Street Gangs and Ethnoracial Incorporation:

A Literature Review

By: Rajendra Sampat

Student #: 994339970

Course: Independent Study

Instructor: J. Tanner

Introduction

Race, ethnicity and immigrant incorporation have always been closely related to the

formation of urban street gangs. As European immigrants formed ethnic enclaves in the inner

cities of north-eastern America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the young men of these

communities began to form large gangs, often numbering in the hundreds (Vigil, 2002, p. 3).

Although early researchers such as Thrasher were well aware of this connection (1927, p. 130),

these dimensions of gang formation theory remained underdeveloped, due largely to that era’s

nascent understanding of race and ethnicity. As gang research increasingly fell into the domain

of criminology and social work, sociological understandings of race and ethnicity ceased to play

a major role in theories of gang formation (Coughlin & Venkatesh, 2003, p. 42) (Hagedorn &

Macon, 1988, p. 47); we need a better marriage of the latest theoretical developments in order to

move forward. After reviewing the progress in our understanding of these two social constructs

(‘gangs’ and ‘race’) over the last century, I will outline two of the most promising developments

in research into race and gangs: stratified ethno-racial incorporation (Itzigsohn, 2009) and Vigil’s

multiple-marginality framework (2002, p. 8). These two formulations are similar in that they

seek to explain nuance and complexity; they provide perhaps the best direction for further

research into the multi-layered relationship between ethno-racial incorporation and gang-

formation. To conclude this paper I will discuss some of the reasons that we must be careful

when we study ethnically identified gangs, in terms of the discursive power that categories such

as ‘gang’ and ‘race’ can take on. In the modern era, law-enforcement statistics enumerating the

proportion of visible-minority membership in gangs above 90% may indicate more about the

racializing and stigmatizing power that the word “gang” has taken on, than about the actual rates

of ethnic representation (Kinnear, 2008).

Theoretical Approaches

Early sociological understandings of race and immigration were built around a paradigm

of ‘assimilation’, wherein people from immigrant groups enter the host nation, slowly

acculturate, gain social mobility, and join the mainstream (Itzigsohn, 2009, pp. 8-11). Such ideas

originated in the frameworks of the Chicago School, as Park, Burgess, etc. tried to understand

the immigrant experiences of Europeans entering North America in the first half of the 20th

century (Romero, 2008, p. 23). These formulations were critiqued on a number of grounds, but

most objections related to one basic omission – the question of race. Du Bois is famous for his

declaration that the “problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line” (Du

Bois, 2003/1903, p. 15), but the Chicago School’s approach first, failed to recognize the

persistence of racial/ethnic categories; second, focused predominantly on White prejudice

instead of examining structural and institutional forms of racism; and third, applied the same

approach to racialized minorities that it did to European immigrants (Romero, 2008). Classic

assimilation theory’s prediction of a process of gradual upward mobility over three or four

generations was observed with European immigrants, but not with Mexicans and Puerto Ricans;

their story was similar to African Americans, who experienced lower socioeconomic conditions

than white people throughout the 20th century (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 8).

The groundbreaking early street gang research of Frederic Thrasher, author of “The

Gang”, also originated in the Chicago school. Thrasher observed that gangs were mostly “a

phenomenon of the immigrant community” (Thrasher, 1927/1963, p. 130), but he did not go so

far as to connect race, ethnicity and migration directly to his theory of gang formation (Decker &

van Gemert, 2009). He was more preoccupied with the urban ecological dimensions of

immigrant incorporation, observing ethnic succession in areas of the city that continued to

experience gang problems, which lent credence to his approach (Hagedorn, 2006)(Decker & van

