Most of us, being United States citizens, would like to believe that everyone in this country is living in conditions of utmost freedom and equality. Although according to the constitution this is true, anyone who has ever been the victim of oppression knows not to take equality for granted. Our s...

Most of us, being United States citizens, would like to believe that everyone in this country is living in conditions of utmost freedom and equality. Although according to the constitution this is true, anyone who has ever been the victim of oppression knows not to take equality for granted. Our soc...

Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York is a film that shows the squalor of the worst slum in New York City in the mid 1800's, Five Points. With ten Oscar nominations, it is arguably one of the greatest historical movies to date (Koban). But just how historically accurate is it? While some people think ...

At first glance, one would expect a movie titled "City of God" to show how poverty and marginalization would make criminals of frustrated people. Instead we see how, in an atmosphere of unsupervised chaos, a single charismatic psychopath can hold sway over an entire population with the force of his...

What Causes Chicanos to Join Gangs and How Does That Decision Affect Their Lives? It is a cold and dark night in East Los Angeles. The streets are empty except for a few people on their way home. Then out of the shadows comes a car slowly driving down the streets. There are four young men heavily...

Life on The Southside In the southern United States cotton has been king for a couple of centuries. In the early days of the cotton plantations there were black slaves that tilled the land planted and raised the cotton until it was ready to be harvested by them. The practice of slavery was aboli...

There little Joey lying on his bed in a puddle of tears with his pillow drawn tightly around his ears, so he wouldn't hear his parents yelling and screaming in the next room. Finally the yelling stopped. He went to see what had happened, and that's when he found out that his mother left a...

Gangs have been a threat in a lot of our communities in the United States dating back to the early 1800s. There has however, been a few discrepancies when it comes to defining these groups. Sometimes city or town officials who do not want to be classified as having a gang problem will go to certai...

In the introductory scene, there is a chicken running through narrow hallways in a Brazilian slum called City of God. Chasing the chicken, there are dozens of thugs waving and shooting guns trying to kill it. At that point, the hero of the movie, Rocket, is presented as what seems to be just another...

A History of gangs in the USA Although it is not fair and certainly not warranted to connect any ethnic group with organized crime, it is a fact that the massive immigration of the early 1900's fueled the creation of the early gangs, particularly in New York City. As more and more immigr...