Running Head: THE NORMALIZATION OF VIOLENCE

Masculinity in Salvadoran Gangs: The Normalization of Violence

Jose Torres
California State University, Northridge

THE NORMALIZATION OF VIOLENCE

Abstract
This paper will address a theoretical application of masculinity to the specific case of Salvadoran
gang members in El Salvador and in the United States. A distinct form of masculinity is present
amongst Salvadoran gang members that stems from El Salvadors violent civil war and
transpired to the multi-ethnic barrios of Los Angeles. Masculinity was then shaped by
Salvadorans direct experiences with violence, mutilations, disappearances, and murders by U.S.
sponsored death squads. Moreover, Tom Ward suggests that Salvadoran gang members were
influenced by rival Mexican gang members idealized masculinity, characterized by promiscuity,
physical strength, violence, and brutal punishments. Salvadoran gangs constructed their form of
masculinity through blocked accesses to well-paying jobs, high rates of poverty, and exposure to
discriminatory practices from law enforcement and rival gangs. Salvadoran gangs then formed la
Mara Salvatrucha as a form of representation, a sense of pride, and a rejection of the Anglodominant culture. This project also extends to the effects of trauma and violence, especially for
children who were forced to normalize violence through the brutal war. The rise in gang
violence, constant fear of gangs, and investments in prisons to house gangs creates what I have
termed as the Salvadoran gang industry.

THE NORMALIZATION OF VIOLENCE

Masculinity in Salvadoran Gangs: The Normalization of Violence

During the war, my father worked as a bus driver in El Salvador and encountered numerous
threats to his life by the guerrilla and military. One night during a toque de queda, all those on
board were asked to step out of the bus. With the gun pointed at my fathers head, he prayed to
God. As soon as the guerrilla heard a siren, they scattered and my father survived. Violence
became normalized during my childhood; it was common to see bodies and entire families
dead.
-Hector Ramirez
The excerpt by Ramirez demonstrates his fathers first hand experience with violence
during the Salvadoran Civil War. In the words of Ramirez, violence became normalized. This
normalization of violence connects to the contemporary Salvadoran experience with gang
violence. For the purpose of this paper, I will provide a historical account of the normalization of
violence in El Salvador during its civil war when the Salvadoran state used violence as a means
to solve conflict or prevent the expansion of an uprising. This form of social control by those in
power led to this normalization of violence.
Violence was normalized during the 12 year-long Salvadoran Civil War when the
Salvadoran military used violence against the guerilla army. This violence then influenced the
performance of masculinity in El Salvador, since violence was used to solve conflict in both the
public and private sphere. Currently, El Salvador is dealing with the transnational rivalry
between Los Angeles based street gangs Mara Salvatrucha and Calle Dieciocho. The increase in
gang membership in El Salvador is due to challenges in maintaining an idealized masculinity,
high rates of poverty, need of protection, low-wage jobs, increase in globalization, and more
importantly a sense of belonging. Men are joining the Salvadoran gangs as foot soldiers as a
means of survival and protection. Gang members have practiced this normalized violence in
brutal and inhumane methods as has the militarized police in using torture to solve conflict. This
type of violence is associated to the violence these children and youth were exposed to during the

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civil war. As a result, the effects of the civil war, Salvadoran migration, and deportation of
migrants have shaped a distinct form of Salvadoran gang masculinity. The Salvadoran
government is attempting to find a solution to the current gang problem but continues to use fear,
threats, and violence. The Salvadoran government, with assistance and pressure from the United
States, would rather punish gang members by incarcerating rather than rehabilitating or
reintegrating these men back into society. The Salvadoran state has created what I term as the
Salvadoran gang industry, where the effects of globalization and lack of resources continue to
push individuals into gangs, while increasing funding to construct more prisons and implement
anti-gang policies rather than support rehabilitation programs. However, these gang members are
feared throughout the nation and this makes it even more difficult for an individual to leave the
gang because he carries the stigma of once being part of a gang. The Salvadoran government, as
in the past, continues to use fear to control the Salvadoran population.
Defining Gangs
Before I focus on the normalization of violence by Mara Salvatrucha and Calle
Dieciocho (18th Street) gangs, it is necessary to define what are gangs, maras, and pandillas. The
term mara represented street gangs in Central America during the 1980s and 1990s. While the
term pandilla meant a band of youth, once these groups of youth participated in criminal
violence, they were labeled as maras. This label is a reference to the marabunta ants, which
overcome their victims by attacking, in groups or swarms (Brenneman, 2012). Academics and
government officials continue to debate the formal definition of the term gang and the types of
individuals that are classified as part of gangs. Most gang experts would agree that a gang has a
name, a sense of identity through symbols such as clothing, graffiti, and hand signals. Gangs for
the most part are composed of members ranging from 12 to 24 years old while some are older