Gemert, 2009, p. 393). Most of Thrasher’s explanation centred on social disorganization, where

youths feel disconnected from the social institutions which are meant to socialize them pro-

socially, whether these are the family, schools, or employers (Thrasher, 1927/1963, p. 66). He

found these breakdowns in social control to be especially prevalent in economically depressed

areas of the city, known as “interstitial areas”, located in the space between more stable, better

socially organized sections of the city (Thrasher, 1927/1963, p. 20). In this environment, the

gang provides for the emotional and psychological needs of the youth, where conventional

socializers have failed to do so. Following Thrasher, Spergel has observed ethnic groups in

different areas of a city observing different criminal “traditions”, therefore engaging in different

types of crime e.g. an Italian neighbourhood with a history of racketeering encouraged its

youngsters to commit racketeering offenses (Shelden, Tracy, & Brown, 2004, p. 182) . Sullivan

argued that conditions of poverty were what motivated young gangsters in the Hispanic and

black neighbourhoods he studied to commit more brazen crimes than white gangsters for less

monetary return. He also noted a greater ability of whites to get legitimate employment in their

late teens and leave gang life, while his racialized subjects tended to remain in the street, largely

due to a lack of opportunity, caused by poorly developed networks of human capital (Shelden,

Tracy, & Brown, 2004, p. 183). Theories of social disorganization are still useful to scholars

because they do not seek reductionist answers, but embrace complexity, looking for causes

within the family, institutions or community agencies, etc.; they have remained one of the key

paradigms in gang formation research.

Street gang theories which looked for social disorganization incorporated the migration

of large groups into their explanations as well (Spergel, 1995, p. 154). Even when controlling

for socioeconomic determinants such as poverty, theorists observed and acknowledged the effect

of large population movements on gang formation within ethnic groups; while not all immigrant

groups are necessarily more prone to gang problems than domestics, this appears to be a

principal factor in gang formation (Spergel, 1995, p. 154). The idea that migration can lead to

social disorganization, and thence to gang formation, has been found in gang literature as early

as Thrasher’s seminal volume (Thrasher, 1927/1963, p. 130), all the way to very recent work

(Decker & van Gemert, 2009) (van Gemert, Peterson, & Lien, 2008). The connection has been

pointed out with regard to Chicano gangs in California (Spergel, 1995, p. 155)(Vigil, 1988);

Black, Mexican, Salvadoran and Viet Namese youth in Los Angeles (Vigil, 2002); and

Moroccans in the Netherlands (van Gemert & Stuifbergen, 2008); among others. Similar

arguments have been made with regard to blacks migrating within America around the turn of

the century, leaving rural communities in the south in search of jobs in major cities across

America (Vigil, 2002, p. 64) (Spergel, 1995, p. 156). It seems clear that large-scale migration, or

population movements, leads to conditions which make it difficult for institutions of social

control to exert their influence on many youth in need of it; in the absence of these positive

influences, many youth turn to gang life.

Poverty goes hand in hand with social disorganization, and many explanations of gang

formation which are related to economic determinants, also note aspects of social

disorganization, including strain theory, lower class theory, and underclass theory (Spergel,

1995, p. 152). Following Merton, strain theory scholars argued that American society

internalizes certain cultural and economic criteria for what is considered a successful life, though

not all have legitimate legal access to these ambitions. Without legitimate pathways to their

goals, young people innovate, sometimes choosing illegal means of acquiring their needs. But in

communities where even these illegitimate means are closed to most young people, gangs

develop as an alternative course to their version of the American dream (Spergel, 1995, p. 146).

Strain theory attempts to explain crime and gangs by highlighting the unequal distribution of

opportunities to reach the success goals which our society places such high importance on

(Shelden, Tracy, & Brown, 2004, p. 184). Because of the pervasive systemic inequality

produced by this society’s stratified class-system, entire segments of our population are not

availed of the same prospects for success as the mainstream white, middle-class population.

These ideas were later developed and combined with the notion of a segmented labour market,

the idea that at least two levels exist within the available job market and only one of those will

provide the necessary income to support a decent life. The other sector forces workers to

combine their meagre incomes with welfare, informal economic strategies, and crime (Spergel,

1995, p. 154). While strain theory’s attention to ethnic differentials in job opportunities began to

conceptualize the effect of race on gang formation more effectively, by explaining these

disparities through causes related to class and racial discrimination, these theories tended to blur

the distinctions between gang activity, delinquent group activity, and youth crime (Spergel,

1995, p. 154).

