Dear Reader

As I read "Rules of Attraction" by Simone Elkeles, I could have focused on this biracial relationship, falling in love, and all that jazz. But I realized that there is a much larger theme at work here, the situation of gang violence and drug trafficking in this country. What I liked about the novels take on this topic, is Elkeles made it clear that it isn't just poor people at work in the drug industry, but very wealthy people too. Yet, our main character Carlos was a young man from a rather impoverished family, and him and his brother's only options growing up were to join a gang. So my question then was what makes young boys make this choice to join a gang. I started my research on that question. As I read, many join gangs to protect their family, they want a family environment that isn't present at home, and they need money to try and keep food on the table. Its when young men have to take the reigns in their home, and the only quick solution is to join a gang, and then its the gang that keeps them in it for life. I wrote a short story about a young boy who comes to this country from El Salvador and his only choice is to join a gang, I wrote a letter about a man in Chicago who blames his family for his gang situation, and I created a tweet that addresses the revenge mindset when a fellow gang member in gunned down. I also interpreted a photo of MS-13 graffiti found on a street corner, and a bank statement that shows the type of money that flows through the system. My Golden Thread is quotes that I found off of brainyquote.com that talk about gangs and gang members mentality. I always find quotes help to tie in different ideas and can span multiple interpretations, so therefore the use of quotes is the most powerful tool to help get the seriousness of these boys joining gangs at such a young age. The extent to the amount of gang influence found in the United States and especially when it comes to drug trafficking, the amount of gangs isn't going to drop anytime soon. Instead of the government taking out the top drug lords, they need to start focusing on how they can reevaluate the economy to give people in poverty more opportunities to escape it, because then that will give these boys other options than joining a gang.