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than 24. Gangs are also involved in delinquent or criminal activity which include graffiti,
vandalism, petty theft, robbery and assaults to more serious crimes such as drug trafficking,
money laundering, alien smuggling, extortion, home invasion, and murder (Seelke, 2014).
Many gang experts argue gangs operate through recurrent associations, territorial claims,
criminal activity, and logos/symbols. There are also differences in gang leaderships and the
organizational structure of gangs (Gilbertson, 2009). Sanders suggests gang leadership includes
more than one leader at any one time and often informal, as the choice of leader is not structured.
Also the leadership can be situational where the leadership is based on a certain situation or
serves as a function where leadership is situated based on a particular function (1994). On the
other hand, Knox defines gangs as being composed of adult leaders and youth followers who are
predominantly males of one racial or ethnic group, local network with a specific geographical
pattern of activity, known for crimes of violence, and for avoiding detection from violating the
law and facing arrest. Gangs exist for or benefit substantially from the continuing criminal
activity of their members. In addition, gangs vary in sophistication and leadership at the level of
organizational development (1994).
Both Mara Salvatrucha and Calle Dieciocho have become highly organized, however the
lines between transnational gang activity and organized crime are blurry. Seelke (2014) finds that
Salvadoran gangs are classified into three generations. First generation gangs are localized
groups, second generation are national groups with some transnational links, and third generation
are internationalized, networked, and complicated structures. As transnational gangs, it has
been difficult to find a vertical structure within the gang, but it was found that different cliques or
clicas that operate throughout Central America and the United States use similar methods. This
transnational label was the result of both social and political factors in support of globalization

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and international migration. These gangs have aimed the violence onto the poor and
marginalized communities, resulting in a war by the poor against the poor (Brenneman, 2012).
These gangs also lack the organizational structure, capital, and manpower to maintain
sophisticated criminal schemes. Gangs in El Salvador are often involved in extortion and streetlevel distribution of drugs. However, many argue Mara Salvatrucha is involved in higher-level
criminal drug distribution (Seelke, 2014). For this paper we refer to MS-13 and 18th Street, as
pandillas, localized groups that have been present in El Salvador, while maras are associated
with transnational roots.
Salvadoran Civil War
The Salvadoran Civil War resulted in the increased tension between a large percentage of
Salvadorans and the corrupt militarized government. In 1979, an army coup aborted the results of
a democratic election which caused the civil war to break out. The right-wing death squads
nicknamed escuadrones de la muerte hunted down dissidents and trade union leaders, who were
later abducted, wounded, murdered, and disappeared; Salvadorans responded with aggression
and unity (Gonzalez, 2000). The dissidents had a growing membership from different segments
of Salvadoran society: university students, teachers, trade unionists, and urban and rural poor
Salvadorans (Garcia, 2006). The formation of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front
(FMLN) was named after the murdered leader of the 1932 Peasant Rebellion (Gonzalez, 2000).
The paramilitary groups received their funding from members of the oligarchy to destroy the
insurgent groups that challenged the established order, including those in labor organizing,
sermons, public speaking, classroom instruction, publications and journalism, and many of them
were then tortured, raped, and killed (Garcia, 2006). The U.S. government during both the Bush

