Gang Deconstruction

Reemergence and Growth: 1870–1940
During the late 1800s, gangs reemerged as a criminal force in the Northeast, and they
emerged as new criminal enterprises in the American West and the Midwest. In New
York after the Civil War, the most powerful gang to emerge was the Whyos, which
included reconstituted members of previous Five Points area gangs. Another late 19th
century New York gang was the Jewish Eastman Gang. Meanwhile, Chinese
immigrants formed tongs, which were highly structured gangs involved in gambling and
drug trafficking. These tongs were matched in strength by an emerging Italian organized
crime network that became the American Mafia.
Gangs emerged in the Midwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Chicago.
European immigrant groups such as Poles and Italians formed the core membership of
Chicago gangs, while only 1% of gangs were black. However, gangs in the 19th century
were often multiethnic, as neighborhoods did not display the social polarization that has
segregated different ethnic groups in the postmodern city (see Edward Soja). The
gangs of Chicago in the late 19th century were particularly powerful in the areas around
the Chicago Stockyards, and engaged in robbery and violent crime.
As in New York and northeastern gangs, it was during the early period of Chicago gang
growth that gangs connected themselves politically to local leaders. Such gangs
as Ragen's Colts became influential in Chicago politics. By the 1920s, several gangs
had grown to the point of becoming organized crime groups in Chicago (e.g.
the Chicago Outfit under Al Capone), and gang warfare was common among
them. [52] Street gang activity continued alongside these larger criminal organizations;
contemporary estimates suggested some 25,000 gang members and 1,300 gangs in
Chicago during the late 1920s. By the early 1930s, however, these immigrantdominated
gangs largely died out.
Just as with the Midwest, the American West experienced gang growth during the late
19th century and early 20th century. The earliest Los Angeles gangs were formed in the
1920s, and they were known as "boy gangs"; they were modelled on earlier social
groups of Latino and Chicano men known as palomilla. Frequently these groups were
composed of Mexican immigrants who had been marginalized upon coming to the
United States. The youth of this culture became known as the cholo subculture, and
several gangs formed from among them.
By the 1920s, cholo subculture and palomilla had merged to form the basis of the Los
Angeles gangs. The gangs proliferated in the 1930s and 1940s as adolescents came
together in conflict against the police and other authorities. Territoriality was essential to
the Los Angeles gangs, and graffiti became an important part of marking territory
controlled by gangs. Indeed, neighborhood identity and gang identity merged in ways
unlike other parts of the United States; in addition, the gangs of the West were different
in their ethnic makeup. Finally, they were unique in that, unlike gangs in the Midwest
and the Northeast, they did not grow out of social problems such as poverty, but out of
ethnic segregation and alienation.
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