Notions of strain and lack of opportunity can be seen as ideologically left of more

conservative ideas, such as lower-class theory, which posits the existence of a “culture of

poverty” (Spergel, 1995) whereby poor people develop an alternate set of values, which often

lead them to deviant lifestyles and behaviour. These ideas gained traction in the mid-1960’s, as

social pathologies such as high crime rates, addiction, and large numbers of welfare cases,

became much more prevalent within economically depressed, racially segregated urban areas

(Wilson, 1987, p. 13). Writers such as Oscar Lewis, observing multi-generational poverty

afflicting racialized populations in the inner cities of America, argued that the difficult settings

inner-city residents were born into caused them to develop alternative modes of adaptation,

which would eventually crystallize into self-perpetuating cultural characteristics, remaining

salient for generations, and making it difficult to socialize children properly to enter the

mainstream workforce (Bourgois, 1996/2003, p. 16) (Wilson, 1987, p. 126). Lewis and other

writers of the era, such as Kenneth Clark, Lee Rainwater, and Elliot Liebow, were careful to

maintain an emphasis on the connection between these sub-cultural developments and larger

structural concerns, but other more conservative writers latched onto the notion that poverty is

reproduced by habitual behaviour which is unlikely to change as a result of social policy

intervention (Wilson, 1987, p. 137). But this approach fails to explain the origin of gang culture

(Spergel, 1995, p. 148), as well as tending to blame the victim, rather than noting the obvious

structural, historical and institutional influences (Bourgois, 2003; pg 16). The other problem

with an explanation which relies on the cultural characteristics of the poor and marginalized, is

that those people are very often racialized as well, and saying that their behaviour is the result of

‘culture’ is often the same as saying it is caused by their race (Visweswaran, 1998). This effect

can be seen even in the relatively modern ethnographic work of Pierre Bourgois, who uses a

poorly defined concept he calls “inner-city street culture” to explain the behaviour of a group of

crack dealing Puerto Ricans in Spanish Harlem in the 1980s (Bourgois, 1996/2003). Although

Bourgois’ recognition of structural and historical forces is well articulated, he centres his

argument around street culture which, because of its poorly defined parameters, becomes a

racialized and essentializing discourse that comes to stand in for Puerto Rican culture, and

eventually non-white culture generally (Bourgois, 1996/2003). One example is on pg 281 of his

book, when he describes a Puerto Rican tradition of blessing newborns when passing them in the

street (Bourgois, 1996/2003, p. 281); in other passages he describes this ritual as “street culture’s

relationship to children” (Bourgois, 1996/2003, p. 262) and “street life’s intergenerational

affection and integration” (Bourgois, 1996/2003, p. 263). The tendency to use ‘street culture’

and ‘Puerto Rican culture’ as interchangeable terms, after he spends the rest of the book

criminalizing and demonizing street culture, results in a highly pejorative discourse.

Wilson’s elaboration of the notion of an “underclass” (Wilson, 1987) has been employed

by researchers attempting to explain both deviance generally, and gang formation specifically

(Spergel, 1995). Wilson observed that the momentous improvements in social mobility brought

about by the legislative changes of the Civil Rights era had been unevenly distributed among

racialized minorities in America (Wilson, 1987). Speaking mainly to the black experience,

Wilson noted that black middle- and working-class families had previously lived in segregated

ghettoes with poor blacks, but as they began to enjoy the benefits of desegregation, they moved

out of the inner city, creating a considerable rise in the poverty levels in these communities

(Wilson, 1987, p. 50). In addition to the substantial problems caused by higher concentrations of

poverty in the ghetto, Wilson noted that the loss of these stable families removed an important

“social buffer” (Wilson, 1987, p. 56) which would have maintained the strength of institutions in

the area such as schools, recreation centres, etc., as well as provide role models for poor,

unemployed black youth. This became a useful explanation for why blacks and Latinos joined

the criminal underworld (Hagedorn & Macon, 1988), but it was never meant as an attempt to

explain gangs; gangs were considered a by product of the formation of an underclass. This

theory had a hard time explaining the specific types of gang problems that exist, as well as the

record rise in gang activity in the 1980s despite elevated levels of black and Hispanic educational

attainment and employment (Spergel, 1995). The language of “underclass” has also faced

considerable controversy, for its discursive tendency to stigmatize people who fall out of

accepted norms generally associated with dominant, middle-class values (Shelden, Tracy, &

Brown, 2004, p. 213). Wilson’s endorsement of the underclass idea was a powerful motivator

for further research however, and the concept would become a key element in future discussions

of racial and ethnic assimilation.

