Family, Gangs, and Art
Story by Madai R. // Art by Wesley Vara

What changed me totally is the deaths of four people I knew. It changed me because my uncle died in December and he was my uncle but more like my father.

Two weeks after that my homie was killed at Jack-in-the box, three weeks after my other homie got killed near his school and two months after that another homie had passed away. This changed me because I got more into gangs because I was mad. I was already into gangs because my family had something to do with gangs.

Back in Mexico, like in Oaxaca, there would be a whole block of our family name. My brother is still in a gang and my mother is a veterana from Mexico. Basically my whole family has something to do with gangs. The deaths of my homies is what drove me more closer to gangs. But at the same time, it helped me out. It seems confusing but with those problems I would write and draw, as a way of expressing what I felt, to the point that I was good at poetry and art. With drawing I've had opportunities, like I take studies of art to receive college credits. With poetry, I can speak in a form of letters because in person. Another thing is that I get paid if I draw someone or something for somebody. I have changed, really changed through all this, where I now get respect from my homies. It has been my homies deaths that have kinda helped me out with a lot of things from art, poems and tats.

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