Word: cholo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...step for the young Cambodians to take. "You land in a gang neighborhood, it might seem natural to form a militia to defend yourself," explains Steve Valdivia, director of Los Angeles County's Community Youth Gang Services Project. Nearly all the state's street gangs started out copying Hispanic "cholo" (lowlife) styles. Scholars trace Hispanic gangs back to the 1920s, when Roman Catholic parishes organized social clubs for children who felt unwelcome at white high school dances. Despite drive-by shootings and drug trafficking, the gangs were tolerated as a "community" issue for half a century. Explains former teen gangster...