Joseph Rodriguez
- 1993
Fellowship Title:
- Gang Families in East Los Angeles
Fellowship Year:
- 1993
Gang Life In Los Angeles: The East Side Story
Photos and article by Joseph Rodriguez I see Los Angeles as a post-modern Wild West where everyone has a gun and they use it. It is like an uncontrolled and slightly scary place, a land of dreams and beauty, playing by its own rules. Chivo, an East Los Angeles gang member, teaches his daughter how to hold a 32-caliber pistol. Her mother, Yvonne, looks on. For the last year, I’ve photographed gang life in East Los Angeles. My aim is to get to the core of violence in America, not just the physical violence, but the quiet violence of letting families fall apart, the violence of unemployment, the violence of our educational system and the violence of segregation and isolation. Chivo, who belongs to an east Los Angeles gang, counts his money the morning after a car-jacking. He stripped the car and sold the parts. Chivo plays with his son, Joshua, 2, as his sister looks on. La Vida Loca, or the crazy life, is what they call the barrio gang experience. This lifestyle originated
Photo Essay: Gangs of East Los Angeles
Joseph Rodriguez, a freelance photographer who has worked for Pacific News Service, National Geographic and Black Star and is now affiliated with AnarchyImages.com, is photographing the gangs of East Los Angeles during his Alicia Patterson fellowship year. He lives in Los Angeles. Porky, 16, right, and Jaime, of the Marianna Maravilla Diablos, an Easl Los Angeles gang, hold his machine gun in front of a car that Porky was shot in. “I love the barrio more than I was loved,” Porky relates. Porky, 16, whose real name is Mike, describes how he was shot. His parents are “veteranos ” (veteran gang members) from the previous generation in Maravilla. This gang started in Mexico in the 1920’s. Porky started in the gang when he was in the seventh grade. “I got my brain washing from my friend, Jaime, who used to bother me every day on my way from junior high. school. I have put in work (gang activities, which include shooting or beating up people, robbery, etc.) for five years. They shot my mom in