Youth and Gangs
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The reasons that Luis Rodriguez got into a gang are quite similar to the reasons that many minority and marginalized youths participate in gangs. Overcrowded, crime-ridden, drug-filled, poverty-afflicted neighborhoods that lack decent opportunities for education, employment, and socialization typically act as pull factors for gang membership. The issues of education, employment, minority status, immigration and others take a toll on the self-worth of many individuals. Faced with a lack of opportunities, many find drug-dealing and self-destructive behaviors the one sure way of fitting in to such cultures. As Luis J. Rodriguez (1993) maintains in his autobiographical Always Running, ôIn communities with limited resourcesàsophisticated survival structures evolved, including gangs, out of the bone and sinew tossed up by this environmentö (8). Prejudice, racism, class stratification, and a lack of educational and employment opportunities often drive youth in such urban areas into a life of crime and drug abuse. High drop-out rates, lucrative drug profits, and few jobs create ten-year-old drug lookouts who earn enormous income involving themselves in the drug trade of organized gangs. As Rodriguez (1993) explains about the hardest hit areas of Los Angeles and Chicago; ôYouth unemployment hovered around 75 percentö (7). Rodriguez explains how there were two cultures in Los Angeles, one for mainstream, upwardly mobile culture and one for marginali
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 982
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)
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