Cholo and how I learned to live within my enviroment

I was not a cholo.


I lived in the enviroment and could of easily become a cholo.


My choice was made for me early in my life by my mom.


I never have met a cholo tougher than her.


When I lost all the weight I would get recruited by all the different gangs in the area.


But I did not join any of them.


I was in Junior High and this happened before I lost all the weight and one of the guys in my class was heavy into gangs from childhood due to generations of uncles and cousins and dad that were all involved in gang activity and had served of where serving time for various things that they had done.


He chose to pick on me the first day of school, he put me in a choke hold and made me drop to the floor in convulsions.


I did not even notice that he had crept up behind me , all I remember is struggling to get out of the hold and then falling to my knees and then I kept trying to snap myself back to reality and I could not.


Woke up on the floor , no one around me (I could feel everyone looking at me) and the guy was just standing over me.


The teacher came over , she asked me what happened and I told her I did not know.


That was the year I lost all the weight and by the end of that year, only a few kids would still mess with me.


He had not been around for a while, but came back the next year....looking for me and thanked me for not telling on him the year before. He apologized to me and said that no one would ever mess with me at that school again.


He left and the kids were asking me what he told me , I told them and they said that he was a gang leader now.......I went to lunch and the kids that would always mess with me....were quiet.


No one ever did anything to me that year, and I was surprised that someone that young could be a gang leader.


In one of my last jobs in the bay area, I was called ESE and Cholo by my co workers....I guess they could still notice the neighborhood in me.....


I always look for others like me, I like to call them undercovers.....or Suedeheads....I have met a few.....some of them gang members and gang leaders that chose to work hard to get out of the enviroment that they were raised in....others that were never in gangs but they were just like me.


I write this blog not only for me but so that maybe someone somewhere that feels some of what I have felt can feel that they are not alone....so that they understand that others have been through similar life experiences.......so that they know that even though others have not been thru the exact same life experience........we are all somewhat connected.....


No one ever told me that I could make it, no one ever told me that there were other options....no one ever told me that if I did not follow the mold of what everyone else did that I would still make it......

Everyone always told me I would be in Jail by 25 or dead or in the gutter.

Everyone was wrong.


EvilChavo (ESE) out.