A SMIDGEN OF RELIGION
How are you supposed to provide for yourself if your parents are negligent, you’re uneducated, and you don’t have prior work experience?
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There’s an alternative to joining gangs. Introducing “Homeboy Industries”. It’s the organization that Greg founded to give people a “way out” and “get a fix” of love (not drugs).
Homeboy Industries provides counseling, tattoo removal, and training. Here, people can earn clean money, learn how to show up to work on-time, and open the door for higher-paying jobs elsewhere. Homeboy Industries also helps create unity and peace in the neighborhood.
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“We give homies a chance to work with their enemies. The place has become the ‘United Nations’ of gangs. When enemies work with one another, a valuable ‘disconnect’ is created on the streets. If forces a fellow active gang member to ask the employed homie, ‘How can you work with that guy?’ Answering that question will be awkward, clumsy, and always require courage, but the question itself jostles the status quo” (9)
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“No question gets asked of me more than, ‘What’s it like to have enemies working together?’ The answer: it is almost always tense at first. A homie will beg for a job, and perhaps I have an opening at the Bakery. ‘But you’re gonna have to work with X, Y, and Z.’ naming enemies already working there, He thinks a bit and invariably will say: ‘I’ll work with him, but I’m not gonna talk to him.’ In the early days, this would unsettle me. Until I discovered that it always becomes impossible to demonize someone you know” (142).
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What prompts the want for a change in lifestyle? ​
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“In all recovery, they say, ‘It takes what it takes.’ The birth of a son, the death of a friend, a long stretch in prison — it takes what it takes for a gang member to say, ‘I’ve had enough.’ Then, if society has an exit ramp off this crazy freeway, a homie will take it” (228).
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People in poor opportunities may have ambition and natural talent, but they can’t go anywhere if they don’t have a chance.
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Greg once told a homeless addict named David: “‘You have to crawl before you can walk, and then walk before you can run.’ David’s eyes soften with tears. ‘Yeah, but I know I can fly. I just need to catch a gust o’ wind.’ Homeboy Industries wants to be that gust” (9-10).
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Around the Fourth of July, a teenage boy named Danny lit firecrackers in the bathroom of Greg’s office. Instead of yelling at Danny, Greg gently leads him to the parking lot.
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“Normally, I’d want to throttle this kid and give him, as they say, ‘what for.’ I manage something I rarely can. I morph into Mother Teresa and Gandhi.
‘How ya doin?’ I gently speak to Danny, on the hot asphalt of the parking lot.
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‘I DIDN’T DID IT!’ Danny gives me both barrels, in perfect homie grammar. ‘I DIDN’T… DID IT!’
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‘I know,’ I say, in full agere contra mode, going against every grain in my being. ‘I know, I know. But I’m worried about ya,’ I say, as quiet as I can be. ‘How ya doin?’
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‘Okay.’
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‘Did you eat anything today?’
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‘No.’
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I give him five dollars.
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‘Why don’t you go across the street to Jim’s and get something to eat.’
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Danny starts to walk away and mumbles loud enough to be heard, ‘Even though you don’t believe me.’ I call him back.
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‘Danny, if you tell me you didn’t do it, mijo, then… that’s all I need.’ Danny stands in the hot July sun and begins to weep. Cornered by shame and disgrace, he acquiesces to a vastness not mine” (45-46).
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Greg and other leaders let a hundred homeless people sleep in the Church, which left a lingering odor when it was time for Mass.
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“The smell was never overwhelming, just undeniably there. The Jesuits figured that ‘if we can’t fix it, then we’ll feature it.’ So we decided to address the discontent in our homilies one Sunday” (73-74).
Greg asked the congregation what the Church smelled like (to which they responded, “Feet”). He then asked why it smelled like that (to which they responded, “Because of the homeless people who slept here overnight”). Greg then asked why that happened (to which they responded, “Because that’s what Jesus would have done”). Finally, he asked again what the Church smelled like (to which they responded, “Commitment to being like Jesus”). And just like that, their disgust went away. The packed church roars with laughter and a newfound kinship that embraced someone else’s odor as their own. The stink in the church hadn’t changed, only how the folks saw it” (74).
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Life can throw curveballs, but we should use hard times to become resilient (instead of seeking avenge).
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“On a Saturday in 1996 I am set to baptize George at Camp Munz. He delays doing this with the other priests because he only wants me to do it. He also wants to schedule the event to follow his successful passing of the GED exam. He sees it as something of a twofer celebration…// The Friday night before George’s baptism, Cisco, George’s brother, is walking home before midnight when the quiet is shattered, as it so often is in his neighborhood, by gunshots. Some rivals creep up and open fire, and Cisco falls in the middle of St. Louis Street, half a block from his apartment. He is killed instantly. His girlfriend, Annel, nearly eight months pregnant with their first child, runs outside. She cradles Cisco in her arms and lap, rocking him as if to sleep, and her screams syncopate with every motion forward. She continues this until the paramedics pry him away from her arms” (84-85).
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When Greg shows up to Mass the next morning, George excitedly shows him his GED certificate (not aware that his brother was killed a few hours earlier). Greg waits until after the baptism to take him outside and break the news to him.
