On gangs

I spent today in Berkeley before heading off for the next bought of travels, and had to do some errands. One entailed going to a store two towns north of here, in Richmond, which used to be "the murder capital of the United States." There was a group of youths standing outside the entrance, in gang attire, and one had a tear drop tatoed on his face, a sign he had killed someone. I walked right through the middle of them, because, as a matter of fact, I spent one summer hanging out with some gang members in Southern California. They stole cars and I think dealt drugs, one of them is serving a life sentence for being an accomplice to a murder. Of course, Orange County gangs are not like LA gangs, but still it occurs to me, I would never had had this chance to broaden my cultural horizons, had I just lived in Iceland my whole life.

Comments

Thordis said…
Except if you had lived in Iceland your whole life you would have traveled the world more, as statistics show that Icelanders travel a lot more than Americans do with almost all Icelanders owning passports. I remember thinking a lot about this when in California and how obvious the difference between those Americans who had traveled and those who had not was.
December 18, 2008 at 6:59 PM
Lissy said…
Yeah, I am always amazed how many Americans I meet who do not have passports! Even Dave didn't have one when we first met. Icelanders are absolutely very worldly.
December 19, 2008 at 3:32 AM
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