'La Vida Loca' captures daily reality of El Salvador's gangs, or maras

“La Vida Loca” reflects a depressing and hopeless reality. The documentary, by photojournalist and filmmaker Christian Poveda (you can see his bio here), follows some of the members of ''la dieciocho,'' the so-called 18th Street gang in a poor San Salvador neighborhood.

“Little One” is a 19-year-old mother with an enormous "18," reflecting her membership in the 18th Street gang, tattooed on her face. The numbers stretch from above her eyebrows down onto her cheeks.

“Moreno” is a 25-year-old male member of the same gang who works in a local bakery set up by a nonprofit group called Homies Unidos. The bakery eventually folds when its owner is arrested and sentenced to 16 years in jail on homicide charges.

And ``Wizard,'' another young mother and gang member, who lost her eye in a fight, is followed by Poveda during a long series of medical consultations and operations to fit her with a replacement glass eye. She’s shot and killed before the end of the film.

Stories like that, punctuated with funerals attended by silent, heavily tattooed male gang members and wailing young wives, mothers and girlfriends, make up the sum of “La Vida Loca.”

The nature of their existence meant that Poveda had to spread his camera lens wide in the 16 months he spent shooting the film.

“I knew right from the start that I couldn't film just one character,” he explains during an interview on a trip to Mexico last month when “La Vida Loca” was part of the Guadalajara International Film Festival.

“Firstly, they get bored after a couple of months and don't want to be filmed anymore. Or two, they get put in jail, or they get killed.”

That's a reality that Poveda feels a lot of Americans don’t know about and should.

“Americans have to realize how much damage the U.S. has done to this region,” he says.

Poveda, who lives in San Salvador and has worked as a photojournalist covering the country before, during and after the 12-year-long civil war that began in 1980, is talking from experience.

The current situation in El Salvador is one of the less-inspiring examples of the long-standing social and economic ties between the United States and Latin American countries, he argues.

Gangs were formed by Salvadorans living on the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980s. When the peace accords that ended the civil war were signed in El Salvador in the early 1990s, huge numbers of gang members returned to the country, some of them by choice but most of them through deportation by U.S. authorities. Many were sent back after completing prison sentences.

As Rocky Delgadillo, a Los Angeles city attorney, notes in this column for the L.A. Times, “this only exacerbated the problem, spreading gangs like a virus until they grew into transnational `super-gangs'.”

Poverty and a lack of opportunities in post-war El Salvador made the country a ripe recruiting ground. 

But gangs did exist in El Salvador before that. Tracy Wilkinson noted in her 1994 report on the issue for the L.A. Times:

“Gangs have existed in El Salvador since the late 1950s, but until recently they were more likely to be associated with schools and would fight each other over things like basketball games, perhaps over territory, but not over business interests or crime franchises.

The student gangs were not inclined to attack outsiders, and their weapons usually were nothing more deadly than knives. The war between leftist guerrillas and U.S.-backed armies in the 1980s made these gangs more violent as it made society more violent.”

However, it was after the United States began implementing their deportation policy in the 1990s that the groups grew into the super-gangs that they are today, with cliques all the way through Central America and Mexico as well as, of course, a huge presence in the U.S.

Speaking at the Mexico City premiere of “La Vida Loca” last month, Poveda said officials estimate there are 15,000 gang members in El Salvador; 14,000 in Guatemala; 35,000 in Honduras; and 5,000 in Mexico.

The biggest population of gang members still resides in the U.S., with an estimated 70,000 living there, he said.

As far as Poveda is concerned, the vast majority of the gang members in El Salvador are “victims of society, of our society. " A desperate reaction to a desperate situation.

Many would disagree. The brutally violent groups have been connected with organized crime and other illegal activities. Here in Mexico, they’re one of the parties blamed for the high levels of violent attacks and robberies against migrants traveling from Central America and heading north to the United States.

But Poveda says that their big, bad image makes them an easy target and a convenient scapegoat for crimes difficult for governments to control. He also differentiates between gang members living in the United States and those living in El Salvador.

“They live in completely different economic situations,” he says.

“It’s not the same thing selling drugs in the central market of San Salvador as it is selling drugs on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles,” he says, referring to the kind of profits gang members make in the two places.

When asked if he can see a day when the gangs cease to exist, Poveda says that the destruction of the networks is not the point.

“If you want to improve things, the first thing to know is that it’s not about making the gangs disappear. They need to be given another focus.”

At the time of interviewing Poveda, he had yet to secure a distribution deal for "La Vida Loca" in the U.S. The documentary opens on cinema screens here in Mexico on May 15.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Click here to see Poveda's images on Flickr.

