Gangs in Garden City: How Immigration, Segregation, and Youth Violence are Changing America's Suburbs

by Sarah Garland

Book Overview

For the past five years, journalist Sarah Garland has followed the lives of current and former gang members living in Hempstead on the border of Garden City, Long Island. Affiliated with Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street, their troubling personal stories expose the cruel realities of segregation, racial income gaps, and poverty that lie hidden behind suburban white picket fences.

As Garland travels from Los Angeles to El Salvador and back to...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568586159
• ISBN13: 9781568586151
• Release Date: December 2010
• Publisher: Bold Type Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Interesting Book

I was fairly impressed by how the author explained the combination of historical, economic, and cultural conditions that can propel young kids into the gang life. I was a teenager in El Salvador during the civil war years; and I vividly remember the frustration and anger of those who spent years fighting a war only to realize that better economic and educational opportunities would never materialize. The book does not fully address the ineffectiveness of Central American government to plan for the re-integration of former combatants or even displaced citizens into a new society. Most post-war Central American governments were immediately concerned with rebuilding entire financial system, improving technical infrastructures, and competing in a new globalized world. It was not surprising that government were less concerned with the immediate needs for societal development. You will get more out of the book if you don't expect a comprehensive analysis of the socio-economic and geopolitical conditions that contributed to the proliferation of criminal gang enterprises in the US or in Latin America. However, the book does a decent job in two areas. First, it humanizes the gang problem with a number of anecdotal episodes that illustrate the sad, tragic and violent lives of gang members. Second, it reiterates the fact that the gang problem is a difficult one to resolve. That is because reforms to current immigration and political issues would be difficult to address in a political climate where there is a growing number of competing priorities. Also, the author explains that there must be true multilateral efforts among governments because this is no longer a regional but a growing global concern.