Synopsis:It is known as The Hood to the Bounty Hunter Watts Blood Gang. The Vatos Locos Muchachos call it El Barrio, and those in the 77th Division of the Los Angeles Police Department refer to it simply as The Beat. With all the money, power, and respect at stake, royalty is crowned through determination, but there can only be one King of the Nickerson Gardens Housing Projects.

This first comprehensive study of Chicanas encountering the U.S. criminal justice system is set within the context of the international war on drugs as witnessed at street level in Chicana/o barrios. Chicana Lives and Criminal Justice uses oral history to chronicle the lives of twenty-four Chicana pintas (prisoners/former prisoners) repeatedly arrested and incarcerated for non-violent, low-level economic and drug-related crimes. It also provides the first documentation of the thirty-four-year history of Sybil Brand Institute, Los Angeles' former women's jail. In a time and place where drug war policies target people of color and their communities, drug-addicted Chicanas are caught up in an endless cycle of police abuse, arrest, and incarceration. They feel the impact of mandatory sentencing laws, failing social services and endemic poverty, violence, racism, and gender discrimination. The women in this book frankly discuss not only their jail experiences, but also their family histories, involvement with gangs, addiction to drugs, encounters with the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems, and their successful and unsuccessful attempts to recover from addiction and reconstitute fractured families. The Chicanas' stories underscore the amazing resilience and determination that have allowed many of the women to break the cycle of abuse. Díaz-Cotto also makes policy recommendations for those who come in contact with Chicanas/Latinas caught in the criminal justice system.

Buryl Baty (1924–1954) was a winning athlete, coach, builder of men, and an early pioneer in the fight against bigotry. In 1950, Baty became head football coach at Bowie High School in El Paso and quickly inspired his athletes, all Mexican Americans from the Segundo Barrio, with his winning ways and his personal stand against the era’s extreme, deep-seated bigotry—to which they were subjected. However, just as the team was in a position to win a third district title in 1954, they were jolted by an unthinkable tragedy that turned their world upside down. Later, as mature adults, these players realized that Coach Baty had helped mold them into honorable and successful men, and forty-four years after the coach’s death, they dedicated their high school stadium in his name. In 2013, Baty was inducted posthumously into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame. In this poignant memoir, R. Gaines Baty also describes his own journey to get to know his father. Coach Baty’s life story is portrayed from the perspectives of nearly one hundred individuals who knew him, in addition to many documented facts and news reports.

A founding member of the Black Eyed Peas shares the inspiring story of his rise from the streets of East L.A. to the heights of international fame.

Gang Strategies in the Northern Triangle: Coerced Criminality as a Form of Human Trafficking argues for a more robust understanding of the issues, dynamics, and contextual factors of human trafficking. Relying on the definition as established by the Palermo Protocol more than two decades ago, this book takes a hard look at the strategies and results of gang “recruitment” in the Northern Triangle countries as a particular and understudied form of human trafficking—gang trafficking. It offers a lens through which to evaluate the actions of gangs, specifically MS13 and Barrio 18, as they use methods of coercion to force the compliance of youths as de facto gang slaves. By elaborating on this dynamic, and on the risks associated with anti-gang policies and harsh law enforcement practices, Gang Strategies in the Northern Triangle unravels the underlying victimization, exploitation, and criminalization of youths in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The book maintains that the crimes of gang violence and the crimes of human trafficking intertwine and intersect to perpetuate an environment of trauma, exploitation, and hopelessness that leaves thousands with no options, as refugees, conscripted into gangs, incarcerated for crimes they were forced to commit, or dead.

Heart-wrenching and ultimately uplifting, this stirring memoir chronicles one Asian-American immigrant's struggle to find himself--and to transcend the dangers of gang life in Los Angeles.