Most of these notions of gang formation were created without a very well-developed

understanding of race or immigration. Gang research had become the province of criminologists

and social workers, while sociologists were relegated to the sidelines (Coughlin & Venkatesh,

2003). This has resulted in a set of theoretical attempts to explain gang formation which are not

well-acquainted with the latest developments in sociological notions of racial and ethnic

incorporation. The truth is the sociology of immigration had not moved much further over the

years either, with most ideas still driven by the basic model of assimilation, a unidirectional

movement of the immigrant groups’ status and culture toward the mainstream of North America

– basically Anglo-conformity (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 5). The failure of this paradigm to account for

racialization’s pervasive effects on a newcomer population was a profound breakdown in theory,

and researchers finally began to rework the model in the 1990’s.

Attempting to rethink ideas about assimilation, in the context of decades of massive

immigration of racialized people into Western countries, Alba and Nee argued that assimilation

was a process of boundaries becoming blurred over time (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 6). Immigrants and

their children slowly become closer to the mainstream over time, as social mobility and

residential integration become more acceptable. Racial and class boundaries have gradually

lessened over the years and will continue to do so in the future, until they are eventually blurred

beyond recognition across generations (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 7). These scholars were realistic

however, in that they acknowledged that the colour line was still quite visible, and that it would

still likely function as a way of excluding people (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 7).

Other theorists employed Wilson’s concept of an underclass, in a theory known as

segmented assimilation (Itzigsohn, 2009). Classic assimilation theory was unable to explain the

persistent lack of social mobility experienced by second and third-generation Mexican

immigrants, so Portes and other researchers reformulated the hypothesis of assimilation.

Segmented assimilation introduces two new propositions that make it profoundly different from

classic assimilation. The first is the idea of an hour-glass shaped labour market, in which stable,

well-paid manufacturing jobs which required little formal education have largely disappeared. In

their place have appeared low-paying, precarious employment opportunities in the service sector

if you have no post-secondary education; and relatively high-paying and secure jobs if you have

received higher education. Since most children of poor immigrants, living in economically

depressed inner-city areas, do not have access to higher education, they are largely relegated to

the lower-end jobs. The second assertion of segmented assimilation is that the latest wave of

immigration is primarily made up of racialized people, who experience racial discrimination in

addition to poverty (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 9). In this analysis, immigrant groups are being

assimilated into American society in stratified sectors. Those who are racialized as white, and

who enjoy a certain level of human capital or financial resources, can assimilate into the

mainstream or middle-class. For immigrants who lack these resources, or who are racialized as

non-white, the key factor is the relative stability of their ethnic group itself; those whose

communities enjoy well organized institutions and the ability to enforce social norms will form

into ethnic enclaves, from which residents can usually spring-board into the middle class. Other

immigrant groups which lack this ethnic solidarity, and sufficient educational and financial

resources, will often assimilate into the underclass, where they reject the values of the

mainstream culture and give up on their parents’ commitment to the American dream (Itzigsohn,

2009, p. 9). These ideas have been used to explain the high proportion of Mexican and other

immigrant groups in lower socioeconomic categories, as well as in gangs.

Sociological examinations of immigration have come under fire recently for their lack of

attention to race. The old Chicago school categories of race, ethnicity and immigrant group still

hold sway for the most part in these investigations; race is conceptualized as a variable to be

accounted for, an inherent quality, rather than a social construct which affects subjects’ day to

day lives in real ways (Romero, 2008, p. 24). Furthermore, the very idea of assimilation has

been attacked as a racist discourse, since it relies on a unidirectional movement of the immigrant

group toward Anglo-conformity (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 6). Assimilation by definition (“To make or

be like” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2009), demands that we accept White, middle-class values

and practices as the norm, and that we regard the ways of the immigrant as deviant (Romero,

