The Pico Gardens housing development in East Los Angeles has a high
percentage of resident families with a history of persistent
poverty, gang involvement, and crime. In some families, members of
three generations have belonged to gangs. Many other Pico Gardens
families, however, have managed to avoid the cycle of gang
involvement.
In this work, Vigil adds to the tradition of poverty research
and elaborates on the association of family dynamics and gang
membership. The main objective of his research was to discover what
factors make some families more vulnerable to gang membership, and
why gang resistance was evidenced in similarly situated
non-gang-involved families. Providing rich, in-depth interviews and
observations, Vigil examines the wide variations in income and
social capital that exist among the ostensibly poor, mostly Mexican
American residents. Vigil documents how families connect and
interact with social agencies in greater East Los Angeles to help
chart the routines and rhythms of the lives of public housing
residents. He presents family life histories to augment and provide
texture to the quantitative information.
By studying life in Pico Gardens, Vigil feels we can better
understand how human agency interacts with structural factors to
produce the reality that families living in all public housing
developments must contend with daily.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!