La Vida Loca

I have this student who's been with me since I started at school. In his ninth and tenth grade year I used to call him goofy. He was a goofy ass kid that played around too much but he had a good heart and was truthfully a sweet kid.

Lately, there's been a change. Now the kid's in the 11th grade and the hormones are raging. He's got a girlfriend at school and they are constantly making out. I joke to him that I rarely see his face anymore and mostly it's just the back of hers.

But that isn't the real problem. His new girl and her friends (which have become his friends) are involved in a Mexican gang. He's been coming to school wearing the colored t-shirt, the belt, the one glove, the whole nine. He was telling me that he was having problems at home and that his mom and dad got into a fight and he had to step in between them against his dad. He's having a lot of problems at home and he's running to this girl and her friends to get away from it. Now I find out that he's been talking about being jumped in. I've talked with him numerous times but his behavior just keeps getting worse and worse. If he gets jumped in it's for life. To get jumped out...well he might not make it through that. The thing is that the kid doesn't have it in him to be a gang member. He's too soft. He's 16 years old, got both parents who take care of him well enough that he doesn't have a job, he hasn't grown up in the life, and he's just a nice soft hearted kid. A kid like that would get tested on the streets like he's never been tested before and would have to act twice as crazy to get respect. Twice as crazy = twice as stupid and 1000 X more likely to get killed.

A lot of kids talk to me about gang life and I ask every single one of them "Why do Nortenos hate Surenos?" or "Why do Surenos hate Nortenos?" Very very few can answer me. It usually just boils down to "Because they are different colors." Hey that a great fucking answer. Kids that don't even know the history of the beef wanting to kill each other. A lot of the kids that are in the life don't want to be in it either. They just have all their friends in it and they don't know what to do. I tell all my kids the same thing... the last thing that we need is more colored kids killing each other and destroying families.

But I don't know what to do with this kid. He's young, he's horny, he's getting some ass for the first time in his life, he doesn't want to be at home cuz he's fighting with his dad. I can't compete with that. Shit, I went through much of the same thing. If it wasn't for martial arts, I would have gotten into waaaay more trouble. When we talk one on one, he's cool. When he steps out the door though he's got to put on the act. This act is going to get him killed and I feel helpless because I can't seem to get him to turn away from it.