It all started last year, my freshman year of high 
school, when I was fourteen. I used to be the average 
good kid who got good grades. I never cut class, 
smoked, or hung out with gang members. But then I 
started hanging out with the “cholos” in school and 
their ways started clicking with me. 
I began cutting class, smoking weed and drinking beer 
and hard liquor. I would lie to my parents about what 
I was doing on the weekends. I would say that I was at 
my cousin’s house and of course my cousins would 
always cover for me. This went on for a few months 
without my parents finding out or even suspecting 
anything. Then I started taking off, leaving my house 
and not coming back for days at a time. I would go to 
parties to get high and drunk with all the homies. 
This is all the good stuff about being in a gang. But 
then came the running and hiding from the cops, which 
at first was pretty cool because I learned how to get 
over any fence without a problem.
After a while my parents began wondering what I was 
doing when I was gone. They didn’t really care that 
much because they were used to the gang life as well. 
My uncle knew what I was doing the whole time because 
he knew the people I hung out with. He was also 
involved in gangs so if he told my parents they would 
know he was too. He never told anybody because he 
would be known as a rat and that’s the lowest thing 
you could be in a gang. 
Later I met a bunch of girls who were just like me. We 
liked to do the same things together and eventually we 
decided to start a new all girl hood. But before we 
did anything we had to get permission from 
the “veteranos”, or older gangbangers of a previous 
all girl gang. Soon after we got consent we got jumped 
in. Like most gangs we have our shotcaller, who is the 
oldest member of the hood. They pretty much run 
everything, deciding if there are going to be fights 
or missions. The shotcaller also makes the final 
decision on who gets in and out of the hood. The other 
members are ranked by how strong they are and how far 
they will go for their hood. 
We kicked it all the time and we would mostly be 
running around town pulling little missions or just 
simply causing problems. People would always fear us, 
even if they didn’t know who we were, because the way 
we looked and our size. But finally we got caught up. 
My homiez and I were hiding out at a friend’s house, 
but when we left the house to go to our friend’s 
funeral, we were stopped by a cop who reported us to 
the probation office since we had been reported as 
runaways. 
Luckily my homegirlz and I were released, but we were 
sent to a group home. Well that didn’t go as well as I 
thought. The first night I was there I was already 
fighting with one of the girls. A week later, when my 
cousin ended up in the same group home, I started 
having a beef with another girl. 
One night we were all hanging out and my cousin and I 
said something to the girl that was considered a 
threat, even though we were only joking. The sheriff 
arrived the next morning and my cousin and I ended up 
getting locked up. It wasn’t that bad because I knew 
that my homiez were in there. I spent four days in 
jail then went to court. Although I thought I would be 
released, instead I got transferred to Santa Clara 
County juvenile hall in San Jose because my mom lives 
in San Jose. I spent a week their before I went to 
court and even then I didn’t get out. I ended up 
getting transferred back to Santa Cruz County juvenile 
hall, where I spent another week until I was released. 
I spent four weeks locked up in two different 
counties. 
It might seem like nothing to some people but overall 
it was extremely frustrating, especially since I don’t 
have much support from my family and I’m not allowed 
to see my brothers and sisters. I now have six months 
probation and I have to get drug tested at least once 
a week. I thought everything was going pretty good 
with probation until I found out I had a warrant for 
leaving the city without notifying my probation 
officer.  Now I have to go to court to get it cleared 
up. 
I’m currently under house arrest and I have to wear an 
ankle monitor that monitors where I’m at and when I 
come home. I will probably get locked up at least once 
more before I do anything or change myself. While most 
people think gangs and drugs are everything, they’re 
not. I got kicked out of the Pajaro School District, 
which means I can’t go to any school in Watsonville, 
so I’ll probably drop out of school at age 15. So if 
gangs and drugs still sound cool I feel bad for you. 
But who am I to tell anyone what to do? Well I need to 
wrap this up, but for all those teens out there that 
think gangs are cool, they’re not cool or fun, but 
painful and dangerous.