::
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
:: TEACHING GUIDE
about this project
For more than three years, while the war in Iraq occupied the headlines, several of us from the Center for Investigative Reporting covered another war.
 |
| Photos by Janjaap Dekker |
We spent our days inside and around Latino street gangs of Northern California, whose stronghold is based not in the inner cities but surprisingly, in farm towns like Salinas, Merced, Modesto, Visalia and Tracy.
Our assignment was to try to understand why so many Latino youth in Northern California are victims of gun violence. An analysis of statewide firearm homicide statistics led us to Salinas. There, we saw firsthand the ravages of an underground, little-reported war fought among the Latino youth of this state. In our days and nights on the frontlines, my fellow reporters ducked bullets, joined with families to mourn lives lost and saw children locked up for life, some of them killers and others just along for the ride.
 |
We
called this project "Nuestra Familia, Our Family" because it
is the name of the prison gang that influences and controls many of these
youth. It is also a substitute family that at first appears to offer the
love and respect these kids want and need so badly that they will kill
and die for it. And finally, it reminds us of the fact that two and three
generations of gang members are now raising their children and grandchildren
to be part of “the life.”
These are our dispatches from what Salinas residents call a civil war
that few outside of this fertile slip of a valley know or care about.
One front sometimes makes headlines: the violent crime stories about ruthless
criminals and determined police, prosecutors and FBI informants who themselves
occasionally play fast and loose with the law.
 |
The other front is hidden from the mainstream view, and leaves us without a sense of redemption or answers. It is the daily battle for identity and meaning fought between children in the fields of this Eden.
All
of this became nuestra familia – our family.
—
Julia Reynolds, Oriana Zill de Granados, George Sánchez
Reproduction
of any content without written permission is prohibited
Copyright © 2005-2008 Center for Investigative Reporting. All rights
reserved.