Gangs in Garden City: How Immigration, Segregation, and Youth Violence are Changing America’s Suburbs
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. As a media-stoked panic about immigrant youth gangs flared across the U. S. in the 1990s, national violent crime rates were actually plummeting, suggesting that reports of internationally networked Central American gangs invading idyllic American suburbs masked more than it revealed. Moreover, the image anticipated the post-9/11 panic over foreign terror cells that dovetailed with a renewed backlash against undocumented Latino immigrants. In this engrossing case study of suburban gangs in Long Island’s Nassau County, investigative journalist Garland demystifies the sensationalist rhetoric and simplistic media coverage stemming from the economic and demographic transformation of suburbia. Garland humanizes her subject through long-term, in-depth interviews with current and former gang members; extensive footwork across the U. S. and Central America; and a formidable command of relevant foreign and public policy decisions. While offering a detailed look inside such notorious gangs as Mara Salvatrucha and its self-styled affiliates, Garland makes a persuasive case that her subjects’ attraction to gang life had less to do with what gangs offered than with what America did not. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post’s Book World/washingtonpost. com Reviewed by Justin Moyer Don’t believe the fun-loving depictions of gang warfare in “West Side Story” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” — thug life ain’t all jazz hands and high kicks. Newsweek staffer and first-time author Sarah Garland offers a softshoe-free view of real-life Scarfaces in “Gangs in Garden City,” a comprehensive history of the transition of Nassau County, N. Y. , from idyllic Long Island retreat to posse-plagued demilitarized zone. In muscular, Hemingway-esque prose, Garland weaves an economic and social history of Latino gangs in suburbia around unrelentingly bleak personal narratives of gang members, including one Salvadoran war refugee whose isolation drove him to the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (a. k. a. MS-13) crew: “If he could trust anyone to watch his back and not to betray him, it was these men. . . . They had been cannon fodder, and they had survived. ” Though immigration hawks and jingoists demonize gang members, MS-13, like the Mafia and innumerable other ethnic gangs that predate the modern metropolis, is fed by America’s patchwork immigration policy, poor urban planning, need for cheap labor and race hatred as much as it is by flawed individuals. Gangs are not inevitable. Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
See all Editorial Reviews
November 28th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
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.
November 28th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
The hopes of his book were only slightly improved after reading it, versus excerpts in a recent NY times article. One can only wonder how accurate the overall book is when so much simple factual date is flat out wrong. Not a bad first try for a young writer, but Sarah, you need to CHECK ALL OF YOUR FACTS, not just the ones you think buttress your at times ham fisted suppositions about an area you apparently didn’t research enough.
November 28th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
A war between two Salvadoran street gangs originated in Los Angeles after the Salvadoran civil war, then spread the suburban town of Hempstead (L. I. suburb), nearly 3,000 miles away. A series of gang murders followed. “Gangs in Garden City” drags readers through some of these violent episodes that occur in spite of the best efforts of some parents, principals, and police. Naturally, the broader community recoils from having anything to do with Latinos as a result; Garland wants to blame that society. I would much rather she instead researched why Hispanics in general are so inherently violent – whether in Hempstead, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Mexico, or San Salvador. .