Site MapContact UsNewsletter

• Home |
• About NHSN |
• Members |
• Training Institute |
• Conference |
• International |
• News & Media

Volume 1, Issue 1July 2007

• Current Issue
• Past Issues
• Interested in Contributing?
• Contact Information

El Faro Staff

Volume 1, Issue 1

Mexican American Girls and Gang Violence

Avelardo Valdez, Ph.D.

Pagrave/Macmillian Press  2007

Youth street gangs have proliferated in the U.S and have spread across the country in large and small cities, suburban and rural areas.  Hispanics make up a disproportionately large part of existing street gangs due to the increasing numbers of Mexican, Central American and other Latino young males living in geographically diverse communities recently occupied by this population. They often reside in neighborhoods characterized by unemployment, poverty, welfare dependency, single-headed households and other socioeconomic characteristics associated with street gang formation. Evidence indicates that substance use and drug selling/dealing is more pronounced among gang members as compared to other drug-using youth.

“Mexican American Girls and Gang Violence: Beyond Risk”  (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2007) uniquely focuses on young females connected to male street-based youth gangs. “Beyond-risk” refers to those adolescent girls who are already engaged in drug use, violence, crime and sexual behavior and on the edge of personal disaster. Because of their association with male gangs and their level of involvement in these deleterious behaviors they are often excluded from most youth-based intervention programs aimed at “at-risk” adolescents.

Research presented draws upon data generated from my Centers for Disease Control (CDC), National Center for Injury Prevention-funded study (R49/CCR621048) of 150 Mexican American gang-affiliated females (mean age 17.5 years) from the Westside of San Antonio. The respondents were identified, recruited and interviewed through a combination of adaptive sampling methods. These multi-dimensional approaches combined field-intensive outreach and recruitment with various elements of snowball-based methods to increase sample representation. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. This female gang-affiliated study builds upon my previous NIDA-funded study (RO1DA08604) that focused on Mexican American male gangs. The book’s appendix provides a detailed description of the study’s meticulous sampling methods. It is a must-read for those interested in researching “hidden populations.”

Unlike other studies on gang-involved girls, the book’s nine chapters describe the relationships of girls with others in the community, including family members, boyfriends, neighbors and peers. The book draws attention to how gender roles reflect a family-ethnic culture and community complex. It takes the perspective that there are multiple-level factors (community, individual and situational) that are continually interacting and influencing an individual’s susceptibility to deleterious behaviors. Situational factors have an immediate influence on the initiation or outcome of drug use related behaviors. Special attention is given to the consequences of substance use experienced by these girls who are embedded in Mexican American communities with persistent poverty and weak community institutions. This multilevel theoretical perspective substantially increases our understanding of the girls within the greater context of the complex social system in which they are embedded. The book provides a case study of the epidemiologic triangle of host, agent/vectors and environment.

The most widely reported substances used by the girls were alcohol, tobacco and marijuana; over 50% of the sample reported use of these substances in the last 30 days (62%, 53%, and 63%, respectively). The next most widely reported drug was cocaine, with 35% of the girls indicating use in the last 30 days from the time of the interview, while 21% reported use of benzodiazepines such as xanax, valium and other downers within the past month. Approximately 14% of the girls reported use of heroin and/or speedballing (cocaine and heroin mixed) during the last 30 days. Use during the last 48-hour period from the time of the interview shows similar patterns, with the majority of the girls reporting use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol.  How the consequences of this pattern of drug use varies among different types of girls (“girlfriends,” “hoodrats,” “good girls,” and relatives) is also discussed.

Most adolescents in the United States are likely to experiment with drugs and/or alcohol at some point in their lives. However, compared to the general adolescent population, the rates of drug and alcohol use among these adolescent girls are exceedingly high. In many instances, drugs and alcohol act as a catalyst to confrontations and disputes. Additionally, drugs and alcohol often serve as a coping mechanism for problems within the family, often masking what is really wrong. With such high levels of drug use by the respondents and their families, it is not surprising that the effects of such use are so multifaceted.

The etiology of drug use among the girls is linked to their association with adult and peer networks that are involved in drugs, to behaviors such as violence, and to multiple sex partners. Moreover, they live in an environment where there is an absence of pro-social adults and institutions (i.e., families, schools, churches, civic governments, etc.) that can neutralize these negative influences.  As a result, young girls in these neighborhoods are continuously exposed to high-risk situations and dangers that are exacerbated when associating with male street gangs.

In this social setting, adolescent girls fail to internalize conventional norms, values, expectations and behaviors. Instead, they develop norms and values that are an adaptation to the social structural conditions of their communities, further increasing their probability of engaging in risk behaviors. In this social setting, drug use and violence have become normative, placing these girls at “beyond risk” for behaviors that have deleterious consequences.

In light of these behaviors, practitioners may be inclined to pay less attention to these seemingly dysfunctional families, thus limiting the positive contribution that families can have on problematic behavior. However, findings indicate that even within these families, there are values that can be nurtured to promote pro-social behaviors among problematic adolescent girls.  For instance, one of the most intriguing findings is the importance of the quality of the mother-daughter relationship in mediating violent outcomes. The quality of the mother-daughter relationship was associated with risk of being a victim of psychological and physical violence and with the experience of injury from such violence. Without a high-quality relationship with their mothers, adolescent girls develop identities that employ alternative coping mechanisms, leading to antisocial behaviors. This finding supports research indicating that a supportive mother-daughter relationship plays a critical positive role in managing risk factors for adolescent girls.

Back to newsletter