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and Reagan administrations failed to denounce these atrocities and continued to support the
countrys oligarchy as the only anti-Communist force (Gonzalez, 2000).
The United States sponsored the civil war through military aid including weapons and
war assistance. Gonzalez reports, the United States invested seventy percent of the record $3.7
billion into El Salvador from 1981 to 1989; as the increase in aid and weapons to El Salvador
escalated, so did the number of Salvadorans fleeing the escalating violence (2000). The victims
included men, women, children, and the elderly. While the United States policed and accused
many of human rights violations throughout the world, they were funding a war that committed
human rights violations. Human rights groups reported that right-wing death squads massacred
an estimated five hundred people each month during the war (Gonzalez, 2000). The United
States government funded the Salvadoran government with $6 billion to defeat the FMLN
guerrilla group and establish the neoliberal structural adjustments to the Salvadoran economy.
Over the course of the war, between 75,000 and 100,000 Salvadorans died, and approximately
one million fled the country (Zilberg, 2011). As a result of the war, many Salvadorans left the
country to flee to the United States, Mexico, Canada, and neighboring countries, not for
economic interests or opportunities, as politicians argued, but rather for survival. Violence had
become normalized and those fleeing the country were physically, emotionally, and
psychologically traumatized.
Civil Wars Role in Forming Masculinity
Although violence has been associated to be a male characteristic within most societies
and cultures, there is a distinct form of masculinity in Salvadoran gangs. Many MS-13 gang
members recall living in many of the zones of conflict during the civil war. The memories of
their childhoods are mixed with the horrors of the war. Gang members as children experienced

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hunger, living in relocation camps, dodging bullets and bombs, and seeing human corpses, which
they associate to their tough demeanor. These child victims experienced and witnessed the
atrocities by the military to their own families and community. It was normal for children to
witness the violence of war when finding decapitated bodies in the centers of city parks. The
death squads that terrorized the general population during the civil war would resurface in 1998
to deal with the growing gang problem. For this reason, gang members feared being deported
back to El Salvador and if deported they would relive the trauma caused by these death squads
during their childhood. For Salvadorans and Salvadoran gang members, it was too painful to talk
about the past and memories of their childhoods (Ward, 2013). The trauma stems from the
numerous encounters with the military and corpses missing heads, legs, arms, eyes, and genitals.
The psychological trauma of seeing dead bodies led to confusion; children were to learn from
adults, but it was difficult when these adults only used violence to solve conflicts. Violence
would then become normalized for these children and it seemed to be a solution to solve
disputes and differences.
Fruits of War: Forced Displacement and the Creation of Salvadoran Gangs in Los Angeles
The Salvadoran youth who joined MS-13 and 18th Street gangs are recognized as the
fruits of war as they are the products of the Salvadoran civil war. Similarly to military forces
during the war, gangs are notorious for using brutal and barbarous methods of punishment and
execution. As a result, gang members began to normalize violence, because they would
replicate the repression and torture of the military and death squads, displaying no remorse for
their crimes. Also due to the war most of the gang members continue to have a deep distrust of
authority and cherish the notion of equality (Ward, 2013).

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The solution for many families and children was to flee to the United States. These
Salvadoran youth had to undergo a painful process of being smuggled from El Salvador to the
U.S., suffering the pain of being uprooted from their homeland (Ward, 2013). The youth were
leaving behind their extended families and friends. It was a traumatic experience and many gang
members describe migrating to the United States as one of the worst decisions because living in a
violent and foreign country that supported discrimination was psychologically damaging. Many
youth describe the journey hacia el norte as a traumatic experience because it was a long and
exhausting trip. It was already normal to see corpses throughout El Salvador during the war,
and it became normal once again on the trip through the U.S-Mexican border. Salvadorans
traveled and continue to travel approximately 3,227 miles illegally across the borders of El
Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States by plane, boat, train, bus, or car, but some
part of the journey is on foot (Ward, 2013). The dangerous trip has a high financial, physical,
and emotional cost for those illegally entering the U.S. The youth were traumatized by the
constant fear of being caught and deported back to a violent war in El Salvador. While traveling
through Mexico, Salvadorans were mistreated and discriminated by Mexicans, while others acted
as spies for Mexican police in locating illegal immigrants. Salvadoran migrants would often
become depressed and disappointed when they were caught (Ward, 2013).
The origins of la Mara Salvatrucha are vague because every veterano or old-timer has a
different interpretation and history. Many gang members believe the gang was formed in the
summer of 1982 in Lincoln Park, a large park in East Los Angeles, in response to a violent
soccer match between a Mexican and Salvadoran soccer team. The street gang was actually
formed in self-defense and provoked by constant bullying from Mexicans. The Mara
Salvatrucha originated in Los Angeles and a result of constant discrimination and victimization

