Ex-bangers stand and deliver
By EMILY SKEHAN I Special to the Daily Press
MID-CITY A figure rose from amidst the seated group of tattooed ex-gang bangers from East Los Angeles and walked to the podium. He leaned his scarred face into the microphone.
“I’m a Homeboy,” he said, “and I’d like to read a couple poems.”
Thus began Wednesday night’s public reading at Crossroads School, a culmination of PEN USA and Homeboy Industries’ eight week-long undertaking — The Homeboy Stories Project.
The project — spearheaded by novelist Leslie Schwartz, president of the non-profit writing organization PEN, and journalist Celeste Fremon — is part of an ongoing effort to attract youth at-risk for gang activity and former gang members to the Homeboy Industries Center in Boyle Heights, where they are given a taste of creativity.
“We had this neat little idea of having the younger participants improve their writing skills and learn to express themselves, and then interview the older ones,”said Fremon. “But the older guys started coming in and saying ‘we want to write.’ Everyone just ended up doing everything.
“We let their needs organically shape the class rather than imposing our own process.”
The creative venture encountered many obstacles, including tenuous class attendance — new students kept wanting to join the 15-member class. Others had to miss sessions because they were arrested, beaten up and, in one case, shot.
Despite the difficulties, the project has resulted in a polished collection of striking poems, interview transcripts and reflections from which participants shared selected pieces on Wednesday night.
On hand at Crossroads this week was Father Greg Boyle, S.J., founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries, an organization that provides employment, training, counseling and tattoo removal — among other services — for ex-gang members and those at risk of becoming involved in gang culture.
“I was talking to one of the Homeboys the other day,” said Boyle. “He said that his mom had died on the Fourth of July. I told him how sorry I was and he just said, ‘no, it was one of the most beautiful days of the year. They lit up the sky for her.’
“Poetry is sort of there all the time, we just needed a way for these young men and women to find their voices.”
Decked out in a polo shirt that read “Jobs not jails,” Homeboy Joey Ray on Wednesday recited one of his own poems, and two of a friend who couldn’t make the event because he was incarcerated.
“Most kids who come in here don’t open up about all the troubling things that happen to them, let alone write about them,” Ray said. “Being a part of this changed them emotionally. They’ve just got to write about what they feel. Every single day, all they see is shooting, drugs, prostitution, violence. Getting to and from school is a book in itself.”
In a short video that was played between performances, the recordings of interviews between the participants provided a gritty soundtrack for images of the young writers working in the Homeboy classroom.
“What was your best memory then?” Hector Verdugo asked Serena Fuentes.
“None,” replied Fuentes “And what was your worst memory?” “Everything.” The Crossroads performance served as the closing curtain for the project, which will continue as a “PEN in the classroom” module and perhaps in the form of Homeboy publications.
“The second step in finding one’s voice is to get it out there,” said Fremon, who noted that because of the positive response, organizers might add additional future readings. “We wanted to introduce these young people to audiences outside of their community. They found out that people clearly do want to hear what they have to say, and that has a magical effect.”
Ray was equally stoked about Wednesday’s fete. “It was great to see the Homeboys performing in front of a Westside audience,” Ray said. “Because a lot of these people wouldn’t think, looking at them, that some of these guys can think or speak.”
The writers on hand — about a dozen young men and women, all in Homeboy gear — didn’t look like the stereotypical creative writing enthusiasts. With gang tattoos across their necks and faces, scars dotting eyebrows and arms, and backwards baseball caps atop their heads, the poets may have looked more apt to wield guns than typewriters.
However, the poetry and streaming state-of-consciousness pieces recited were chilling, poignant and heartfelt. Audience members noted the charisma and professional stage manner of several Homeboys.
“Hearing them read their own poetry, in their own voices, was an entirely different experience from reading the anthology,” said Austen Rosenfeld, a PEN intern. “Their confidence and poise while reading about such personal experience was really inspiring.”
Many of the participants saw the event as a chance to not only express, but to educate.
“I think of (the event) like when I watch a movie or something on TV,” Ray said. “The audience gets to learn about another culture.”
And the Homeboys — and Homegirls — are now a vibrant part of the Los Angeles writing culture.
“These men and women have lived through, and are the voices of, this time that is a part of LA history” said Fremon. “I feel like the time that these remarkable poets here grew up in is just as intense, and full of who we are as humans, as Paris during the 1920s. There are just a lot more guns and tattoos.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 20, 2007. Read the original PDF.