Human Target Notes

Chapter 1 and 2 Notes

The Probation School

• Punta Vista School: meant to educate students who were failing school or in trouble with the law

• juveniles on probation and students expelled from local high schools- usually for gang-related truancy, defiance, fights, and drug use- were mandated to attend Punta Vista School

• Jorge and Mark

• Over the years, the boys shifted between labeling themselves as gang members or alleged gang members, depending on their attitudes and circumstances

• He interviewed them

• despite these introductions and connections, gaining the trust of some of these young men was not easy

• their main concern was that one day I would turn data I collected over to law enforcement

• therefore, for the youths’ safety and my own protection, overtime I acquired a certificate of confidentiality from the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, which allows the researcher to refuse to disclose identifiable research information in response to legal demands

• Jorge: he was in fourth grade when he and his older brother arrived undocumented to the U.S from Mexico, and he still spoke with a heavy accent, struggling to find words in English as quickly as he wanted to say them

  • his response to his environment and the stress inflicted on him was to make jokes and witty comments

• Mark was a Californio whose family roots could be traced back to California native peoples and the Spanish who arrived in the 17th and 18th centuries, before the U.S seized California from Mexico

  • proud of where he came from

  • but he also used his deep roots to the land as a point of resistance to the Anglo culture’s dominance, disrespect for indigenous and other cultures, and expectations of assimilation and submission to a given role in society

  • Mark’s experience illustrates Riverland’s deeply problematic racialized culture in which Latinos are portrayed, described, and visible as either members of a servant class or a criminal class. the servant class typically includes adult immigrants who work in the tourist and restaurant industries, while the criminal class comprises younger individuals, often second generation and beyond, who are constantly stopped and frisked by police in public and appear almost nightly on the evening news as criminal suspects or perpetrators. Mark, like many of the boys in this study, troubled with the community’s treatment of his people, wanted to do something about the problem, but did not know how

• The administration and faculty had a list of character types, folk categories, used to label students for the sake of everyone’s safety and to maintain order: the addict, the emotionally disturbed, the promiscuous chola, the angry cholo, the wannabe gangster, and the class clown. The principal selected “the angry type” to describe Mark

• Being removed from class was hardly new to Mark, whose disruptive behavior invited institutional reprimand from an early age

• White boys displaying similar behavior in an affluent suburban school might be labeled ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder), but, for Mark, the ritual was to be singled out and positioned as “gang” member

• His words: “they wouldn’t even given me a chance…like then in high school my fucking English teacher, that fool, used to have my referrals already written for me- a big stack- he would wait just for me to say something he’ll be like all right go outside walk to the office.”

• during Rio’s observations, he found that Mark had a tendency to respond to conflict through facial expressions and language that staff considered angry and threatening to others

• situation revolving around a specific pair of sunglasses

• on the streets, such aggressive displays were prominent and threats or violent acts could unfold at any given moment

• However, the Punta Vista School’s authoritarian control kept such aggression to a minimum during the day and on site, saved for a later time and a different space

• Observing young people across settings and for long periods of time allows us to recover their multiple dimensions. It is our obligation as researchers to complicate our descriptions of these individuals so that our writing portrays a more true-to-life version of the individuals we encounter in the field

• Mark could have been understood in this project as simply an angry type, taking his frustration out in on his peers and the system. However, Mark also portrayed other dominant characteristics that require further examination

The Controlled Environment of Punta Vista

• the interactional and spatial context of Punta Vista seemed to bring out the worst dimension in students

• aside from the building’s dreary appearance, the school site had been mired in controversy when toxic chemicals had seemed from abandoned, dilapidated underground oil and toxic waste storage tanks left behind from a diesel truck repair shop that had once been located on the adjacent property

• Ms. Mason was a thin, dark-complexioned, middle-aged Latina who appeared to care for the students, but also demonstrated a “no nonsense” approach to dealing with discipline. During our first interaction in her office, she revealed, “Security. It’s my favorite sport.” Over time, I realized that her leadership approach was more concerned with preventing violence and crime at the school than educating students. The School structure and culture reflected this approach

• as I waited to see Ms. Mason, I observed the student check-in process. At the beginning of each school day, students lined up and presented all of their personal belongings to the front office staff: wallets, loose cash and change, cell phones, even their school supplies

• If a male student wore an extra-baggy shirt or a T-shirt with images considered inappropriate, security guards would give him a plain, bright-orange shirt to wear instead- THEY WERE LITERALLY MADE TO BE PRISONERS

• Clothing had become a contested symbol that authority figures used to control students’ behavior and that students used to challenge the authoritarian order

• In its practice and day-to-day interactions, the school operated as a quasi-criminal justice institution. Students understood this institution as a punitive one, and, as such, they informally agreed to follow its crime control rules and regulations, as long as they were no also required to fulfill its academic expectations

