After growing up in Santa Monica, Leslie Jamison describes the bizarre experience of taking a gang tour in LA:
Alfred is the guide. He’s a marine turned gangbanger turned entrepreneur. He’s cracking Inner City Jokes. His phrase. We don’t need the windows open cuz we don’t do drive-bys. Also, we can’t have them open because the bus is air-conditioned. He’s hired three other guys to help lead the tour — ex-gang-members who had trouble finding other jobs with felonies on their records. They’ve turned their experiences into stories for travelers. They are curators and exhibits at once. When they’re not giving tours, they’re doing conflict mediation in the communities these tours put on display. The $65 will fund this work.
Jamison doesn't shy from her unease with the tourism aspect, but the account of the tour is fascinating:
From downtown, you head to South Central and finally to Watts. The towers are eerie and wondrous — like something a witch made — pointing ragged into a blue sky. Capricorn tells you he’s climbed them. Every Watts kid climbs them.
A lot of guys get them tattooed on their backs or biceps — the distinctive profile of their bony cones. One of the Missouri girls asks, "What’re they made of?" and Capricorn says, "What does it look like they’re made of?" You like this kind of tour, where there is such a thing as a stupid question, though this — to you — doesn’t seem like one. What are they made of? Capricorn finally mutters, shells and shit. He’s right, you find out later — they’re made of shells, steel, mortar, glass, and pottery. An immigrant named Sam Rodia made Italian folk art the template for generations of gang tats.
(Photo of the Watts tower by Joaquin Uy)
The Dish 