I was 11, and initially the gang started out as just some homies I grew up around. Initially, there was 8 of us and we all took turns jumping each other in. Most of the dudes were from 7th grade to like 9th at the most. You can't expect kids and young teens to know how to run/create a gang, but we were a gang... there's no other way to say it. We all agreed that the ones who started it would be the ones to jump people into the gang. The gang quickly went from being like 8 people to almost 20 because a couple of the dudes decided as long as they jumped someone in, they were in. I wasn't the only one that took exception to that. But they had jumped in some fools that me and a couple other dudes couldn't stand, but they were at least 5 years older than me and had a bigger influence than some of us younger dudes. As it was, I realized I was making a lot of stupid decisions because my mom was a single mom and didn't realize that I was out in the streets or whatever past midnight, which may not sound like a big deal, but in 1993 @ Penn and Main in Watsonville, you wouldn't want your 11 year old son out there. My dad had moved to Oklahoma and my moms was having a tough time so I was given the decision. I chose to move, and chose to be jumped out.
All things considered, it was a small upstart gang. I grew up in the Pennbrook Apartments from like 3-11 years old. My family would say they would see fools that I was in the gang with every once in awhile because my mom had moved I did too. But I went back a couple years later on vacation and didn't see anyone except one dude that wasn't even in the gang and he just said what's up and that's it. I literally haven't seen anyone from that gang since. I'd heard that some of them went to the military and already had their life straightened out, some people never heard from again that I knew of. I haven't had contact with anyone but my family from that area in over 10 years.
Call me a dropout or whatever you want. I was NOT a norteno, but I likely would have been had I continued on that path because of the area. A lot of the fools in that gang had brothers and cousins who were nortenos and I was down with a bunch of dudes in that area at that time from NSW and CML. It's been YEARS and if I saw them now, I don't even know if we'd recognize each other. I've made songs talking about it, one of which was on Reckless's compilation. I'm obviously not afraid to talk about it.
As it stands, I'm a Christian. I got to the point where I realized that something could happen some day for me being so open about it, but I trust in God to handle all that according to His will. It took me years to get out of the mindset of growing up in that area, where I was so confused about gangs and stuff that I thought the first crip I saw here in Oklahoma was a sureno. But again, I was 11 years old in a non-Norteno gang who was mainly just trying to survive a bad situation. I hated surenos until my early 20's until God started to change my heart towards people in general and I really just wanted to be able to share the gospel of Christ with people, no matter who they were. But as far as my younger years, I feel like God rescued me out of that area because statistically it likely wouldn't have ended up going very well for me.
I'm sure fools will still clown about everything I just said, but all of that is the truth and I don't have anything else to really say about it. Be easy.