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10

of impoverished immigrant youth. As outcasts of society, Salvadoran youth joined forces to cope
with the harsh conditions in Los Angeles. The history of Mara Salvatrucha dates back to the
mid-late 1970s, as a group of longhaired devil worshippers and dedicated to smoking marijuana
known as the Mara Salvatrucha Stoners (Logan, 2009; Ward, 2011). This stoner gang was
different from a typical street gang as they listened to heavy metal music, were longhaired, wore
black clothes, had pessimistic attitudes, and participated in unique activities.
In regards to masculinity, they did not prove their machismo by engaging in physical
fights with rival gang members or committing crimes, such as theft, extortion, drug dealing, or
drive by shootings. The gang focused exclusively on getting stoned on marijuana, listening to
ear-splitting heavy metal music, and hard core Satanists who worshipped the devil. However,
this stoner gang transformed into a cholo-style street gang when many members were
incarcerated, where they cut their hair and dressed like other inmates. As the gang increased in
number, it led to conflict with other gangs and the gangs identity changed. The gang kept the
stoners hand signal, the index and litter finger raised as the sign of the devils horns. This hand
signal soon was spread throughout the citys walls as part of the gangs graffiti. Salvadoran
immigrants also joined other street gangs such as the 18th Street gang. As the gang transformed
their identity, they also transformed from a gang dedicated to protection, into one that is
predatory. The main rival of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) is the18th Street gang (MS-18). This
rival gang was formed by Mexican youth in the Rampart section of Los Angeles in the 1960s
that were not accepted into existing Hispanic gangs. It became the first Hispanic gang to accept
members from all races and to recruit from other states (Seelke, 2014).
Masculinity and Violence

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11

The sense of masculinity of male youth is shaped by their specific relation to the school
they attend and by their position in the division of labor. These lower-working class and racial
minority boys engaged in youth crime, because they had no access to paid labor and their parents
were unable to provide their youth culture desires. Most of the youth arriving to the U.S. from El
Salvador grew up in poverty and desired to be part of a society with relative abundance and a
culture that prizes material possession, but it was difficult to attain due to their poverty.
Therefore they were more likely to join gangs (Vigil, 2002). Many of these immigrant youth
found it difficult in schools, thus their life consisted of being in the streets. Many found school to
be unrelated to future success as they searched for other means of accomplishing gender. They
were denied many resources for constructing hegemonic masculinity, which becomes entirely
unobtainable. As a result, street life becomes a field of opportunities to surpass class and race
domination (Messerschmidt, 1993). In other words, many find street life as a method of attaining
material goods when opposed to the conventional route of a job and/or career. Salvadoran youth
and men could not fully reach idealized masculinity due to the lack of well-paying jobs in the
United States and in El Salvador, which led them to alternate forms through illegal activity
within gangs. Gangs offered financial support through extortions, drugs, prostitutes, and paid
murders. Obviously, crime is not an extension of the male sex role but invoked as a resource,
when other resources are not available for reaching masculinity (Messerschmidt, 1993).
Physical violence is employed as a resource for masculine construction as they construct
a physically violent oppositional masculinity. In this case, Salvadoran gang members use brutal
violence when committing crimes as a suitable resource for doing gender. The effects of
trauma and violence in the war and abandonment of parents affected their perception of
masculinity. Many Salvadoran youth and men joined and continue to join gangs as a means of

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12

survival and self-defense, constructing an identity of self-worth, and as a way to create a

surrogate family (Ward, 2013). To fit in with gangs, Salvadoran gang members would dress
similarly, communicate in slang, and imitate the Mexican gang members ways of dress, talk,
and toughness. They also demonstrated their masculinity by tattooing their entire bodies and
faces. For the most part, tattoos symbolize a tough attitude and an attempt to intimidate others.
Many Salvadoran youth living in the U.S. felt their masculinity was challenged and
emasculated with the lack of manly work due to their immigration status. Male gang members
presented this toughness to demonstrate dominance and control when their blocked access to
provide money for their families questioned their masculinity. Most of their masculinity is
through the exterior or physicality and dominance over women. To demonstrate their driven
uncontrollable sexual drive, male gang members join gangs due to the numerous opportunities to
have intimate relationships with female gangsters and those women associated to gangs. Male
gang members tended to victimize and exploit female members of their own gang or through
gang-related activities (Ward, 2013).
Salvadoran Gang Industry
Stigma and Imposed Fear
Societal stigmas against gangs and gang-deportees from the U.S. have made the process
of leaving a gang extremely difficult. Ironically, those who speak English and from the U.S. are
well respected in other third world countries, but in El Salvador they are assumed to be gang
affiliated. Politicians and the media portray youth gangs as responsible for the majority of violent
crime in the region. To mend this process, some gang members have decided to have tattoos
removed as they attempt to reintegrate into society and find employment (Seelke, 2014).