2008, p. 25). This privileges white people, first by forcing others to take on their ways, and

second by allowing them to ignore oppression; furthermore this sort of privilege is rarely

observed by the holder (Romero, 2008, p. 25). Sociological investigations of immigration have

been stuck in a paradigm originating in the first-half of the twentieth century, and our

understanding of the relationship between immigration and gang formation has consequently not

moved any further. On the other hand, theories of gang formation have largely relied on

explanations related to social disorganization and poverty (Spergel, 1995), without fully

acknowledging the pervasive effects of racial and ethnic discrimination, especially as

experienced by immigrants. Recent scholarly investigation has sought to correct this deficiency

(Decker & van Gemert, 2009) (van Gemert, Peterson, & Lien, 2008), but they have not sought to

adopt new theoretical frameworks, choosing instead to rework existing theoretical ideas, such as

Thrasher’s concept of interstitiality, with a new lens focused on issues of race and ethnicity. Two

recent and promising attempts to overcome the shortcomings of previous theoretical frameworks

are stratified ethno-racial incorporation (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 17), and multiple marginality (Vigil,

2002, p. 8); these may help to shed important light on some of the nexus between immigration

and gang formation.

In light of the criticism levelled at notions of assimilation, recent scholarship has given

more currency to the idea of incorporation (Itzigsohn, 2009). Rather than positing a teleological

progression from immigrant to mainstream resident, incorporation allows for a more nuanced

understanding of the immigrant experience, by investigating and seeking to explain the complex

interactions between immigrants and the host society. This approach places greater emphasis on

the examination of intra-group stratification than segmented assimilation does, which gives it a

better grasp of the influences of social relations, human agency, and power (Itzigsohn, 2009).

Unlike new assimilation, stratified ethno-racial incorporation also places the process of

racialization at the centre of the debate; race is seen as socially constructed and variable, but

persistent, and institutionalized in the labour market, schools, and residential patterns (Itzigsohn,

2009, p. 15). The theory argues that there are three relevant features of the incorporation

trajectories of low-skilled, racialized immigrants: first, American society’s racialized class

structure; second, ethnic groups’ internal class stratification; and third, the construction and

persistence of ethnoracial identities and communities (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 16). Itzigsohn

examined the claims of stratified ethnoracial incorporation using the case of first- and second-

generation Dominican immigrants living in Providence, RI. He found that although the second

generation experienced significant mobility, the racialized class stratification of American

society remained entrenched, and Dominicans did not achieve parity with the mainstream

population (Itzigsohn, 2009, p. 197). He also found that although some second-generation

immigrants were experiencing downward incorporation into the underclass, this process was not

as relevant as the large numbers entering the new “services working class”, wherein they had

jobs but were unable to secure stable, well-paid employment (Itzigsohn, 2009). He agrees with

Bonilla that we are likely to see the emergence of a three-tier racial hierarchy in America,

wherein honourary white status is conferred on light-skinned Latinos and certain Asians, who

then constitute a buffer between whites and the new black which would include blacks, dark-

skinned Latinos, Asians with little human and social capital, Indigenous people, etc (Itzigsohn,

2009, p. 195). Itzigsohn’s formulations give us a useful perspective on the experiences of

working class immigrant populations, which may allow for a more concrete understanding of

race and ethnicity during our investigation of youth gangs.

Multiple marginality is a framework developed by James Vigil, which attempts to unite a

number of theoretical approaches in one (Spergel, 1995). Vigil notes that gangs are a “byproduct

of migration” (Vigil, 2002, p. 3), and that they emerge predominantly in “low-income ethnic

minority neighbourhoods” (Vigil, 2002, p. 6). He argues that gangs are the result of

marginalization, when people are pushed to the outer edge of society, where they are voiceless

and powerless because of economic and social conditions (Vigil, 2002, p. 7). Vigil uses the

language of multiple marginality in order to convey the complexities of the forces at work here.

Seeking to include the insights of a number of different theories, he notes the historical and

structural issues faced by new immigrants, leading to social disorganization, poverty, unequal

opportunities, along with psychological and personal family difficulties (Vigil, 2002, p. 7).

