San Antonio College Library

This film explores the nature/nurture debate through the case study of gangsters growing up in Honduras, one of the most dangerous cities in the world. We follow Daniel Pacheco, a priest and furniture maker, who risks his own life to save others. We also meet Orlin Castro, a journalist who has become desensitized to the violence, and Matathan, a hitman who talks openly about his profession. Getting frighteningly close to the horrific violence, we...

"Living Black breaks the stereotype of poor African American neighborhoods as dysfunctional ghettos of helpless and hopeless people. Despite real and enduring poverty, the community described here -- the historic North End of Champaign, Illinois -- has a vibrant social life and strong ties among generations. But it operates on its own nonjudgmental terms -- teen moms aren't derided, school dropouts aren't ridiculed, and parolees and ex-cons aren't...

At age 12, Brenda Paz was affiliated with a powerful Los Angeles clique of the Mara Salvatrucha, a violent street gang. By 17, she was dead. Journalist Logan offers a gripping exploration of Paz's life within the group and sheds light on a criminal network that affects countless American cities.

Until now, attention to gang life has been focused almost exclusively on the world of male gang bangers. But a disturbing new phenomenon across America has been the rise of girl gangs. In 8 Ball Chicks, veteran journalist Gini Sikes spends a year in the ghettos following girl gangs - white, black, and Latino - in South Central Los Angeles, in San Antonio, and in Milwaukee. Dismissed by the police as mere adjuncts to male gangs, girl gang bangers in...

A cluster of neighborhoods lies in the heart of Southern California, streets that form a grid between concrete ribbons of freeway. Nearly a quarter of its young men will end up in prison. Many others will end up dead. These neighborhoods in South Los Angeles are home to two of the most infamous African-American gangs, the Crips and the Bloods. On these mean streets over the past 30 years, more than 15,000 people have been murdered in an ongoing cycle...

Encourages educators and researchers to understand the complexities of adolescent gang members' lives in order to rethink their assumptions about these students in school. The particular objective is to situate four gang members as literate, caring students from loving families whose identities and literacy keep them on the margins of school. The research described in this book suggests that advocacy is a particularly effective form of critical ethnography....

Carlos Fuentes doesn't want any part of the life his older brother, Alex, has laid out for him in Boulder, Colorado. He wants to keep living on the edge, and carve his own path -- just like Alex did. Unfortunately, his ties to a Mexican gang aren't easy to break, and he soon finds himself being set up by a drug lord. When Alex arranges for Carlos to live with his former professor and his family to keep him from being sent to jail, Carlos feels completely...

Augmenting her brilliant deductive skills with dream analysis, marijuana, and the written work of a mysterious French detective, private investigator Claire DeWitt reluctantly returns to post-Katrina New Orleans to solve the disappearance of an unpopular prosecutor.

"Los Angeles is the epicenter of the American gang problem. Rituals and customs from Los Angeles' eastside gangs, including hand signals, graffiti, and clothing styles, have spread to small towns and big cities alike. Many see the problem with gangs as related to urban marginality--for a Latino immigrant population struggling with poverty and social integration, gangs offer a close-knit community. Yet, as Edward Orozco Flores argues in God's Gangs,...