• In our society, obsessed with a culture of control, obedience, law abidance, and regimentation become measures of success, good citizenship, and legality

• The author’s field notes: the staff at the school seems to look at the students with fear or disdain. The air feels thick with tension between staff and student

• All classroom doors were closed, creating a claustrophobic feeling, as if the walls were caving in

• In addition to the teacher, two security guards were in the room- Mr. Juarez and Mr. Thomas- one for every eleven students. They walked around the room to regulate behavior and ensure compliance

• This juxtaposition of creative attempts to socialize teenagers to behave themselves with that of rigid rules aimed at shutting down disruptive behavior with that of rigid rules aimed at shutting down disruptive behavior and gang violence was a recurring theme at the school and in other settings in this study

• They (Mr. Jordan and other teachers) will tell you straight up: “If you guys don’t want to do anything, just don’t…We don’t care

• If the goal of schools like Punta Vista are to regulate behavior and reform students, they fail miserably because they have very little clue as to how cultural frames impact young people’s actions and as to how punitive control often generates further resistance

• Many students were desperate to return to the conventional high school they realized that being a student at Punta Vista degraded their image and cast them as social pariahs

• When Jorge tried going back to the regular high school, he talked to the principal: “Well, yeah, you probably won’t be able to go back. It’s rare that a kid is able to go back after this and that…after being disrespectful to me and the teachers…”

• Authority figures commonly believed that they could gain an upper hand in regulating young people’s behavior if they adopted a “play-it-cool” strategy to show they had some knowledge of street culture gained through contacts with older youths

• in their attempts to reach young people, sometimes educators inadvertently socialize their students to accept the very disreputable behavior they seek to eradicate

• Formal rules maintain high expectations and rigid behavioral conduct, while informal rules allow for negotiation through which youths can act up as long as they don’t trigger a sporadic, spontaneous negative reaction from a frustrated teacher, security guard, or administrator. I call this process as an expectational contradiction between adults and youths: The gang associated youths are provided clear, rigid rules and expectations by teachers and administrators, and yet all parties engage in a more informal, flexible system of interaction, and adults and youth alike behave differently from how they may act outside of the confines of the institution

• in this well-intentioned attempt to help students get by, Mr. Jordan, as an institutional representative, nudged young people like Mark to seek acceptance, dignity, and better interactions from another powerful institution, the gang

• This negative institutional socialization encourages younger boys- the next generation- to seek out older boys on the street from whom they can learn about ideas and practices they first encounter through interactions with teachers and police officers (cross-cohort socialization)

• He’s looking at some crazy charges. He tells me to go to school and learn something. He tells me us Mexicans, like how we need more people educated and doing something and fighting for a cause that’s right

• Although gang affiliation can bring negative social and health outcomes for young people, a gang as an institution sets clear formal and informal rules and predictable rules of engagement that require less emotional energy compared with socially sanctioned institutional structures

• the case of Punta Vista is a prime example of how institutions charged with disseminating and monitoring a behavior of reform and compliance, ironically, can end up perpetuating criminality

• Resistance to the culture of control had become part of Mike’s cognitive process. He had developed a keen sense for reading physical and verbal cues exercised by authority figures and deciphering their intentions

• This process of rendering young people as human targets prevails in schools and among police, especially if they have been labeled as criminals and gang members

Cultural Frames across Settings

• interactions like these in which school authorities or police officers attempt to forge relationships, provide life lessons, or discipline youngsters are marred when adults’ language and behaviors seem to reject, mock, mimic, replicate, or mirror youth culture

• As class came to an end, Juanita, a fifteen year old female student excitedly slapped her palm on her desk as Mr. Jordan congratulated her for figuring out the answer to a question on the worksheet. She exclaimed, “I’m a star! I am going to college!”

• Mr. Jordan’s reply- “First, you need to go to a ‘normal school,’ and “This is a school for backward individuals who have to earn back their rights’- served to reinforce negative messaging and to drive students away from their very goals that school claimed to support

• As a bespectacled, early thirties college professor in loose jeans and polo shirts, I was consistently suspected of being a probation officer or an undercover police officer during my time in the field

• when schools center on managing and controlling students, the youth disengage from learning, which facilitates their adoption of a tough role, a process Garot labels the contradiction of control

• Goffman noted that the public reacts with emotions ranging from terror to hatred to those who wear a stigma symbol. People may feel pity for the stigmatized, resort to abusive commentary, or organize to quarantine the stigmatized individuals away from society as if they festered with contagion

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• Two months after the author’s first observation, Jorge was arrested at Punta Vista for threatening a teacher- he was arrested for threatening a teacher

