Peace Keepers Embedded on Campus

By Carolyn Goossen, June 22, 2007

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When two high schools erupted in large-scale fighting over the past school year, Youth Together was on the front lines, working with what they call "non-traditional student leaders" to end the violence and find long term solutions for peace.

Marco and Skid (not their real names) are among the student leaders recruited by the multiracial youth organizing, advocacy and leadership organization. Both juniors at Skyline High, they serve as 'shot callers' for Latino and African-American cliques at this Oakland hills high school serving large numbers of low-income families from the flatlands of Oakland.

Skyline High is 43 percent African American, 22 percent Asian and 19 percent Latino. Nearly half of all Skyline students receive free or reduced lunch, and 10 percent are English language learners. Marco and Skid figured prominently in a large-scale fight between groups of Latino and black students that took place at Skyline in December 2006, involving more than 200 students.

The fight was one of the largest at the school in recent years. It escalated to the point where classes were cancelled and police were summoned. Teachers hid inside locked classrooms.

While Marco and Skid were not involved in the small beefs earlier in the day that led up to the major scuffle on campus, they were among the few key leaders who were giving marching orders to their respective cliques as the drama unfolded.

Today, they are both part of an effort to build bridges between the black and Latino students at Skyline with Youth Together.

When asked why they were willing to sit down at the same table and talk about their differences after all the bad blood between them, they both gave the same answer: "the youth center," referring to the "One Land One People Center" at Skyline High, headed by Youth Together organizer George Galvis.

"George at the youth center helped us out, and he calmed us down," says Marco. "He helped ensure that it wouldn't turn into a bigger fight."

"I rarely talk to somebody about what's going on [in my life]," says Skid. "I always keep it inside. But I can talk to George and Tony (Douangviseth) at the youth center. They'll come up to me and start engaging me."

Galvis categorizes Marco and Skid as "non-traditional student leaders" who are most often absent from mainstream "youth leadership/government" type programs.

"These are the youth who don't trust adults because they have typically been wronged by them," says Galvis. "Yet they wield incredible influence among their peers."

To keep the fight from escalating that drizzling December afternoon, Galvis and other youth center staff worked hard to keep the Latino and black cliques apart from each other during the melee, talking to as many young people as they could to calm them down. They then spent the subsequent weeks sitting down with the faction leaders from both sides, negotiating a truce, and working with the administration to look for longer-term solutions.

"Some of them told me, 'I'd rather put a bullet in so-and-so's head, but I'll come to the table because I respect you,'" said Galvis.

Youth Together was created in 1996 in response to a surge in inter-ethnic violence that was erupting in Bay Area high schools. At that time, Asian, Latino and black students were all involved in the fighting, and schools were unprepared to deal with the issues, reacting with sweeps of mass expulsions and arrests. Today, Youth Together staff is spread out among six school sites in the Bay Area, and while each of their specific sites requires slightly different approaches, they are all immersed in the work of building a "positive school climate." The staff at each site is comprised of young people from similar communities as those they serve.

The group uses workshops to engage young people on topics such as the "cycle of violence," where they look at the roots of violence in their families and communities, and "comparative ethnic studies," where they learn about the similarities between the history of African-American sharecroppers and Latino migrant workers. They engage young people most prone to join gangs or cliques that engage in violence.

At the Youth Together site at Richmond High School, students are encouraged to talk about the presence of gangs in their school and community.

Richmond High is 68 percent Latino, 17 percent African American, and 10 percent Asian. The vast majority (some 78 percent) receives free or reduced meals, and more than half of the students are English language learners.

"Richmond has always had a lot of Surenos, but this year a lot of Nortenos started coming to the school, so it's a big deal," says Lisa (not her real name), referring to two of California's most prolific Latino gangs. Lisa, 16, has been affiliated with the Nortenos since she was 11. Through her relationship with Youth Together and other youth advocates, Lisa was able to see the consequences of the gang life.

