o other local leaders—or man-

ages to depose them. But as ranchisees, clicas maintain local autonomyas long as they do not grossly violate the norms o the “ranchise.”Understanding transnational gangs as ranchises sidesteps the debatebetween the sensationalism o those who cast the transnational gang asa global criminal organization and those arguing that the communica-tion between gang cells does not warrant such a conclusion, but whoappear to underestimate the reach and role o the gangs.3

GANG MEMBERSHIP: WHO BELONGS?

No one knows or sure how many youth belong to the transnationalgangs. Teir loosely networked, entrepreneurial structure and secretivenature would make quantiying membership diffi cult even or a well-resourced intelligence apparatus. Although at least two studies haveattempted to conduct a gang “census” or a single metropolitan areausing gang member or ex-gang member inormants (Bardales 2007;

Giralt and Cruz 2001), a nationwide or regionwide census would bediffi cult i not impossible. Instead, we must piece together membershipestimates rom a variety o studies that use a variety o methods.able 1.1 shows some o the membership totals ofen cited by thosewho study the gangs.

With some exceptions, most authors in the mid-2000s seemed toagree at least broadly on the size o the gangs, arriving at a total mem-bership o about 70,000 in the entire region o Central America. But theoverlap appears to have resulted rom analysts getting their gures rom

the same source—the Salvadoran National Police. Although some esti-mates reach as high as 180,000 or the MS-13 gang alone (Spinelli 2006),such wild variations in reporting ofen result rom

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