TRIANGLE
Connections between the film’s take on generational gang membership and other resources we have had in this class were that in many cases the family that children are born into is in many ways their gang family. As the video “Nuestra Familia, Our Family” showed, the gang family is your family, and your family is part of your gang family. You are born into a gang allegiance, defined by it, and raised by it. Lil Mondo was an excellent example of this; he was born into a family where is father was already part of the Nuestra gang, therefore making him a soldier in the making. He learned from his father the prices you pay for your gang or ‘family’ by watching him go to jail, he learned the trade from the those that cared for him when his father could not, and from what he saw of his father when he came back into his life. This was something that he set to repeat himself by committing crimes, even murder by the age of 19. He reset all that had happened to him, by leaving his child behind while he served his time in jail just as his father had.
SQUARE
It amazes me that while people join gangs or form them for money and power, they are generally all linked together by poverty. You don’t see many depictions of the gang member that made the big bank and actually owns all of his assets. So many of these people trap their families in gang life like the Nuestra family out of wanting to make things better, but that is never the case in the long run. In order to make it to the top you have to be willing to lose a brother or a son, you give way more than you will ever financially gain.
CIRCLE
By being born with a father that was in the Nuestra family, Mondo’s life had already been set for him. What he would do, who he would be surrounded by and what he would learn. And as we saw with how Armando chose to change his life and try to make a difference for his blood family, the fight is long and hard. Generally you do not leave your gang family and if you do you pay handsomely. I think that it is worth circling Armando’s fight to change and leave the Nuestra family behind; it shows you that while it seems like your destiny is mapped out for you, you can chose to change it. It gives you hope that maybe one day these gang families will dissipate as more and more people separate their blood family from their gang families.
"Nuestra Familia, Our Family." (2006) Films on Demand. Web. 27 Jun 2011. <https://myasucourses.asu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_206021_1>.
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