Norteño (gang) Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Norteños (Spanish for "northerners"), also called Nuestra Familia (Our Family), are a coalition of Hispanic gangs in North America, based in northern California. A member of these gangs is a norteño (male), norteña (female), or simply "northerner"; based on Spanish usage, these names are usually not capitalized when referring to individual members. Mexican-Americanss who are not gang members, but feel a strong cultural affiliation with others in northern California, may also call themselves norteños or norteñas.
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2 Symbols and culture 3 References 4 External links |
History
In the late 1960s, Mexican-American inmates of the California state prison system began to separate into two rival groups, Norteños (north) and Sureños (south), according to the locations of their home towns; the north-south dividing line was near Bakersfield. Part of the motivation for the split was the desire of the Norteños to be independent of "La Eme", the Mexican Mafia, which tended to treat Mexican-American inmates from the north worse than those closer to the border. Norteños continue to have violent territorial rivalries with Mexican gangs, while the Sureños are still affiliated with La Eme.
The group developed a formal structure in 1968, with a written constitution, under the leadership of Folsom State Prison inmate Robert Rios "Babo" Sosa. Its current hierarchy is based in Pelican Bay State Prison. It has developed offshoots throughout the United States and in Europe.
As with many other gangs, Norteños have been involved in trafficking of drugs and contraband, and armed conflict with other gangs and with police. According to police investigators, a requirement for full membership in Nuestra Familia is committing at least one murder for the gang.
Federal law enforcement agencies, long unable to infiltrate the group, began to step up their investigations in the late 1990s. In 2000 and 2001, 22 members were indicted on racketeering charges, including several who were allegedly serving as high-ranking gang leaders while confined in Pelican Bay. Thirteen of the defendants pled guilty; the other cases are still ongoing. Two of the defendants face the death penalty for ordering murders related to the drug trade. The largest of the federal investigations, Operation Black Widow, caused controversy when it became public that some gang members were serving as FBI informants while still continuing to organize violent crimes.
Symbols and culture
Norteño emblems and clothing are based on the color red; a typical norteño outfit might include red belts, red shoes, and red shoelaces. They also favor brand-name clothing such as Tommy Hilfiger, Polo, Ecko, and Nautica, in red, white, and black. The use of red by Norteños and blue by Sureños supposedly derives from the standard-issue bandanas in California prisons, which were only available in those colors.
Their number, sometimes used in tattoos, is 14 (sometimes written in Roman numerals as "XIV"), since N is the fourteenth letter of the alphabet. The corresponding Sureño number is 13.
Norteños also lay claim to images of Chicano youth culture, such as lowrider cars, and of the Mexican-American labor movement, such as the sombrero, machete, and eagle symbols of the United Farm Workers. At the same time that norteños were first organizing in prisons and calling for liberation from the Mexican mafia, the UFW and its leader César Chávez were folk heroes and symbols of liberation to many Mexican-American youth, including some gang members who had met Chávez when he was imprisoned for his union work.
In 1998, norteño-affiliated music producers released two gangsta rap CDs, Generations of United Norteños—Till Eternity and Cuete, which were said to have been funded by the gang's top leadership as a recruitment tool ("Cuete" is the nickname of Nuestra Familia leader Gerald Rubalcaba). The lead performer, Sir Dyno, who claimed that he was only culturally a norteño and did not know his employers were literally gangsters, was indicted for conspiracy after the Operation Black Widow investigation.
The Mexican-derived music style called norteño is unrelated to norteño gangs.
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External links