The definitive account of the most dangerous street gang in America—the MS-13—as seen through the lives of one family caught in its malicious web
The MS-13 was born from war. In the 1980s, El Salvador was enmeshed in a bloody fight for control of the government. To escape the guerilla assaults and death squads, many fled to the US and settled in Los Angeles. Among them were Alejandro and his six siblings.
As a survival instinct, they formed a group called the Mara Salvatrucha Stoners, a relatively harmless social network bound by rock and roll. But later, as they brushed against established local gangs, the group took on a harder edge, selling drugs, stealing cars and killing rivals who threatened their territories. As authorities cracked down, gang members like Alejandro were incarcerated and deported. But in the prison system, the group only grew stronger.
Today, MS-13 is one of the most infamous street gangs on earth, with an estimated ten thousand members operating in dozens of states and linked to thousands of grisly murders each year. But it is also misunderstood, a hand-to-mouth organization whose criminal economy is based mostly on small-time extortion schemes and petty drug dealing. Through the story of Alejandro and his family, journalist Steven Dudley brings readers inside the nefarious group, to tell a larger story of flawed US and Central American policy, and the exploitative and unequal economic systems they foster. Ultimately, MS-13 is the story of the modern immigrant and the perennial battle to escape a vortex of poverty and crime.
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“The book benefits greatly from the perspectives of a gang leader, a recruit, the Salvadoran military, and U.S. federal and state agents…and reflects the author’s deep knowledge of the subject, derived from his local reporting and codirection of a government funded three-year study of MS-13 in the United States.”
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Library Journal (starred review)