They used to call me La "Killer". When I was barely eight years old I was introduced to gang life by my friends who used to "hang out" instead of going to school and we had a great time. Our parents were either working or didn't care what we were doing at the time. We learned to cover up for missing school and our problems we were in. Pretty soon I was sniffing "tollie" and smoking weed, taking uppers, downers and acid as well as drink hard liquor and wine. My life was a full time party with my homegirls practically becoming my "familia". By the time I was thirteen I made it to "leader". Our fun had turned into hard action. By now we were doing "drive by shootings" cause we thought it was cool and we wanted everybody to know we were the baddest women in town, we were worse than any guy's gang around. Even the homeboys didn't mess with us! We weren't afraid to gang up on guys and set them up for armed robberies, stealing their dope and gold when they thought we were going to "be their girl". We stole cars for quick cash and traded them for dope from the dealers. After we got bored with punk stuff we would get high and drive around looking for people to "mess with". People who thought we were punks, and we wanted to show'em who the punk really was. When we picked somebody to "mess with' we'd jump out of the care, some with guns some just with bare fists or knives, but either way it went we ended up killing'em dead! We didn't feel nothin, we just got back in the car and drove off laughing and bragging about it, we were the ultimate cool!
As time went by the violence got worse. Our fun turned to paranoia and was freakin' us out. One by one my homegirls and homeboys started dying and we couldn't sleep or eat because we were afraid we were next. By now I was sure my mom knew what was going on, but I know now she was afraid to tell me or my homies. All she did was pray and keep telling us how much she loved us, but by then were were in the onda way too deep. I saw over ten of my homies die right in front of me, one of my homeboys died right in my arms from a .357. He was eighteen. That's when I went from dreaming to reality. There were only a few of us homegirls left, and we cared about each other, so when we heard about a center for gang and drug prevention, we decided to check it out even thought we thought it was corny. There were other gangs going there, but we went anyway. That was when the people there taught us that it was okay to get along with the other gang members, plus we started having fun together. We got off drugs and learned to respect others, ourselves and our parents who really loved us but we couldn't see it then. They taught us not to fight when there's a problem and its never too late to get an education, no matter how old you are. They helped us make our own decisions, not to do things just because others did it, and to think about our future. Getting into that center saved my life and that of a lot of other innocent people.
Since I'm married now and about to have my first baby, I regret the things we did and feel sorry for the people we hurt or killed and at the same time I miss all my homeboys and homegirls who died in the violence.
