Pubdate: Mon, 07 Nov 2005
Source: Gilroy Dispatch, The (CA)
Copyright: 2005 The Gilroy Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.gilroydispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3377
Author: Kristen Munson

EX-GANG MEMBER SHARES STORY

Gilroy - Standing underneath a blue posterboard with classroom rules 
reading: "Be non-violent" and "Maintain a drugs and weapon free 
environment," former gang member Eddie Chagolla spoke of days when he 
would dole out guns before a night out and tie his friends arms so 
they could inject cocaine.

Wearing black shades and a heavy black button down jacket, Chagolla 
spoke to about 70 students at El Portal Leadership Academy, showing 
them pictures of friends and family members he's lost to the gang lifestyle.

"I'm an ex-gang member, an ex-drug addict, an ex-drug dealer and a 
high school dropout," he said. "My father was shot because of me ... 
There's a lot of pain in there that I have to live with."

Chagolla was 15 when he first joined a gang in the Southern 
California city of Riverside.

It took him 13 years to ruin his life - and the death of his father 
to bring it back.

Though Chagolla's father did not die from the gunshot wounds he 
suffered when rival gang members mistook the elder for his son, his 
early death from an aneurysm in 1990 brought his son out from a life 
of drugs and violence.

"Each one of you knows someone in your life who has made poor 
decisions," he said. "I'm asking you - do you want to break the chain 
in your families? Of your friends?"

Chagolla has been clean from the gang lifestyle 15 years, 50 days on Friday.

Currently he works at a continuation high school in Riverside as a 
campus manager counseling students, and serves a motivational 
speaker, trying to save as many kids as he can from dropping out of 
school and joining gangs.

"This lifestyle will follow you wherever you go. You can't say, 'Hey, 
time out. I'm home now - free space.' It isn't like that," Chagolla said.

No one left during his presentation.

Afterwards, students went up to Chagolla asking to see the 
photographs and prison letters he brought with him. Perhaps it was 
out of curiosity, perhaps it was a comfort.

"I know how he feels when he said his family was hated on his 
street," said 15-year-old Prycilla Gracias. "We just want to be the 
ones to change the family."

Coming to El Portal has helped Gracias get out of the gang lifestyle.

"You can't wear red, you can't wear blue," she said, referring to the 
colors worn by the Norte'o and Sure'o gangs.

She believes Chagolla's speech resonated with students.

"It needs to affect people," she said.

El Portal's Counselor of Academics and Student Leadership Services 
Tom Hernandez spent the past year trying to coordinate a time for 
Chagolla to talk to students.

"A lot of students in Gilroy, they look at the way he walked in, the 
way he looked, and this is the type of person who gets their 
respect," he said. "We have a lot of students who have family members 
who are gang members ... who don't have a father figure."

El Portal staff try and step in to show them a better path when no 
one else does, he explained.

"Students of that age are intrigued with the gangs," he said. 
"They're not thinking the ultimate outcome ... that when you're in a 
gang, either you or your friends are going to die or go to prison."

He believes students got the message from Chagolla's speech.

"Especially with the recent shooting in Gilroy, they know this is 
real," Hernandez said.

Student Body President Jorge Lustre has opted to stay out of gangs. 
He is friends with members from both the Norte'o and Sure'o gangs, 
but isn't a member of either.

He wants to go to college, maybe even be president one day, he said.

"(Gang members) don't understand that if we trace our heritage back - 
we all come from the same place," he said. "It's time for them to 
turn off the lights and see that we're all the same."
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MAP posted-by: Beth