Comments

[do]

Poveda is dead.
HE got shot in the face 5 times by 18.
making money off them? catering to them more than 13?
a saber..

[Bigwhig]

The ironic prophecy of his last words. Poor guy.

[eatmilos]

Enough of this BS of victimhood!

Film is about people who have made bad choices. Filmmaker wishes to convince his audience that they are victims of a society or government policy. This is utter nonsense. As an immigrant I had a choice: stay in a war torn country with no future or come to another place and build a better tomorrow for me. I chose the later. These thugs made the wrong choice. Don't be fool by his psychobabble dribble.

RIP

[Victor Gonzales]

I have lived in El Salvador for the last 5 years, not by choice but by deportation. I'm not rich I don't have a job that i can say I'm proud of but I'm not in a gang. I've seen dozens of others who have been deported and join the local gang, not because of poverty or because the government is keeping them down but because they are weak. Gang members are worse then rabid dogs because the dogs didn't get rabies by choice, gang members do what they do because they want to. Poveda tried to portray them as human beings and victims, now he is dead, supposedly by one of his misunderstood victims but who knows what the truth is. Gangs are a plague that need to be wiped out, they let MS and los 18's run around they should let la sombra negra do the same and balance the scales.

[LOVIST]

Hey NIHILIST, why would yon care with such a name....??? :)

[N!H!L!ST]

Christian Poveda was killed which is a shame. he made a lot of enemies in El Salvador because he understood the people involved in the gangs. I think the police and the Gov could not take it anymore and they took him out making it seem like if got murdered by some low life. In this world people who try to do good get killed. So many good people have been killed and the world will always be corrupted and evil. but this should not deter us from doing good and doing as much as possible to bring out the truth and to save this world from wicked and wrathful inhuman beings.

[A Reader]

To those of you making disparaging comments about Christian Poveda, he is neither a Spaniard nor a tourist. He has a personal history documenting circumstances in El Salvador dating back to 1979 and having actually seen this film, I can tell you that it is a hard hitting and REAL piece about a group of young people caught up in a deadly situation.

[Da Maverick]

This is quite possibly the worst post i may have ever read on La Plaza, and that's saying a lot. But the comments make me shudder to think I share a world with all of you.

First, LAT "reporter" Tracy Wilkinson said that gangs had existed in ES since the late 50s is utter fiction. Let's be clear, "gangs" as we understand them today are far different from groups of school kids fighting each other for reputation & status on the schoolyard. Get a grip Wilkinson.

Second, yes the U.S.' involvement in El Salvador's conflict has brought an avalanche of unexpected consequences. But what is worse: that the Americans prolonged your war or that in over a decade of peace, you have not come up with economic growth and social programs to address the roots causes of crime?

That said, can we finally agree that Reagan foreign policy was a total catastrophe? Yes, thank you.

[uix]

This documentary just jumped on the bandwagon when outward gang activity is not on the streets anymore in San Sal. They all went underground. It was really bad back in 96. Now they got all these hollywoody tatooed faces getting spots in movie productions. go check out my homies doing real work in El Sal.
http://www.salvamento.org

[Angelita Barba]

"La Vida Loca"

The violent impact of colonialism on our society today.

Our people's despair why?

How do we change the current stage of repression?

We didn't land on Plymouth Rock...

www.diyrevolution.net

[Lilly]

We must not blame the U.S. for getting rid of illegal aliens who are criminals. Who wants to keep trash in their home? The gang crisis in Central America is due to our elected govertments who ARE a COMPLETE failure and disappointment. They have failed to create jobs, proper health care system for the poor or social programs to stop violent gangs from reproducing. These governments are in only for their personal interest or their friends.

My family is from El Salvador and El Salvador is more than just a civil war and the gangs, and it is SO sad to know that this all hear about when we talk about it.

On a personal note, maybe Mr. Poveda (Spaniard) should remember how violent his people were when they were conquering our people 400 years ago. They called themselves conquerors but actually they were gangs aka terrorists. For some reason, Spaniards think they are better than us. Shame on you.

[Lizandro]

As a Salvadoran living in Texas, Ive resided here all my life, I hate seeing my Salvadoran culture being tainted by these wanna be Chicanos. I never understood with these idiots decided to imitate and steal their whole gang culture. This is should have nothing to do with being Salvadoran, and sadly its becoming to be entrenched in the country.

Salvadorans have no one to blame but themselves, especially in California. No one forced any of them to immigrate to the gang capital of the U.S. during the 80s. The people should blame their uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, and sisters for letting their kids get into this trash in California. I was teased and made fun of all the time growing up because so many would imitate Mexicans, and thus they'd let us know how little our country was with little culture. I hate to say it, but sometimes I feel they're right.

