I+Escaped+A+Violent+Gang


 * I Escaped a Violent Gang [[image:http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/61/m_059f03ad2697e4bceedc552f15779559.jpg width="119" height="159" align="right" caption="Eva Benitez" link="http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewAlbums&friendID=190406488"]] **

// Ana grew up in a gang. She didn’t know any other way of life – until one special teacher showed her she had other choices //.
 * By Ana, as told by Cate Baily **

Gang member don’t snitch on each othe. That is the **[|motto]** I was raised on. So when I was called to the witness stand that day, I was planning to lie.

Paco was on trial. He was my main man from the gang. I’d seen him shoot and kill a teenage boy.

John was on trial for the same crime. He was member of an enemy gang. He was completely innocent. I was the only witness. What I said would determine which one went to jail.

The lawyer started asking me questions. I looked at Paco. He was calm because he was sure I would lie. I looked at John. Then, I looked at John’s mother. She was crying because it looked like her son was going to jail.

I started thinking about my mom and all the times she’d cried. John’s mother’s tears became my mother’s tears.

Something happened inside of me. It went against everything I’d been taught my whole life. I told the truth. I said, “Paco did it.”

That was in 1994. That’s when I got out of the gang. I couldn’t go back after what I did to Paco. I was 15. But my story starts way before then.

I was raised in gangs. My father was in a gang. My uncles and cousins were in gangs. I didn’t know anything else. I thought drive-by shootings, drug deals, and beatings were normal.

I joined the gang when I was 11 years old. I got “jumped in.” That means I was beaten up by other gang members.

First, three girls surrounded me. They hit me hard over and over. Then, all the girls in the gang made a circle around me. They hit me and kicked me more.

Then, the guys came. About 20 guys lined up on one side. About 20 girls lined up on the other side. They left a path down the middle. I had to walk down that path, as they punched and kicked me. I had to be standing by the time I got to the end.

When I started down the path, my arm was already broken. It hurt so much. As I walked, they punched me in the ribs. Every time I fell down, they’d kick me. I thought I was going to pass out.

Toward the end of the path, I fell. They stepped on my leg and broke it. Somehow, I pulled myself up. I limped to the end of the line.

That was my [|initiation]. It was what I had to do to prove that I would do anything for them.

Some people say that people join gangs because they want to fit in. To me, it was more of a survival tool. In my neighbourhood, you need a gang to be able to back yourself up.

Before I turned 12, I’d been arrested for stealing cars, breaking curfew, and having drugs. Each time was let go.

But when I was 13, I was arrested for having a weapon. I got sent to boot camp for eight months.

Boot camp was the worst experience of my life. We had to get up at five a.m. and take cold showers. The rooms were always cold. The guards would scream at me. They’d say, “You may be something on the street. But you’re nothing here!”

For months, I had a bad attitude. I got into fights with other girls. I talked back to my guards. They wouldn’t let me see my mom until my behaviour got better. In the eight months I was there, she could only visit me four times.

When I got out, I knew I never wanted to go back there. I had to go to school regularly, or I’d get sent back.

I hated school. I planned to drop out as soon as I could. To me, my life was “kickin’it” with my friends.

My ninth-grade English teacher, Ms. Gruwell, changed all that. She took an interest in me. If I missed class, she asked where I’d been. She told me I could be the first one in my family to finish high school.

I thought she was crazy. I wasn't used to people being so nice to me.When you’re in a gang, you think that the other people don’t care about you.

I told Ms. Gruwell to stay out of my business.She kept at it.Soon her words started to sink in. I began to see that there were other things out there beside gang life.I began to see I could have a future.I started thinking about getting out of the gang.

In Ms. Gruwell's class, I had to read __Anne Frank: The Diary of a Teenage Girl.__ It’s the story of a teenage girl in hiding from the Nazis during World War II.Anne’s words had a major impact on me. In the book, I came across the line, “I feel like a bird in a cage, and I wish I had the wings to fly away.” I couldn’t believe it.That was exactly how I felt.I wanted to get out of the gang. But they don’t let people out.They kill people who want out.

That book really changed me. Before I read __Anne Frank,__ I didn’t like anybody I didn’t know.I thought if you didn’t look like me, you didn’t understand me.

But here was Anne, who was so different from me. But we felt the same way. She lived 50 years before me.But we felt the same way. I remained a "bird in a cage" until the day of the trial in 1994.

When I was called to the stand, I said, “Paco did it.” I said it for myself, to get out of my cage.I said it for my mother and for Ms. Gruwell.I said it to end the violence in my life.

Paco looked at me in shock. As they took him away to serve his 25-year sentence, he said, “Of all the people in the gang, you’re the last person I thought would [|betray] me.But I know that telling the truth was the right thing to do.

After that, I left the gang. I got death threats. But no one came after me.I think they didn’t kill me because I have family in the gang.

Today I am a freshman at a college in California. I plan to major in English. Then I hope to get my Ph.D in education.I want to be the Secretary of Education.I’d like to change the way kids get labelled in school as “dropouts” or “slow learners.”

If gang member could see that they have different choices, maybe they'd get out too. I'm not a miracle. Anybody can get out. Anybody can get out.