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13

Street gangs in El Salvador have led to increased private patrol. In El Salvador, private
patrols are found on most gasoline stations, restaurants, schools, and parks. The fear of gangs
continues to fund private security, militarized police officers, and military death squads.
Without street gangs in El Salvador, many of these militarized occupations would be
unnecessary. This fear of gangs has produced an economic dependency on private civilian
patrols and created what I termed as the, Salvadoran gang industry. In this gang industry, it
is not surprising to find more prisons being built when compared to schools or rehabilitation
programs, which is no different than the United States.
Instead of investing in private security and prisons, the Salvadoran government could
invest in drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs, gang exit organizations, and job creation. The
Salvadoran governments excuse for the lack of rehabilitation programs is that there is no money
in El Salvador and people do not trust former gang members in mentoring and working with
active members in gang-related programs (Yule, 2008). However, there is plenty of money to
fund anti-gang government-sponsored programs and policies that lead to an increase in gang
members and that solve absolutely nothing. The formation of street gangs has a direct
connection to the governments attempts to control the people through the use of military,
economic, and political forces.
Anti-Gang Laws and Policies
El Salvadors law enforcement and military use excessive force against those they
assume are gang-affiliated. They use similar repressive tactics and impose fear. Salvadoran
President Francisco Flores introduced Plan Iron Fist (Mano Dura) law in 2003, which was
declared unconstitutional, but was followed by a Super Mano Dura package on anti-gang reforms
in July 2004 (Seelke 2014). Mano Dura allowed law enforcement to incarcerate large numbers

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14

of youth for illicit association or with visible tattoos for gang-related crimes. These laws allowed
law enforcement to arrest suspected gang members and increase penalties for those convicted.
Through these laws, Salvadoran government officials demonstrated that they were getting tough
on gangs and crime, although human rights were violated. Mano Dura by Tony Saca led to the
arrest and incarceration of 14,000 youth from 2004 to 2005, but many were released due to the
lack of evidence of committing any crime. This incarceration of young men doubled the prison
population and gang membership within four years. These ineffective governmental policies led
to the increment of gang members when incarcerating men and women in prisons that worked as
recruitment facilities with both MS-13 and 18th Street gangs separated by affiliation. To control
and defeat gang members, the Salvadoran government decided to re-militarize the country by
deploying thousands of military troops to help police officers (Seelke, 2014).
The Salvadoran government, with U.S. support, believes repression and fear solve
societal problems, but the results prove otherwise. Luis Monterosa, member of the Central
American Violence Prevention Coalition, believes the U.S. government pressured El Salvador to
adopt the Iron Fist policies and the failure of the gang truce. The United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) programs could be more effective if they implemented a
restorative justice program where offenders acknowledge the wrong they caused and their
responsibility in repairing their relationship with their communities, instead of punishing
offenders by isolating them. These approaches would make people feel safer and reduce the
number of gang members.
The conditions in the prisons keep these men huddled together like cattle in a cage the
size of a shed. These prison pits, each 12 feet wide and 15 feet tall, were designed for temporary
72-hour stays but are crammed with more than 30 men (Nye, 2013). These inhumane conditions

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15

lead men to suffer frequent health problems and malnourishment. Members of both Mara
Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 are crammed in these cages. The improvement of the prison
conditions for incarcerated gang leaders was one of the propositions in the 2012 gang truce. This
led to the transfer of 30 bosses/leaders of each gang from the maximum security Zacatecoluca,
also known as Zacatraz, to jails. Also under the truce agreement, incarcerated gang leaders were
allowed to receive intimate visits in jail, communicate freely, and share plasma televisions (Nye,
2013). Prisons have proven to be graduate schools for gang members since they have been
operating criminal activities out of jails for years. There are numerous confrontations between
rival gangs, between gang members and prison guards, and between gang and non-gang inmates;
it is not uncommon to learn about prisoner abuse and torture. This is also due to the staffing
shortages and assistance from corrupt prison officials.
Rehabilitation and Gang Exit Programs
Margarita Perez, part of a violence prevention organization in Mejicanos, El Salvador,
was shocked by the conditions of a grant from USAID. Perez found it shocking that they could
not work with anyone who had been in jail or was gang-identified. She asked her colleague,
who are we going to work with, then? Enrique Roig, coordinator for the Central American
Regional Security Initiative at USAID, argued they (USAID) do not work with gang members
because the U.S. Department of the Treasury classified MS-13 as a transnational criminal
organization. Many other violence prevention programs are not considered for the grant because
they would work with active gang members. Many have decided to contact European
governments to support their programs that work with gangs. Noah Bullock, executive director
of Foundation Cristosal, argues that we should humanize these gang members, as they are not a
foreign militia or an insurgency group, but members of Salvadoran families in their

