[.ca] Gang Nation: Delinquent Citizens in Puerto Rican, ... (ISBN 0816634793)

Good Premise:
Brown's book undertakes an important analysis of gang literature and representation, but the use of the concept "gang nation" is, in my opinion, questionable. For a more grounded account of gangs, I recommend that people read this book along side Miranda's Homegirls in the Public Sphere, Kontos' Gangs and Society, and work by Vigil and Moore. Good work overall!

Challenging the Criminalization of Latina/o Youth:
Gang Nation is an exemplary counter hegemonic text that unveils how the intersected force of race, class and gender oppression (as a neocolonial matrix) drive the racialized panoptic and carceral regimes of the United States. Given how Latina/o youth like African American are demonized and then converted through the "justice" system into abjects and throwaways this study reveals how poor Latina/o youth negotiate institutional violence on a daily basis for survival. Through Browns illumination of the complexity, eloquence and poltics of self-representation in Latina/o gang narratives and autobiographies, we get a picture of the results of extreme poverty, urban decay, trauma, and neocolonial racism on these kid's struggle for empowerment and survival. Part of what is also crucial about Browns study is the willingness to critique and condemn the "normalization" of sexual violence against women and girls "in the hood" and shows how patriarchal norms of the dominant culture are re-articulated in non-dominant communities. In this regard the read of Luis Rodriguez's Always Running and the chapter "American She" which examines the fetishization of Chicanas in gang in the media is useful and politically cogent. Furthermore as a text for classroom use, it is surprisingly jargon free and at the same time a theoretically nuanced and complex read of the historic, insitutional and everyday forces that criminalize and violate Latina/o youth. A must read.....!!!.