Los Angeles is one of the counties in California. Fifty percent of its population represents gang membership. The oldest gangs in Los Angeles are called Dog Town Rifa and it is found in old William houses that were built around 1942. There are groups of gangs which are dispersed in the whole county such; white fence, Temple Street, 38 street in south LA and Clanton. Most of these gangs were formed because of rampant racism. They were formed due to elimination of Blacks power and other political groups in the participation of changes in Los Angeles.
They are given names of Blood and Crip. The blood name is aligning traditionally with People Nation and crip name with Folk Nation. This alignment varies because each group competes for drug trade and tries to win more than the other; they therefore use graffiti to communicate. There is a group with crip tattooing and the other with eight ball tattoo. Due to this competition, the two groups are rivals. If the eight ball is displayed, it means the groups are aligned and if it is cracked, there is argument between them. This eight ball sign was very important because hands were used to make an eight figure display.
Blood names originated from south California and it was aligned to people nation to defend against crips. It used symbols such as red color, red rags and letter C which was crossed. Crips originated from Los Angeles, it was aligned to Folk nation set. It was a violent and multiracial group. Their symbols were; blue color, blue rags, used letter “c” instead of their letter “b” to disrespect blood and called themselves blood killers.
There are many similarities between this story and the story of “The tattoo soldier”. Both are talking about the gangs in Los Angeles. People with tattoos are mentioned in the two stories. Referring to the tattoo soldier, wife and children of Antonio Bernal who was a Guatemalan refugee were killed by a gang with tattoos: yellow pelt, black spots and yellow mouth marks of death squad (Tobar 2). Both stories review the act of competition. There is competition between blood and crip sets and in the tattoos soldier story, Antonio an editor was competing with other bookshops in the town.
1. Héctor Toba. Gangs in Los Angeles. New York. The Los Angeles Times 1992. Print.
