Proceedings from the transnational street gang/organization seminar

Abstract

They came from all over. Researchers from Barcelona, Genova, Milan, Santo Domingo, Quito, and New York City descended on John Jay College of Criminal Justice to discuss the emerging socio-cultural phenomenon of transnational youth gangs developing into street organizations, similar to those documented by the author in the late 1990s in New York City (see Brotherton and Barrios, 2004). The reaction of the media is also comparable, ranging from fear, panic and pathological stereotyping to curiosity and a genuine attempt to paint the subjects in a humanistic and multi-dimensional light. But the response of local political establishments is anything but traditional in the case of two of the cities: Barcelona and Genova. For the city governments in both of these locales have taken the unprecedented step of legally recognizing both the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation and the Asociación Ñeta as `cultural associations' organized by primarily first and 1.5 generation immigrant Latin American youth. The seminar was called to: (a) assemble up-to-date reports and analyses of the local and national growth of these groups based on sustained, collaborative, ethnographic field work; (b) compare the research experience across the multiple field sites; and (c) plan for the next stage of development in what is the only critical ethnographic transnational research of its kind (to our knowledge) currently being undertaken. Before summarizing the proceedings, permit me to briefly provide some background knowledge on the groups under discussion.