Vigil views of Gangs and how they come to be

Gangs have been a change in the environment; everyone that sees or passes them usually fears them.  They don’t get the point that setting is a big problem to how gangs form. The neighborhood you grew up and the money parents’ make is important to adolescence because they can determine if the child join a gang or not. Usually African American and Mexican are the people that get labeled as people that are likely to join a gang. Where you are brought up, how poor you are becomes a huge factor to gang activities.

             In society gangs are like a nightmare, normally no one would like to come close to a gang member. Everyone in society fears gangs and they maintain this tough and scary look so their gangs will gain some short of notability. Gangs are originally young men who could not find jobs or dropped out of school. Vigil mentioned,

Merton’s “strain theory” which focused on the mismatch between the status goals established by the dominant society and the inadequate means available for low-income people to reach those goals (Gmelch 233)

This showed that the in normal or the dominant society, the people with low-income is not noticed because there is a small chance that they will reach a goal. This is something that leans towards the gang initiation. Everyone wants to feel as if they are part of something. If the dominant can accept them, groups like Mexican and African American look into gangs.

            When one joins a gang, they give all their loyalty to the gang as if they are family. One need to determine their loyalty and how they are able to handle being in a gang. A case that Vigil mention is how a 14 year old boy join a gang called Varrio Nuevo Estrada and one time one gang member comes up to him and asked where he is from and what gang. The 14 year old raised his head and said the VNE showing his loyalty to the gang and not afraid to mention the name (Gmelch 236). There are cases gangs will test their members loyalty and how they will react to certain situation.

            I think a lot of people have a point of view of gangs, I know I do like they are scary and that there is nothing good that comes out of gangs. I learned that gangs are just people that did not fit into the dominant society. I think its bad that at the end it comes down to joining a gang but I understand that everyone want to find a group they belong.