By: Connor Liu and Animesh Joshi In last month’s blog post, we decided to delve into Asian American and Pacific Islander gang culture. Although initially prompted by the vandalization of our community healing space, the more research we did, the more light was shed on information we hadn’t been exposed to previously. The struggles API youth face are shocking, and the violence they are exposed to as a result of gang culture often leads to consequences beyond physical violence as it’s typically associated with. Teenagers with impressionable minds often join gangs that work in crime-based circles, creating cycles of violence that revolve around money, drugs, and alcohol. And it’s this association that leads to unforeseen and harmful effects. The cycles of violence created by gang culture perpetuates underlying notions of patriarchy and socio-cultural conflict, leading many of the involved API youth to adopt and struggle with serious internal conflict. So, if we know all of this to be true, the question then becomes why? Why do API youth join gangs and immerse themselves in its culture if they know of the consequences? In this post we will attempt to figure out the answer to just that, going through the various different factors that motivate API youth into joining a gang.
0 Comments
|
Categories
All
Year ARchive
February 2023
|