San Francisco Youth Face Violence, Deportation as Local Services Shrink
22.05.12
Finds Redemption
Daniel Mancia, 29, said if it weren't for programs like HOMEY, he would either be in prison or dead. Mancia was raised by his Salvadoran mother in Hunters Point and began hanging out around 24th Street and Mission when he was in middle school. By age 13, Mancia was incarcerated at San Francisco's juvenile hall.
"That left me in a revolving-door cycle that was really hard to break," he said.
There were only a few Latino families living in Hunters Point in the mid-1990s, he said. A first generation Salvadoran American who grew up around Puerto Ricans and spoke English as a second language, Mancia said he had to defend himself in his neighborhood, so he learned how to box.
"It was dangerous back then," he recalls. "People were getting killed left and right by my house. As a child it was terrifying being up there. You always heard gunshots." Sometimes he knew the victims.
When Mancia started attending Horace Mann Middle School in the Mission, he was attracted to the camaraderie and safety of his crew on 24th Street, many of whom were in gangs. Although Mancia said he was never officially "jumped in" to the gang, and never got a tattoo, he felt protected.
Source: New America Media