Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter One To Drink of Death: Tukup's Headhunter Autobiography and the Characteristics of Tribal- Warrior Autobiography
- Chapter Two The Kinds of Street-Gang Autobiography
- Chapter Three The Bubble Reputation: Honor, Glory and Status among the Warriors
- Chapter Four Glory Manifest: Coup Tales, Warrior Boasts and Gangsta Rap
- Chapter Five Brutal Honesty
- Chapter Six The Education of the Warrior
- Chapter Seven The Warrior Choice
- Chapter Eight Mona Ruiz's Two Badges: Women Warriors and Warriors’ Women
- Chapter Nine Sam Blowsnake and the Unfortunate Pottawatomie
- Chapter Ten The Gangbanger Autobiography of Monster Kody (AKA Sanyika Shakur)
- Chapter Eleven Battle, Raid and Stratagem
- Chapter Twelve Berserks and the Tragedy of Warrior Individualism
- Appendix A On Circumcision
- Appendix B A List of All the Tribal Peoples and Street Gangs Mentioned in This Book
- Annotated Bibliography
- Works Cited
- Index
Chapter Eight - Mona Ruiz's Two Badges: Women Warriors and Warriors’ Women
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 June 2018
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter One To Drink of Death: Tukup's Headhunter Autobiography and the Characteristics of Tribal- Warrior Autobiography
- Chapter Two The Kinds of Street-Gang Autobiography
- Chapter Three The Bubble Reputation: Honor, Glory and Status among the Warriors
- Chapter Four Glory Manifest: Coup Tales, Warrior Boasts and Gangsta Rap
- Chapter Five Brutal Honesty
- Chapter Six The Education of the Warrior
- Chapter Seven The Warrior Choice
- Chapter Eight Mona Ruiz's Two Badges: Women Warriors and Warriors’ Women
- Chapter Nine Sam Blowsnake and the Unfortunate Pottawatomie
- Chapter Ten The Gangbanger Autobiography of Monster Kody (AKA Sanyika Shakur)
- Chapter Eleven Battle, Raid and Stratagem
- Chapter Twelve Berserks and the Tragedy of Warrior Individualism
- Appendix A On Circumcision
- Appendix B A List of All the Tribal Peoples and Street Gangs Mentioned in This Book
- Annotated Bibliography
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
Mona Ruiz (with the aid of Geoff Boucher) tells a remarkable story. She grew up in a barrio in Santa Ana, a small barrio, but plagued by gangs nonetheless. The F- Troop was the biggest gang in Santa Ana, and two of her cousins had big reputations in the F- Troop. Indeed, they were two of the founders of the gang, back in their junior highschool days in the late 1960s. Ruiz remembers that she was “mesmerized by the colorful characters who strutted through the neighborhood with an air of confidence and menace” (no. 55: 29). Her law- abiding, blue- collar father's warnings wilted in the face of such dangerous glamour. She spent more and more of her time with F- Troop boys and their Trooper Girls. Their attitudes became her attitudes. She had her first fight when she was eight. She was small, but she fought with the abandon of a miniature berserker: “The world went red for me, washed away my anger. I held nothing back. It would become a familiar sensation that would carry me through many fights” (26).
Ruiz tells about going with some Trooper Girls to terrorize an impoverished family of illegal immigrants: “I felt like I watched the whole thing with somebody else's eyes” (50). She was just 15. She was cultivating warrior cool, the warrior's objectifying, detached response to suffering. “I was feeling invincible and intoxicated by the fear I saw in the eyes of others” (65).
But up until this point she was only an associate. She fought with the gang, she partied with the gang, she hung with the gang, she dressed as they did, but she was not officially a member. Finally, the Warrior Choice was forced upon her. She was at a party:
The girls were older, in their twenties. They had a hard look to them, streetwise, but also a proud beauty of sorts. Both had long hair and plenty of makeup […]. They were first- or second- generation Trooper Girls, the girlfriends of the Troopers from the early days, and the crowd of younger gang members spread to make way for them as they walked through the party's chaos. They made a beeline for me […]. I wasn't sure if they were looking for trouble, but I doubted I could win a fight with either, much less both.
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- Street-Gang and Tribal-Warrior Autobiographies , pp. 101 - 114Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2018