"Raul (the former site coordinator of Youth Together at Richmond High) would take me to younger kids who we saw were going to affiliate themselves [with the Nortenos]," she says. "He would say, 'What if this was your little brother... Would you want them to do stuff like that?' He made me think a lot."

The Nortenos started off as a prison-based gang in the 1960s, and the Surenos emerged in Southern California in the 1970s as immigration from Mexico and Central America increased. Both figure prominently in current Bay Area gang politics.

Lisa was on the south side of the school with her Norteno friends (ironically, Nortenos have claimed the south side of the school and Surenos the north) when a fight of more than 100 Nortenos and Surenos erupted in December.

As at Skyline, the Youth Together staff at Richmond High was key in calming nerves and encouraging young people to leave the school grounds that day. But more importantly, says Linda Salias, Richmond High site organizer for Youth Together, is their ability to steer young people away from joining gangs in the first place.

David Gutierrez, 17, was asked to join multiple gangs when he first started going to Richmond High. "They have recruiters who ask you to do things," Gutierrez recalls. "They say, 'We're going to go jump so-and-so. Want to come with us?'"

Gutierrez, whose own father was in and out of jail when he was growing up, says there was a brief period when he succumbed to the allure of being gang-affiliated.

But Youth Together helped him refocus. "Being in Youth Together calmed me down, gave me some understanding not to bust out on someone because of what they're wearing," he says. "The way I look at it now, these are your people. You should help them instead of fight them."

Tony Douangviseth (pictured above), 24, is an example of the longterm impact of the youth organization. He got involved with the group the summer before he started at Skyline as a freshman. He and his friends were unable to find jobs, and they were looking for something to do to pass the days.

"I could have easily gone down the path that a lot of my friends did, selling drugs, making money, using guns. I had no mama growing up -- she abused me when I was a baby, and then she left me. My father raised me and he worked all the time, so I kinda grew up with no dad," he says.

Yet Douangviseth continued to work with Youth Together, and after graduating from college, he started his own youth non-profit before coming back to Skyline as a conflict resolution program coordinator. "There's too much on their mind, so something simple can trigger them to lose it and black out for a moment and get into a fight. And it's a form of entertainment... because there's nothing for them to do out here," he says.

The violence facing young people in Oakland and Richmond is among the highest in the country. According to Morgan Quitno's 2006 survey on the safest and most dangerous cities, OaklanRichmond High School.d and Richmond were ranked among the nation's most dangerous, and only Compton surpassed them as the most dangerous city in the state, with Oakland and Richmond coming in second and third, respectively. "You can't punish these kids," says Richmond High School Principal Orlando Ramos. "They're dodging drug dealers and bullets on the way to school. You've got to engage them."

As the fourth principal to work at Richmond in five years, Ramos (pictured above) is determined to change the culture of the school and believes that Youth Together plays an important role in this transformation. "Because of Youth Together," he says, "students here are becoming activists. They're fighting injustices. They are learning how to stand up for themselves, eloquently, without resorting to violence. That's what a real education is all about."

Raquel Jimenez, program coordinator for all Youth Together school sites, says, "We see ourselves as advocates and organizers for the young people there, but also for the teachers and administrators, because the tensions we see in school are not anybody's fault."

Racial and gang tension in schools, advocates say, is not fundamentally about racial or block hatred. "If you ask any young person if they hate someone of another race, most young people will say no," says Jimenez. "They will say that they do have stereotypes about other people, but it's not a hate instilled in them. It's a frustration. A frustration with their own living conditions, with school, with the way they are treated because of their race."

Skid is still trying to understand why fighting between Latinos and blacks occurs at all.

"For some reason we always end up clashing like this, instead of coming together," Skid says, shaking his head. "But the truth is, I got Mexicans who are partners, and I'd fight a black person before I'd fight them. And when we are off school grounds, we basically ignore each other. The big problem on the streets is black-on-black, and brown-on-brown violence."