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16

communities. He states, this is a social conflict, not a military one. In other words, El Salvador
should divert from this war mentality with using the military and violence to solve societal
problems but rather humanize these gang members. Rick Jones, deputy regional director of the
international nonprofit Catholic Relief Services, agrees, If youre a young person between 15
and 25 years old, youre likely to be both a victim and a perpetrator in this country (Mackey,
2014).
In Ilopango, El Salvador the local government has programs that offer training to young
people in driving and speaking English. These programs also founded soccer schools in each of
the gangs territories. This is done to avoid problems and conflict between the gangs as they
attempt to restore their crime-ridden communities. Other programs like Homies Unidos are
working in pulling gang members off the streets to participate in programs for rehabilitation and
prevention, health, education, and job skills (Johnson, 2014).
El Salvadors new national council recently denied that there would be dialogues with the
street gangs. Many members of the National Council for Citizen Security stated that dialogue
with gangs is not a priority or on the councils agenda. There is a lack of collective action on the
part of the government and local communities to deal with the gang problem. These indicate
signs that the gang truce is dead and any short-term prospects of renewed negotiations (Gagne,
2014).
Conclusion
This paper analyzed the distinct form of masculinity by Salvadoran gang members as
reinforced by violence in El Salvadors public and private sphere. It is necessary to understand
how these men in the gangs normalize violence to solve conflict and differences. There was a
connection between the masculinity articulated during the civil war to the masculinity articulated

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17

by Salvadoran gangs. The effects of trauma and violence in the war affected their perception of
masculinity. Also, many boys learned to defend themselves through violence because of the lack
of male role models during the war and after. Salvadoran gang members imitated Mexican gang
members way of dress, talk, toughness, and tattoos throughout their body and face. They
demonstrate masculinity through promiscuity, physical strength, street smarts, violent and brutal
punishments, and this toughness mask.
The Salvadoran community in the United States and El Salvador are dealing with gang
violence amongst youth but the governments are not adequately helping with this social problem.
Instead, the U.S. and Salvadoran governments are using a tough on crime method by
incarcerating, increasing penalties, and secretly murdering these youth. By re-militarizing law
enforcement and using state-led violence, the Salvadoran community is experiencing high levels
of violence. Violence and economic issues are once again causing a large influx of youth and
women to migrate to the United States. It is necessary to not only provide and fund gang
prevention programs, but also community programs working with active gang members.
Although the gang truce failed, it is the Salvadoran governments responsibility to meditate the
issues facing the youth and offer solutions including opportunities for work and education. The
Salvadoran government must realize that violence did not work in the past during the war and it
will not effectively change the current gang problem. El Salvador, with the assistance of the
United States, has implemented methods of imposing fear of gangs to the Salvadoran population.
It is believed and preferred by Salvadorans to punish rather than rehabilitate gang members but
they fail to understand the trauma these gang members experienced during the war and when
migrating to the U.S. The United States and El Salvador have created what I termed as the
Salvadoran gang industry. There is a greater move to incarcerate or warehouse all the MS-13

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18

and 18th Street gang members but fail to offer them jobs, counseling, educational opportunities,
and a purpose causing then a cycle in this industry. The Salvadoran gang industry is
increasing the number of gang members incarcerated in El Salvador and the imposition of fear
on the general population. El Salvador continues to be part of a cycle of violence; it was
demonstrated when youth transitioned from a civil war to a street war where violence became
normalized.
In further research, there could be a focus on the current child migration from El
Salvador. The research could focus on youth gang members who arrive in the United States and
discover if these youth continue to affiliate with gangs or completely break ties with gangs. This
would determine if the new destinations resources such as job and educational opportunities
make a difference. There could also be a focus on the youths migration to other states within the
United States that are not highly populated with Salvadorans or Latinos. Also, are these youth
challenging barrio masculinity as they decide to leave the gang. This project could use
qualitative research methods to conduct in-depth interviews with youth and men who are former
gang members who recently migrated from El Salvador.

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19

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