3ADULT DELINQUENT GANGS IN A CHICANO COMMUNITY Masked Intimacy and Marginality

Most studies of youthful delinquent or fighting gangs have regarded them as relatively fragile groups that terminate with adult status, adult community mem-bers ’ pressure, or increasing socioeconomic benefits. In this follow-up partici-pant-observation study of an inner-city Chicano community, it was found that previously observed gangs survived as their members matured into their twenties and fulfilled their adult roles and responsibilities This phenomenon is explained in terms of the continued marginal economic position of these young men, their continuing commitment to an honor-based subculture in which dependence and lack of domination is experienced as dishonor, the growing friendship and dependency of gang members, and the necessity of masking that dependency by remaining a gang to maintain the respect of others It is argued that the gang provides a culturally safe way for such intimate relations to exist while the members can publicly maintain their identity as independent men of honor THE FIGHTING GANG is typically considered an adolescent phenomenon, terminating when the members are no longer teenagers (Block and Neiderhoffer, 1958), when youth have achieved prima facie evidence of adulthood (Matza, 1964), or when community pressure becomes too great (Cloward and Ohlin, 1960). Such gangs are seen as relatively fragile groups (Yablonsky, 1970), with cohesion derived largely from external factors (Klein and Crawford, 1968). The violent and other illegal activities of gangs frequently are viewed as directly linked to a delinquent or class-based normative system that may be autonomous (Miller, 1958)