New Study Disputes Reasons Vietnamese Youths Join Gangs

Contrary to prevailing theory, Vietnamese American youths generally do not join gangs to be a part of a substitute family, according to a first-of-its-kind federal study.

Nor are they caught between the culture of their heritage and the country where they live. Quite simply, they join gangs because gangs are all around them and their friends are in them, according to the study released Friday.

Researchers reviewed more than 1,000 police records and interviewed about 270 Westminster males ages 11 to 19, along with their parents. Some of the youths were members of gangs, others were not.

In the end, the researchers concluded that conflicts in culture and home life were not among the dominant forces driving Vietnamese children to gangs.

What consistently pushes teenagers into gang life is the positive image they have of that life and the close ties with the gang members themselves, said George Felkenes, professor of politics and economics at Claremont Graduate University.

“If kids know gang members, if they get involved with gang members and if they are on fringes of gang members, then they will end up joining gangs,” said Felkenes, co-author of the study.

The report, which will serve as a touchstone in devising gang-prevention programs, was unique in that the federal government had never before commissioned a group to research Vietnamese youth, said Westminster Police Chief James Cook. As much as 48% of all Asian delinquency in Westminster is attributed to Vietnamese gangs, according to the report, which was funded by a $150,000 grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

“Relative to other ethnic gangs . . . the formation of Vietnamese gangs is a fairly new phenomenon,” Felkenes said.

Vietnamese gangs began mushrooming in Southern California in the 1970s and, in general, have progressed in violence faster than other ethnic gangs, Cook said.

Earlier this month, an Orange County Superior Court jury recommended the death penalty for Vietnamese gangster Lam Nguyen, convicted of two murders and eight other crimes. If the judge accepts that recommendation, the 23-year-old Westminster man will become the first person in the county to face execution for gang-related crimes.

“The problem is very real in the community. Yet there aren’t a lot of programs that specifically deal with it,” said Sam Ho, director of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., a social service organization that addresses youth issues. “This study sheds light in the sense that it gives us some direction in terms of how to deal with the problem.”

Ho warned, however, that trying to simplify the source of gangsterism is unrealistic and could backfire.

“The report identifies the two most dominant influences as being the neighborhood and attitude toward gangs. These are two of probably hundreds of different reasons why youths join gangs, and we should not forget about the other factors,” he said. “All youths face different challenges and they have different ways of dealing with those challenges. We can’t just say, ‘OK, these are the two reasons and that’s that.’ ”

Of the teenagers interviewed from 1996 to 1997 by Felkenes and Douglas R. Kent, the city’s director of research and planning, 26% either were classified by police as gang members or had close ties with gangs. The study’s authors advised the police to concentrate on working in neighborhoods and preventing teenagers from coming into close contact with gang members by using school and family resources.