• he was released the next day and was told not to return to school

• Criminologist Robert Duran argues that to understand the criminalization of Latino youths residing in the U.S Southwest, we must understand the history of racialization and colonization. The boys in this study lived in a context in which their parents worked in precarious jobs tied to serving the elite class of Riverland. They labored in restaurants and in the construction industry, and as gardeners, babysitters, janitors, and housekeepers

• The boys aspired to have jobs- even working class positions- but were burdened with a criminal gangster stigma that diminished their ability to gain employment like their parents

• Even as Punta Vista School staff members sought to change these gang-associated youths’ behavior and set them on a more positive path, the youths could not escape being racialized human targets

Chapter Two The Liquor Store and the Police

• Golden State Liquors

• In sixty give observations here, I witnessed vandalism and loitering everywhere on the property, except the water dispenser. One of the boys explained that the water dispenser was for jefitas- benevolent, revered mothers- to use to nurture their families. The water dispensor was off-limits; no one was to vandalize it

• Golden state was the boy’s hang out spot

• They’re children. I don’t blame them. This is their community. I am a visitor. If my home can make them feel comfortable, then I have an obligation to help them. I get tired of painting the wall and cleaning up after them, but they protect my store

• This process of “adultification” occurs differently for children from low-income families than for those from higher-income homes. For the children of the poor, acts that may be treated as childish and minor for wealthier children are considered- and prosecuted- as criminal

Cultural Misrecognition and Strategies of Drift

• Tonyo

  • “Tonyo’s strategy was to show face with his friends so they knew he was still “down” with being part of the gang, but to get out of the way when negative encounters with police and rival gangs were more likely”

  • Two different times I observed police questioning Tonyo at the park, asking him what he was doing there and if he had drugs on him. Both times Tonyo did not respond, and both times the officers became aggravated and proceeded to handcuff him and place him in the patrol car. Still, Tonyo would not speak a word to police officers. On one of these occasions, the officers arrested him for vandalism, claiming he “tagged” a building down the street a few hours earlier

  • In Tonyo’s worldview, the police officers believed everything he said was a lie. To remain silent might upset the officers- certainly a palpable risk- but from Tonyo’s perspective, silence also minimized the officers’ abilities to find contradictions in his statements. Unfortunately, this tactic drastically escalated the already adversarial relationship between Tonyo and the police as both parties viewed the other with indifference and disrespect

  • Two months after I began to follow Tonyo, the FBI and local law enforcement kicked in his family’s apartment door and pulled hand-guns and assault rifles on him and his family. Tonyo and his brother were arrested after being suspected of engaging in drug related activities as well as conspiracy of racketeering

  • after being released from prison, Tonyo regularly attended meetings, focus groups and programs. He took advantage of job and counseling opportuntities and was one of the first young men to complete applications and make appointments with social workers to discuss his problems

  • eventually, Tonyo saved enough to move to Arizona. But when he sought permission from his parole officer to move out of state, the officer denied his request, claiming that Tonyo wanted to move only to expand the gang’s enterprise

  • although Tonyo played a major role in carving out his own destiny, his attempts to improve his outcomes and seek a productive life were consistently shut down through authority figures’ cultural misrecogition

  • Sociologist David Matza argues that juvenile delinquents navigate between two extremes, constantly drifting from conventional criminal behavior

  • CULTURAL FRAMING

  • The young men he observed attempted to adopt the cultural frames of responsibility and morality they learned in their homes and neighborhood, and in certain contexts, like their families and peer groups, these frames were understood as positive and appropriate. But in other settings, like school and labor market, these same cultural frames were considered deviant or malicious. This important distinction underscores that cultural framing and heterogeneity cannot be understood without also understanding institutional context and power

Chapter 3 Notes

• Chapter 3 focuses on the concept of “cultural misframing” in the lives of Latino youth

• how institutions such as schools, law enforcement, and the juvenile justice system interpret their behaviors through a lens of criminality

• CHLO STYLE: in order to navigate social marginalization, working class Latino youth would often develop a style of dress, speech, and demeanor that are heavily influenced by where they came from

• instead of being understood as a way to express their culture and survival mechanisms, these behaviors are often mistaken by authority figures as signs of deviance

• “Youth Control Complex”- a system where various institutions work together to monitor, punish, and discipline young people

• as a result, youth experience criminalization in everyday spaces: classrooms, hallways, street corners, and even at home when parents internalize these institutional logic

• Human Targets: these boys’ bodies are marked by society as inherently suspicious

• ANALYSIS: the concept of cultural misframing is crucial because it reveals how institutions fail to recognize cultural differences as valid, instead construing them as threats

  • the youth control complex is a key analytical tool here: it shows that punishment is not confined to the criminal justice system but is woven into educational and social institutions

  • the chapter also connects to larger themes of intersectionality and structural inequality: race, class, and immigration status

Chapter 4, 5, and 6 NOTES