[EG]

No easy answer...no one will ever understand the other side...and unfortunately, a film like this will only put Americans on the defensive. I think the film should have been more balanced if he was going for some kind of constructive message...other than just blaming.

[WEST ADAMS]

IT ALL ABOUT MAKING THAT MONEY... GET IT ANY WAY YOU CAN LEGAL OR ILLEGAL

[Louweegie272]

So we're to believe that it's America's fault for not keeping the criminal gang members here after they got out of prison? Why would we want to keep them here? I wish we still sent criminal aliens back to there homeland.

[3L GUANACO]

well first of all im salvadorean and we all in this u.s illegally not just us mexican like you call it... EVERYONE in the u.s is illegally and the u.s is everywhere on other countries that have no dammm busines being in there for... y would u want to fight for oil if its not in the u.s i think people that make a CHOICE to join gang is cuz they want to..i lived in l.a since 1990 and it was and still is a gang area buti didnt joined i hung around with them but i didnt get jumped in..SO NOT ONLY US LATINOS ARE HERE ILLEGALLY GET IT STRAIGHT.. JUST ASK YOUR ANCESTOR HOW THEY GOT HERE..

[John]

No one is stating that it is purely the United States' fault for the gang situation present there, but a lot of the unrest in the region does stem from US foreign policy directed over the last century. The Civil War did start after the US supported the coup of a democratically elected government, something that would lead to instability anywhere. There is no quick fix, but I think acknowledging our past involvement is necessary in assessing our current situation here in regards to illegal aliens and gangs.

[john letner]

Poveda is silly. Theblame for gang membership is at the feet of the families,top to battom;everywhere. I was a youngster growing up in Whittier,San Bernardino, and Highland. I never joined anything save the U.S.M.C.. I am a college graduate with three extended Cal. D.H.S. licenses. It is about choices and focus,not blame the ugly americans. Shame on Mr. Povedo, and th times for publishing his brand of drivel. He should pay for his sightseeing trips on his own dime, not make a movie to profit from the problem all the while blaming the U.S. I sincerely hope he NEVER gets a DISTRIBUTOR.

[Pancho Villa]

There are still "Ugly Americans" out there? IF the US had not supported the military dictators of El Salvador and provided them with millions of dollars in arms and military training, the FMLN would have overthrown the oligarchy (in which 12 families own 80% of arable land) and established a social democracy. Instead, the US established a capitalist, friendly nation state/client where the status quo remained, i.e. no job creation, no social safety net, no free health care, no free higher education, etc. The Salvadorean diaspora was the direct creation of US imperialism. The US want to control the world for its own economic interest. We want to (and need to) sell our exports to "friendly" countries, i.e. our "allies," after we impose their governments. The Salvadorean diaspora was the creation of US military involvement in El Salvador. To maintain our empire, we have over 750 military bases abroad. Open your eyes and find out the causes of our recent military involvement in Guatemala '58, Cuba '62, Santo Domingo '65, Chile '73, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, et.al.

[sjt]

what do they get out of being a gang member?
how do they get a job with all the tattoos?
is it true they want to live in prison?
is it true they cannot make it in society?
do they understand they are considered a terrorist?
a illegal group? they can be charged under the ricco act?
where is there families?

[Roger]

Yes, the evidence that you are using to accuse the US is circumstantial, there's no a factual direct link between the two events.

[Dina]

Anti social personality disorder people always blame others for their crimes. These are the worst criminals. No guilt.

Sound familiar Deborah Bonello?

[Ari Colter]

Why does everyone always blame the US for everything? What were we supposed to do, keep these illegal aliens in the US?

[stylosalvi]

I have not yet seen the movie but I will let me tell you something I'm a salvadorean male that came to the states in the early 80's and like most youg man I was involved in gangs too but I was smart enough to get out of them there's a way out there always is mine was the marine corps. I'm tired of all this people blamin the U.S. for the gang problems that we have in el salvador the only ones we have to blame is us the salvadorians nobody made us come here illegaly nobody made us start a civil war and nobody put a gun our heads to join a gang so before you blame the united states look deeper into who's false it really is and this is no shot at my people because I'm very proud of my heritage

[E.S.]

“Americans have to realize how much damage the U.S. has done to this region,” he says...............

"However, it was after the United States began implementing their deportation policy in the 1990s that the groups grew into the super-gangs that they are today, with cliques all the way through Central America and Mexico as well as, of course, a huge presence in the U.S."

You have to be kidding me, these are two of the most ignorant statements I have heard. No one forced these idiots into a gang. I grew up in a gang infested city and one way or another I avoided getting caught up with them.