From gang life to community impact
Homies Unidos is helping current and former gang members change their lives—and find a new purpose.
By Chelsea Hylton
Ana Minauri, the program director at Homies Unidos in Koreatown, understands the cycle of gang violence on a personal level.
She grew up in Koreatown her entire childhood and describes the household she grew up in as being very traditional and old-school. Being raised in the same community, she was influenced by milestone experiences like becoming pregnant at only 14 years old.
At 14 years old Minauri became a mother and she had a plethora of new priorities enter her life. The father of Minauri’s daughter was a Guatemalan native and gang member.
While Minauri was pregnant he was involved in a gang injunction. He was incarcerated and transferred to ICE which ultimately led to his deportation to Guatemala.
“I was shot when I was seven months pregnant in Guatemala.”
— Ana Minauri
At seven months pregnant, Minauri traveled to Guatemala to see him. During her trip there she experienced gang violence at a level that she had never seen in LA. She explained that what was happening was “horrible.”
“About a week into my stay there in Guatemala there was an altercation and it was a family dispute but it was also fueled by underlying like gang rivalries,” she said. “The house where I was staying in was shot up. I was shot when I was seven months pregnant in Guatemala.”
Thankfully both Minauri and her unborn daughter at the time were okay and were able to recover and travel back to the U.S. safely.
The experiences that Minauri had as a young teen drastically impacted her understanding of the criminal justice system in the U.S. and the impacts that gangs can have on individuals involved but also their families.
During her undergraduate years, Minauri became a student organizer for the organization Homies Unidos. Fast forward a few years and she now serves as their program director.
“As a program director, I'm involved in several aspects of the development and implementation of programming,” Minauri said. “The work of Homies Unidos very much connects to my upbringing and some of the experiences I had as a youth growing up in Koreatown.”
Homies Unidos is a non-profit organization that got its start in 1996 in San Salvador, Salvador. They then opened their doors in LA in 1997 to provide resources for individuals in the community to help with violence prevention and intervention.
Alex Sanchez, executive director of Homies Unidos.
The organization’s executive director, Alex Sanchez, a Salvadoran native, knew most of the original founding members of Homies Unidos and saw that the work that they were doing was something he wanted to do because he wanted to change his life and find a new purpose.
When Sanchez was a young boy his parents sent him as an unaccompanied minor to the U.S. to have a better life than the one they had in Salvador. Coming to the U.S. was a huge cultural shock for him. One thing he battled with the most was navigating this new world and also being able to control his anger.
Sanchez first experienced what his anger could do in fourth grade. Another young boy was bothering Sanchez and reached him at this last straw.
“This one kid that day, they touched my nerve and after crushing a little paper airplane that I was playing with, I let out on my anger on them,” Sanchez said. “I realized that day that that was something that I could do to let out that anger I had inside instead of holding it in and feeling like a coward.”
Sanchez learned about dealing with problems by letting it out on others which ultimately led to violence. When he entered middle school he found some common group with a new group of guys.
By the time that Sanchez got into middle school, he was introduced to a group of guys that were identifying themselves as members of a gang called Mara Salvatrucha Stoners 13. Gangs and gang life were such a foreign concept to him. It was not something that he was very familiar with.
Homies Unidos has an office in the heart of Koreatown and is open to all.
“I didn't understand what a gang was and I didn't understand what it meant,” Sanchez said.
Before he knew it Sanchez was initiated into the gang and had finally found a group of people that were doing the same things. At first, Sanchez saw his gang as a group of men who learned how to defend themselves and also defend their people.
Mara Salvatrucha Stoners 13, a subgroup of a gang also known as MS-13, is known for protecting immigrants from El Salvador and other Central American countries.
In 1996, Sanchez was arrested for double assault and battery and was sent to juvenile hall for the first time. Throughout his teen years, he was incarcerated a few more times but came to realize that he wanted to do more with his life and he needed to leave his gang in order to stop his own cycle of violence, and also help others as well.
As executive director of the organization, Sanchez is heavily involved in programming and offering different services. He is described as a man of the people and of his community. He is well respected by those who attend events.
Beyond just helping those currently involved or formerly involved in gangs, Homies Unidos also works a lot with the community at large. They frequently give out free food and groceries to people. Even before they are scheduled to begin to hand out food a long line of people form a line to collect some goods.
Sanchez is usually one of the first people to get there and begins checking in with almost everyone there to make sure everyone is being taken care of.
“I needed to have a purpose and I didn't want to be in the neighborhood getting in trouble,” he said. “I told the homies that, you know, I was calming down and they applauded.”
Administrative Assistant, Anai Araiza shared her experience as an employee at Homies Unidos.
Homies Unidos is dedicated to making a difference in their community and cannot make change happen alone. During the pandemic crime in LA increased. Multiple reports released by the LAPD showed that both shootings and homicides had skyrocketed.
Multiple members of the LAPD say that a leading cause for the increase in crime has been gang violence.
USC Professor Adrian Huerta has spent the last decade researching and interviewing individuals about youth involvement in gangs. He brought up that children having nothing to do during the pandemic played a significant role in the increase in youth involvement in gangs.
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“Often gang membership and gang involvement is tied to poverty,” Huerta said. “So what we've seen over the last year and a half is an increase in housing instability, unemployment.”
Professor Huerta explained that he has had multiple interviews with individuals in a gang and individuals who were formerly in a gang. Many of them said that they joined to feel accepted and validated.
“I've interviewed like 60 to 80 gang-involved people, you know, over the last 10 years to try to understand what's happening,” he said. “Ultimately what it comes down to is a primary thing is a lack of support and wanting validation and pure relationships.”
One of Homies Unidos’ most critical services they provide is gang intervention and prevention services.
Sanchez explained that Homies Unidos works with a lot of youth in the community to get them out of their gang lives.
“It takes some work for a young man or young woman to realize that you know that they want to really completely change their lives,” he said. “For many young men, you know, it becomes difficult to let that go because gangs is an addiction.”
Beyond that, they have a plethora of other services including tattoo removal for former gang members. This service allows individuals to apply to jobs without the fear of tattoo stigma affecting their job application process. It also allows them to have a fresh start and move forward with a clean slate.
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By the time Sanchez was older, most of his childhood and upbringing was surrounded by gangs. He did not know anything different. How would he be able to let go or get out of something that was a prominent part of his life. He knows very well what other individuals like him are dealing with.
It took a lot of self-reflection but Sanchez finally got to a point where he wanted to do more. He has not forgotten his past but he uses it as a lesson to have a better future.
“You don't see another way to deal with your problems, to feel that camaraderie, you know, to feel kind of friendship,” Sanchez said. “Once you have the gang provide that safety for you, it's kind of difficult to let go.”