Because second-generation immigrant youth are so forcefully left out of the mainstream in

American society, they have few options in order to seek a better life, therefore gangs become

one viable alternative to marginalization (Vigil, 2002, p. 7). Using ethnographic methods to

examine the incorporation of second-generation youth cross-culturally in four different ethnic

groups, Vigil found that it was “clearly the difficulty of adapting and adjusting to a new culture”

that led to a breakdown of social control factors in these communities (Vigil, 2002, p. 159). He

also notes that the youths from these ethnic communities which do become involved in gangs

“are street-socialized in ways that are remarkably similar but nevertheless reflect each

community’s unique ethnic history” (Vigil, 2002, p. 160). Freng and Esbensen used an

quantitatively operationalized conception of Vigil’s framework to investigate the relationship

between ethnicity and gang formation using multi-site survey data. They found that multiple

marginality is a viable explanation of current gang membership, but that different aspects of

marginalization affected different groups. While similar concerns about marginalization affected

blacks and Latinos regardless of whether they had ever been in a gang, whites who joined gangs

were much more marginalized later in life than those who had not, with scores similar to blacks

and Latinos who had joined gangs (Freng & Esbensen, 2007).

These two frameworks, stratified ethnoracial incorporation and multiple marginality,

offer a new way forward for theoretical explanations of the nexus formed by immigration and

gangs, but they are still incomplete. Stratified ethnoracial incorporation is useful for questions

relating to working class immigrants, but remains unexamined in relation to other classes and

sectors of the economy, and requires investigation in other cultural contexts than the Dominican

experience. Multiple marginality is also useful, because it moves beyond single-minded

explanations to view the complexity of street life from a more broad perspective. This approach

still requires more investigation as well, however, especially in terms of the way that the specific

cultural milieus of various ethnic gangs are affected by marginality. Nevertheless, these two

approaches come the closest to explaining the observed phenomena in the street, and provide a

direction for further research.

The Racializing Power of the “Gang”

While it seems clear that racialized and ethnic minorities are forming more gangs than

white people, we must be very sensitive when dealing with this particular subject. There is

significant evidence in the literature that more attention needs to be paid to white gangs such as

skinheads and biker outfits (Coughlin & Venkatesh, 2003, p. 50). Furthermore, the oft-debated

issue of the definition of a gang has a number of race relations concerns attached to it, since our

notion of ‘gangs’ is so racialized (Shelden, Tracy, & Brown, 2004, p. 17). Law-enforcement

statistics have enumerated ethnic and racial minority representation in gangs over 90 % in some

instances, which may indicate more about the racializing and stigmatizing power of the word

‘gang’ than it does about actual ethnic participation rates (Kinnear, 2008). We need to examine

the discourses which surround these social constructs, or they may lead to misinterpretations of

reality.

Although racial and ethnic heterogeneity may be more commonplace than before, gangs

are mostly racially and ethnically homogenous (Shelden, 1997, p. 47) (Kinnear, 2008, p. 12).

This leads to the racialization of those who join gangs, because they will now be identified as a

gang member of a specific ethnic or racial type. This has certainly been the case with law-

enforcement, but it is also true of the media, and even of academics, who will often use race and

ethnicity as a way of differentiating between gangs (Coughlin & Venkatesh, 2003, p. 50). This

process of labelling may fuel the creation of a “self-fulfilling prophesy” (Kinnear, 2008, p. 8),

since a person’s self-image is often derived from the way others view them. A kid hanging out

with his friends is suddenly told he is a member of an “ethnic youth gang”; maybe he is harassed

by the police, or told he will never make it by a teacher. The end result is greater identification

with an externally imposed label, and a need to rebel against a social order that racializes and

stigmatizes youth.

This labelling process may have more wide-ranging deleterious effects on racialized

minorities. During the 1960’s, gangs and gang culture were often conflated with racialized

people; gangs were considered a product of poor black and Latino populations living in

depressed inner-cities (Coughlin & Venkatesh, 2003, p. 52). Some scholars argue that these are

still the most prevalent types of gang to be found in America, therefore they should get the most

attention, and are in fact the real subject when studying ‘gangs’ (Yablonsky, 1997). Other object

to this notion, who argue that there are significant numbers of Asian (not Chinese), Chinese, and

white gangs to consider them just as much a part of the problem (Shelden, 1997, p. 47)

(Coughlin & Venkatesh, 2003, p. 51). Databases of gang membership, such as the Gang

Reporting Evaluation and Tracking (GREAT) database, are massively overrepresented by

racialized people, with white people accounting for only 358 entries out of a total of over 100

000 (Kinnear, 2008). Another report from the Justice Policy Institute suggested that over 90% of

gang members are non-white, despite the fact that scholars have noted that white gangs display

many of the same features, have similar crime and delinquency rates, and have similar rates of

involvement as Hispanic and black gangs (Kinnear, 2008). This suggests that serious

investigation is in order of law-enforcement agencies’ means of identifying gang members.

