Bryce Hill

862113541
Adios Ninos Reaction Paper

This book is a scathing investigation into the actions of Guatemala’s most violent
gangs, handled by interviewing members and trying to genuinely understand their
experiences. It discusses how the government’s monopoly on violence helped
encourage more violence from citizens, changed the country’s outlook on violence and
death, and altered the future of an entire generation of people.

The neoliberal government’s extreme abuse of state violence caused a myriad of

social issues in Guatemala. The first one being that it normalized violence and violent
death for the public but also sadly, to children. The law enforcement does not do a
quality job cordoning off the areas where people are murdered so this allows as many
people (including kids) as possible to get up close and personal to a crime scene.This
influx of violence teaches people that violence is normal or natural, and that it is a good
way to solve most problems. The author explains that the people of Guatemala even
consider murder to be the natural form of death and that death can be within us all since
they see most people dying in that way. This unfortunately caused gangs to match the
level of violence and torture that was being carried out upon them, which to this day
allows some gangs to be the complete opposite of how they were originally intended.

The gangs’ new focus on violent acts and drugs changed the landscape of how
gangs interacted with citizens in their hometowns. In the 1980’s the Maras emerged
from the dwindling supply of young left wing demonstrators. They were formed from kids
and young adults from all around Guatemala and they were very interested in American
media and music, captivated by the extremely lavish and different lifestyle than theirs.
The first serious violent incident that the book reports is the tossing of a grenade into a
discotheque, this incident caused all Maras of any kind to be attacked and scapegoated
in the media and by politicians. From this campaign came the stigma and negative
presumptions toward any youth in one of these groups. This was accentuated by the
constant fighting between Maras that never seemed to calm down.

No matter what was said about these groups and the people within them, they
still functioned the way gangs have always. These Maras provided a home, food,
friends, activities, sex, and a shared purpose for these children and young adults that
lacked any place in their life currently. Ironically, even though the government and
assorted christians ascribed all violence and delinquency to the youth and gangs, more
violence was spreading within households, outside in public, and within government.
For instance, the police would occasionally come through towns to “clean out” the
gangs, what would end up happening is that these kids would go missing and never
come back, while other citizens were quietly sharing their knowledge of the other
atrocities and murders that that police had previously carried out. The citizens even
have different levels of association to these groups, since they are simply just social
groups of like minded people to them. To some, just hanging around them, drinking and
partying, qualifies them to call themself a mareo. Simply because it wasn’t always about
 Bryce Hill
862113541
violence and delinquency like is described, they understand better than the police that
these are basically just groups of friends spending time together.

Something in my life that reminded me of this piece of literature is my experience

with class struggle and society struggle where I went to High School. I went to a school
in Newport Beach which is a city absolutely dripping with money and privilege. Contrary
to what seems to be correct, a lot of these extremely privileged parents did not take
care of their kids very well at all. Many kids I knew simply spent more time with a nanny
than their own family, witnessed their family doing drugs, or were constantly abused.

The children of these parents that were not up to task were most of the time very
troubled and in need of care and friendship, not as bad but similar to the situations
present in Central American gangs. The kids with common backgrounds would of
course join together and make memories. Within these groups eventually drugs would
enter the picture, usually given to the kids by their parents. Some kids decided to sell
their product while others just spent time together looking for things to do. An extremely
common pastime for these people I spent time with is going to parties and doing
delinquent activities. These parties were a breeding ground for violence and crime,
seeing how even if the parents were present, they were most likely indifferent or
encouraging of the activities that were going on. The most “masculine” guys would tend
to be pretty aggressive in general but specifically when trying to interact with women. I
do know a few people who I do not communicate with anymore who have committed
sexual assault. In my opinion all these activities are not purely the child’s fault.

Unfortunately, the general mindset of adults around this area is that the child
must take responsibility for everything they do and the parent really is able to get away
with anything. This leads to a generalization that all delinquent children are simply
misbehaving and they need to be punished, usually physically. This showed the children
in a huge way that violence is a good way to handle issues and to handle stress. As you
can imagine this led to a lot of bullying and violence in the community.

Up until about 4 years ago, nothing was really ever done about this issue in my
city. This was changed when there was a series of suicides involving people at my
school. They all listed pressures from parents and drugs as at least some of their
reasoning. This sent a shock through my high school community which woke up a
significant amount of people to all the trauma that was happening under their nose.
Luckily this has led to a complete change in the way that my city perceives “gangs” and
the methods they use to REHABILITATE instead of PUNISH. I wish there was a more
helpful view instead of an antagonistic view of gangs and the people within them so that
we could curb the amount of death and violence around the world.