Written by Carlos Sauceda

So That My Past Doesn’t Become Someone’s Future

There are many reasons why a young person might join a gang. It is important to understand where youth are coming from and address their needs rather than to criminalize them.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I can tell you that youth-gang involvement is very complex. It involves poor decisions, lack of maturity, unresolved trauma and ongoing abuse. Life history events such as family upbringing, environment, and lack of opportunities can also play a role in a young person’s decision to join a gang. Society also carries some of that burden. Why society? Because society is quick to judge, and implements stereotypes, labels and prejudice. Yet, society is slow to be the solution for the problem.

We live in a society that, due to lack of opportunities, requires parents to work many hours and forces them to sacrifice quality time spent with their children and leave them vulnerable to outside influences such as gangs and drugs.

Youth who lack quality time with their family often feel lonely, rejected, unloved, unimportant, despised, out of place and lost in the world. On many occasions youth don’t know how to express or deal with these types of emotions and it leads to poor behavior as a cry for help.

Every youth is unique and its own “individual”, therefore we cannot generalize nor stereotype the outcomes of their upbringings. Everyone copes with and handles life differently.

Two apples that fall from the same tree; depending on how the fall affects them, can go different directions. One can bruise, while the other may not.

In my own personal experience, trauma, fear, abandonment, loneliness and rejection contributed to me making poor decisions in life. Not knowing how to express my feelings, I masked my emotions and sought recognition, acceptance and approval from the wrong crowd. In my mind, gangs became a safe place because they gave me a false sense of security and belonging.

Gangs offer the youth a false sense of approval, love, and acceptance. They prey on the vulnerable. The streets have taken and consumed too many innocent lives. We, as a society, must do more for our youth. I have always said there are three schools in life; the first one is at home, the second one is the one we go to educate ourselves and the last one is always waiting for the first two to fail to steal our youth; that school is the streets.

During my time as a youth mentor, I talked with many teenagers and I found that many lacked quality time with their parents. They were hurt and felt as if they had no one to talk to. Many said they turned to the streets as a way to suppress their emotions, pain, confusion and needs. Even though we were from different generations, I realized how much we had in common. It only took a conversation to connect and offer these young men an alternative to the falsehood of gangs.

One of my main missions in life is to prevent my past from becoming someone’s future, therefore I continue to work with the youth so that they don’t make the same poor decisions I made.

Time is the greatest gift you can offer to someone in need. Together we can make a difference and restore, change and save many lives.