SOC421H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Ms-13, Urban Decay, Neoliberalism
Adios Nino: The gangs of Guatemala
Introduction
• During 1800’s and 1900’s the youth (La Juventud) they were considered heroes and in
2000 they became criminals and enemies of society
• Urban youth had a long history of engaging in social protests
• A gang called the maras took part in these protests, their presence brought mixed feeling
as some were scared of them and in contrast to the propaganda about them, they
concerned themselves with the communities that surrounded them
• But the Maras changed. By the time of the 1996 Peace Accords the gangs had
become morbid, and that has only increased with time
• Too many gang members in Guatemala City have become the victimizers that they
were once falsely ac- cused of being
• Cut out of history
• the youth in Maras have become increasingly involved not only in violence, a term
that describes many modalities, but in violent deaths.
• Gangs changed because of historical factors such as
o the defeat of a decades-old urban subculture in working-class barrios that
emanated from the popular movements of 1954–80.
▪ a military victory through genocidal war
▪ neoliberal policies that have diminished social services for the
urban poor
▪ unemployment in a city where employment refers to a physically
exhausting job at not even survival wages
▪ a legal system that is currently in complete collapse
o in the mid-1990s mem- bers of two gangs from Los Angeles, Mara-18 (m-
18) and Mara Salvatrucha (ms-13), arrived, and they had ties to the sale of
drugs
• a weak economy and an inoperative legal sys- tem allow global organized crime to
ourish and to incorporate mareros as cheap labor within a system of networks that
employs down-and-out youth everywhere in the world, and keeps them that way by
making sure they have little cash.
• For many young members in the Maras, they have to kills in order to have money to
provide for their families, they have little options for legitimate income
• They average marero is murdered by the age of 22
• Hardly any members of the violent Maras of the 1990s and onward di- rectly
experienced war, although a few did or thought they did.
• Murder is the normal way to die in Guatemala
• A planet of gangs
• Most people see gangs as a consequence of multiple marginalities including
o Urban decay
o Unemployment
o Social abandonment
o Domestic abuse
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