“I was a fighter my whole life — I used to get down in the street — so I had respect from that sense from the big homies,” Mares says. “But I was in a tagging crew and I remember they had a big meeting and said, ‘There’s no more crews. If you want to be involved, you have to be a part of the Hawaiian Gardens gang.’ My parents heard about that and said, ‘No, you’re not going to do that.’ At 14, they sent me back to Mexico.”

Source: Los Angeles Times June 06, 2018 01:24 UTC