Law-enforcement’s racialized understanding of gangs has led to more serious problems

than simple stereotypes. These discourses have been implicated in disparities in racialized

people’s engagement with law-enforcement and incarceration (Piquero & Brame, 2008), racial

profiling (Kinnear, 2008, p. 40), as well as deadly violence (Romero, 2001). Perhaps the most

important problem here is the definitional issues related to research on gangs – there is little

agreement on what constitutes a gang, therefore different observers categorize the subjects

differently. An interesting example is that of the “Spur Posse” from Lakewood, CA, a group of

white adolescent males, nine of whom were charged with sexual assault on a group of girls, of

whom one was only ten years old. Although a number of the girls were underage, all but one of

the charges was dropped amid claims that the sex was consensual. Furthermore, while these

boys clearly displayed numerous identifiers of a ‘gang’, such as wearing San Antonio Spurs

baseball caps, they were never referred to as such (Kinnear, 2008, p. 42). This is a clear

demonstration of racialized inequality in law enforcement. It hardly seems worth mentioning the

difference in treatment that would have been observed, had the boys been black and wearing red

or blue bandanas.

Racial profiling can be seen as another example of the racializing and stigmatizing power

of the word ‘gang’. A case from the 1990’s offers some interesting insight into this process –

Minh Tram, 15, of Garden Grove, CA, was waiting to use a pay phone with two of her friends.

An unmarked police cruiser with an Asian officer behind the wheel stopped them and asked what

they were doing. Tram told him they were waiting to page her brother to pick them up, but the

officer suggested they were going to call someone for drugs. He lined them up against a wall,

photographed them and told them they looked like gang members; their names were added to the

state’s gang database as well. In 1995, a suit brought against the police department by the

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was settled for $85 000, while the police agreed to

obtain written consent before taking suspects’ pictures, and that they would take people’s

photograph only if they were reasonably sure they were committing a crime (Kinnear, 2008, p.

44).

One of the most dangerous manifestations of the racializing power of the ‘gang’, is police

violence and brutality. Many scholars have noted the connection between police violence and

racism, primarily among the black and Latino communities in America (Romero, 2001, p. 1087).

Analyzing the discourses found in police and state texts, Romero has observed the “social and

political construction of Latino criminality” in Texas, and how this is used to legitimate violence

against racialized Latino youth (Romero, 2001, p. 1088). She documents a historical process

which built up the image of the “bandido”, then the “gang member”, in the mind of the public,

including the media and law-enforcement agencies, as Latinos were characterized as inherently

criminal. She then locates police documents, both historical and current, which serve to

reinforce racist representations of Latinos, as well legitimating the use of excessive force in

dealing with them. Racist discourses about gangs, some of which are a historical legacy, but

others which we reinforce and propagate ourselves through our own prejudices, continue to

construct racialized subjects in this society as a dangerous ‘other’ from which we must be

defended at all costs.

The media is equally culpable in this project to demonize racialized youth. Many

scholars have pointed out the tendency for a moral panic to develop around discussions of gangs

and race, and the media are often cast as the leading opinion-makers in this process (Hagedorn &

Macon, 1988, p. 23). Discourse analysis of print media relating to gangs has found powerful

racializing discourses, first and foremost the tendency to ascribe racial and ethnic characteristics

to gangs only when those gangs belonged to a racialized group (Esbensen & Tusinki, 2007, p.

34). Furthermore, these scholars found that this racializing subtext remained clearly present over

time, observing similar patterns across a 26 year period from which they drew their data set

(Esbensen & Tusinki, 2007, p. 30). The media are clearly not a neutral party when it comes to

manufacturing opinion about gangs and minority youth, despite pleas of journalistic objectivity.

