My Uphill Battle

My real name is Marvin, but most people in the streets of South L.A and in prison know me as Smiley. That’s the moniker I was given during my youth. We all had monikers in the city where I grew up. That’s how things work in Los Angeles.

My childhood years were spent in California, the inner city of South Central Los Angeles, to be exact. I lived in an overcrowded house with my mother, my grandmother, an uncle, an aunt, four cousins, three brothers and me. It was the typical Mexican home only that we were not Mexican. My family migrated from El Salvador in the beginning of 1978. I was only fifteen months young when I was brought to the United States of America. Out of all my brothers and cousins, I was the only born there. The rest were born in the United States, lucky for them. They did not have to go through the struggle I had to go through; quite frankly, I do not thing none would have survived.

I never met my father, and never felt the desire to have known him. He denied me when I was born. In any case it’s only good to know a father when he is a good father. Otherwise is best not to even know his name. My point is, screw him.

My family was indigent, we were products of welfare but I never knew that at the time. Outside of the house I had more cousins, aunts and uncles. At one point they all meant something to me. We were a huge family. My huge family would celebrate holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving together, and always at my house because that was where grandma lived. And she was the head of the family after all. During the holiday celebrations, my grandma liked to gather around the table and play poker with my uncles and aunts. She would always win because she would be the only sober one at the table while everyone else got drunk. She enjoyed taking their money, and my uncles and aunts enjoyed seeing grandma happy. She thought of herself as the best poker player in the family.

My uncles and aunts used to send us, children to fetch them more beer each time they wanted another while they went on with their poker game. I would open the can for them and take a drink when they were not looking before handing the beer over. When they were drunk enough, my cousins and I would steal the beer from the fridge and have our own party mimicking them in a poker table of our own. They were too drunk to notice the missing beer cans.

During the poker game they would sit around and lay money on the table, and yes, we would steal that as well. We did not steal huge amounts of money, just small change something for the sweet tooth.

My family aided one another in the times of need. We were so close, it was a wonderful family. However, time dismantles families, and boy does it tear them apart. As time passes by we simply become relatives sometimes even enemies. But despite of what I’ve gone through, I would not change that childhood for the world. Through it I’ve attained valuable lessons it made me the man I am today. You should never be afraid to go through a struggle. If we allow it, pain transforms us to something better. Sometimes you just have to let life teach you a good lesson and not take it personal.

The city of Los Angeles is not all glamour like they make it appear in T.V. Los Angeles is the gang capital of America. So guess what, if you are living in Los Angeles it is more than likely you will become a gang member. There are over one thousand gangs and over one-hundred-thousand gang members in Los Angeles County alone. The vast majority of the population where I grew up was Blacks and Mexicans; there were no white families that I can remember.

Drugs were sold everywhere during the time that I lived there, and things have not changed much since, drugs are still being sold, immensely. Many people in the neighborhood sold them. My neighbors sold them in the corner while they shot dice and drank 40oz. Old English. They were Crips. Most of them were my school friends’ relatives. They would call themselves by names like Eazy-Bone, C-Rag, and Nutty which I found very funny as a child. When I used to walk by them, they would say: “wassup Little Man.” I’d return the greeting by nodding my head and saying “wassup” in return. They called me Little Man because of my height obviously. I’ve always been quite small in height. When I was seven-years old, I appeared to be five. When I was ten-years old, I appeared to be seven. I never grew much. I’m not sure why, but I suppose that my height is just a side effect that comes with premature children.

Drive-by shootings were common in the area, almost nightly I’d be awakening by the sound of gun fire and sirens. During the afternoons there were also shootings. One day while my neighbors were shooting dice and drinking their 40oz. Old English, a vehicle from a rival gang drove by. Shots were fired from the vehicle. The shots came from a twelve gauge shotgun. The shooter had turned my way, we made eye contact and for a split second I thought he was going to shoot me as well, but he did not. After the car fled away, I ran to the street to pick up the shotgun shells that were left on the street. I’m not sure why I did that, curiosity I guess. I was nine-years-old at the time.

A half hour later LAPD arrived to the scene. They went door to door asking the neighbors including us if we had seen or heard anything regarding the shooting. I had seen it all, but told them that I did not see anything. I still had the shotgun shells in my pocket, and kept them as a relic of what I had seen. That was the second shooting that I had experienced at close range at a very young age.

In spite of the perils around me, I never felt threaten by the people I was surrounded by. Gang members did not make my neighborhood unsafe. I actually felt more threaten by the LAPD. Just seeing the look in their pale faces filled with malice made me insecure and made me tremble as a child. That fear turned into hatred towards them as I grew older. They never brought anything good to the neighborhood. They patrol to victimize under their crappy slogan; “Protect and Serve.” Each time they came around the neighborhood it was to slander, provoke, and threat the community. They treated us like criminals even before we were criminals. I have homeboys that are spending the rest of their lives in prison because they were frame by these crooked bastards. I had seen them beat and shoot teens just because they could and get away with it. Their way of performing their job gave me ample reason to mistrust them from day one. I despised seeing them around the neighborhood.

Police officers have a way to make children feel inferior and somehow undeserving of anything better in life. By the time I became a teen I felt like the pathology of a healthy society; as a marginal who has strayed from the general provisions of a “good, organized, and just” society. From my point of view their goal is to turn everyone into a criminal, and the truth is they are the real criminals.

Inner cities have always been dealing with police terrorism. In recent years their terrorism has spread to the suburbs and different parts of American. It’s happening everywhere now. Even White Americans are getting a taste of what inner cities have been dealing with for decades. America is becoming a police state from the looks of it and very few are noticing.