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“I can feel all the air leave his body as he heaves a sigh that finds itself a sob in an instant. We land on a bench. His face seeks refuge in his open palms, and he sobs quietly. Most notable is what isn’t present in his rocking and gentle wailing. I’ve been in his place before many times. There is always flailing and rage and promises to avenge things. There is none of this in George. It is as if the commitment he has just made in water, oil, and flame has taken hold and his grief is pure and true and more resembles the heartbreak of God…// In the monastic tradition, the highest form of sanctity is to live in hell and not lose hope. George clings to his hope and faith and his GED certificate and chooses to march, resilient, into his future” (86).
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With the given death rate from gang violence, gang members (and their families) mainly focus on the present.
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“Gang members form an exclusive club of young people who plan their funerals and not their futures” (89).
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For example, at a parish dance, Greg (and other people) complimented a girl on her dress. She responded by telling Greg to make sure that she gets buried in that beautiful dress.
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“I’m instantly imagining the ridiculous snapshot of an old woman, at repose in her coffin, in a dress like this. But Terry envisions no such old woman” (90).
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God loves us unconditionally, despite our mistakes and failures. We should treat others with the same love.
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“Gangs are bastions of conditional love — one false move, and you find yourself outside. Slights are remembered, errors in judgment held against you forever. If a homie doesn’t step up to the plate, perform the required duty, he can be relegated to ‘no good’ status. This is a state from which it is hard to recover. Homeboy Industries seeks to be a community of unconditional love. Community will always trump gang any day” (94).
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One day, Greg takes a couple homies to an upscale restaurant (that’s full of “rich” white people).
The boys aren’t used to being in a place where there’s an extensive menu, the waitress comes to you, and there are tablecloths and placemats. The hostess coldly greets them and places them at a table in the back. In contrast, the waitress properly treats them like guests. We should strive to be more like the waitress.
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“Our waitress is an entirely different story from the frozen and awkward reception we seem to be getting from everybody else. She puts her arms around the ‘fellas,’ calling Chepe and Richie ‘Sweetie’ and ‘Honey’ and bringing them refills (‘and we didn’t even have to ask’), with extra this and more of that, and supplying the Tapatio on demand. She is Jesus in an apron. Later, as we walk to the car, they talk about our waitress. ‘She was firme.’ ‘Yeah, she treated us like we were somebody’” (136).
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We shouldn’t laugh at the expense of others behind their backs. And we shouldn’t tolerate it when others do so.
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After a boy named Flaco got hit by a car and was seriously injured, Greg overheard Flaco’s rival gang laughing about it. One of their group, Gato, exclaimed how glad he is that this happened to Flaco. Greg confronts Gato, saying that even though he loves him, he also loves Flaco, so he should not ever say anything negative about Flaco in front of him again. Gato apologizes, and the next day, when Greg is on his way to the hospital to visit Flaco, he tells Greg: “You tell Flaco that Gato from ___ gang says, ‘Q-vo’ and that I hope he gets better” (133).
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In contrast to the above scenario, we can playfully poke fun in an honest, non-menacing way. If we’re on the receiving end of this, we need to learn to laugh at ourselves and not take things super seriously (instead of being butt-hurt).
Greg knew an African-American homie named Jerome, a Caucasian homie named Larry, and a Latino homie named Juan. Juan volunteered to sing at Mass. Even though he was confident, he couldn’t carry a tune.
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“The congregation is frozen comatose in the sheer awfulness of it. Now, after this Mass, there is no avoiding it; I have to say something to Juan without failing the lie-detector test. ‘Juan,’ I say, with my hand on his shoulder and Larry and Jerome closing the circle around him, ‘You know, uh, it takes a lot of courage to READ in front of people, but it takes EVEN MORE courage to get up and SING in front of people.’ Then Jerome steps up and places his arm over Juan’s shoulder. ‘And it takes EVEN MORE courage to get up and sing… when yo a** can’t sing.’ In an instant, I’m preparing myself to break up a fight. But just as quickly, the three of them have a meltdown of laughter, and soon they are on the floor of this multipurpose center, convulsing and smacking each other. We seek to create loving communities of kinship precisely to counteract mounting lovelessness, racism, and the cultural disparagement that keeps us apart” (138-139).
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What’s your first instinct when you encounter a group of strangers?
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“Some time back, at the turn of the century, during a general election, some pundit tried to compare and contrast Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and George W. Bush. He said Bill Clinton walks into a room and wants everybody in the room to like him. Al Gore walks into a room and wants everyone to think he’s right. ‘W’ walks into a room and wants the room to know he’s in charge. We all feel all of these at one time or another, because they’re fear-based responses, and it’s hard to get out from under that dread. Our frightened selves want only for the gathered to like us, to agree with us, or be intimidated by us. I suppose Jesus walks into a room and loves what he finds there. Delights in it, in fact. Maybe, He makes a beeline to the outcasts and chooses, in them, to go where love has not yet arrived” (154-155).
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How does one most effectively “help” the poor?
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“St. Elaine Roulette, the founder of My Mother’s House in New York, was asked, ‘How do you work with the poor?’ She answered, ‘You don’t. You share your life with the poor.’ It’s as basic as crying together. It is about ‘casting your lot’ before it ever becomes about ‘changing their lot’ (172).
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