Youths and minority groups are two status categories which are often represented

negatively in the news media, and these reports have been found to be highly exaggerated

(Tovares, 2002, p. 7). The gang becomes an easy way to package both discourses in one

convenient reductionist schema. Commentators note that although gang activity may have

increased over time, news coverage of gang activity has almost certainly increased, which can

lead to the impression that there has been a greater rise in gang activity than is in fact occurring

(Kinnear, 2008, p. 66). Labels such as ‘gang’ are less readily applied to white people in the

media, with the example of the infamous “Trench Coat Mafia” of Littleton, CO often being

raised. This group wore similar clothing and discussed their killings on the internet, yet the word

gang was rarely mentioned, and never by officials (Tovares, 2002, p. 10). Without mentioning

race, racially charged discourses in the media can have very real consequences, as was observed

during the 1943 “zoot-suit riots” in Los Angeles, when reports about Mexican American

teenagers in the southwest finally led to indiscriminate attacks on these youth by military

servicemen and others (Tovares, 2002). It was considered an important milestone in the

development of Mexican American youth gangs by some commentators, the beginning of a

“labelling” process, which eventually led to greater gang participation among Mexican-

American youth (Spergel, 1995, p. 162).

Another way gangs racialize their members is through promotion of ethnic self-

identification and labelling by others, as well as ethnically associated values. This effect can be

seen most powerfully in prison settings, where most gangs are formed along racial lines, largely

so prisoners can protect themselves from other racial or ethnic groups (Schmidt & O'Reilly,

2007). Researchers have observed ethnic self-identification dispersing political ideologies

within gangs (Coughlin & Venkatesh, 2003), sometimes with positive results such as

organizational cohesion, or community activism (Venkatesh, 2008). On the other hand, some

observers have noted that gang members’ association with an ethnic identity can socialize them

for deviant behaviour, by demanding they behave within culturally prescribed parameters which

are not acceptable in North American culture (Bourgois, 1996/2003).

Finally, we scholars must be very careful in the way we use the terminology of gangs and

race relations. Although academics often deride the lack of objectivity and sensationalism of

journalists, they are not immune to these temptations either, and some of the most powerful

discourses of racism and exclusion have begun in the halls of the ivory tower. One of the most

important and often cited examples of this dynamic is the “culture of poverty” framework

discussed earlier in this essay, a product of the 1960s era quest to understand the rampant social

pathologies of the inner city, which was later panned for “blaming the victim”, as well as

producing essentializing discourses (Bourgois, 1996/2003, p. 16). Some scholars have argued

that academic representations of ‘gangs’ and street life do less to challenge the mass media’s

sensationalism than to confirm it and validate it, by beginning with definitional assumptions

which are not proven valid, such as the criminal dimensions of gang involvement, and the idea

that gangs are driving a perceived rise in urban violence (Hallsworth & Young, 2009, p. 186).

Furthermore, the word ‘gang’ is so loaded with ideological baggage that it may be ineffective

analytically, as it simultaneously “denotes and, in a tautological way explains” a social problem

(Hallsworth & Young, 2009, p. 184). In one term we are given an issue, and an explanation as to

why it is an issue.

Conclusion

The connection between ethnoracial incorporation and street gang formation is well-

established, yet has only been examined on the surface, and requires much further investigation.

While we seem quite ready to pronounce the problem of gangs and gang-life as one originating

with racial minorities, we have not filled in the blanks with regard to why this occurs, how it

occurs, and most importantly, how we can prevent this from occurring in the future. Are gangs a

permanent feature of the way Western society incorporates immigrants; a by product of the

struggle to acculturate, that all immigrants experience? Or are we failing newcomers, by not

offering them the tools to support their families, to join our communities, and become equal

members of our society? I tend to think we are more a victim of the latter lack of foresight, since

problems of this nature have been an issue throughout the 20th century, and continue to plague

immigrants to this day. At the same time, although most evidence points to an

overrepresentation of visible minority youth in gangs, we must be careful not to let these

assertions cloud our vision of the truth. Gang culture and membership has increased its scope to

international proportions (van Gemert & Stuifbergen, 2008), and has transcended racial

boundaries in its sources and its effects. If this is true then we must not allow a racialized

concept of “gang” to place blinders on our investigations, or to stigmatize our young citizens on

the margins.

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