Reviewed by:

• Gangs of the El Paso–Juárez Borderland: A History by Mike Tapia
• Mitchel P. Roth

Gangs of the El Paso–Juárez Borderland is a welcome addition to the growing catalogue of interdisciplinary books focusing on America's ethnic street gangs. Most prior studies on this topic lacked historical research methods, focusing instead on the "fundamental causes and interpersonal consequences of gang membership" (117). Tapia instead provides a broad overview of the historical, organizational, and subcultural elements of the century-old Chicano gang experience in the United States.

It is no accident that he focuses on the closely linked cities of El Paso and Juárez. El Paso has the oldest barrio gang history in the United States and is the "birthplace of the zoot suit pachuco and most things Chicano [End Page 365] gang related" (72). Moreover, no other pair of border cities exhibits "the scope of cultural and practical exchange" (77) that exists between these two. Any comparison of them brings up the glaring disparity of violent crime rates in each, as El Paso consistently appears on lists of safest cities in the United States, and Juárez retains some of the highest murder rates in the world. As far as the widely feared bleed-over of violence from Juárez to El Paso, Tapia borrows a modern-day trope brandished by El Paso's "non-gang, non-cartel involved Chicanos," that "what happens in Juárez stays in Juárez" (79).

The book is composed of six chapters and two appendices listing historical street gangs from both cities. In the first chapter, Tapia offers a brief history of the region's gangs between 1915 and the 1960s. The author's use of oral histories and newspaper archives adds color to his documentation of changing trends in barrio gangs. Chapter 2 focuses on Las Cruces, New Mexico, and details the strong influence of California's street gangs while acknowledging the "most proximate and obvious gang influences coming from El Paso-Juárez" (36). While most of the chapters focus on larger urban areas, chapter 3 chronicles gang activity in the rural environs of Anthony, New Mexico, examining the gang influences and network linkages in a much smaller city.

Chapter 4 chronicles the gang continuum in Ciudad Juárez over the decades. Tapia makes a good case that one cannot measure the gang scene in far West Texas and southern New Mexico without accounting for Ciudad Juárez and its influence on those communities. Chapter 5 covers El Paso's modern gangs and the emergence of the largest of them, Barrio Azteca (BA), in recent years, including its birth in the Texas prison system and its proximity to Juárez, which allowed the gang to flourish in the Mexican underworld very quickly.

The final chapter discusses the influence of history and geography on criminal subcultures in the borderlands and offers a valuable overview that brings the discussion of borderlands into the present. This reviewer was pleased to find Tapia's nuanced discussion of the how the number '13' (for M, the 13th letter of alphabet) has been used to exaggerate a gang's sophistication and inherent danger and its affiliation with the Mexican Mafia (MM) and California's southern gangs, or Sureños.

Each chapter is filled with gang names, and to prevent confusion, there is an appendix listing the historical street gang inventory of El Paso and Juárez. Rare photographs help bring these gangs to life over the years. Moreover, the author's use of the oral histories housed at the University of Texas at El Paso illuminates the modern history of gangs on the borderlands, rich as they are in first person accounts. This book will be of particular interest to sociologists, criminologists, historians of Texas gangs and crime, and the general reader. The author's fluid writing style and his meshing of the disciplines of criminology and history makes it a must-read [End Page 366] for anyong who wants to understand the broader dynamics of...

审核人：

• 埃尔帕索–华雷斯边境的帮派：迈克·塔皮亚（Mike Tapia）的历史
• 米切尔·罗斯

El Paso–Juárez Borderland的帮派是不断增长的针对美国种族街头帮派的跨学科书籍目录中令人欢迎的补充。以前有关该主题的大多数研究都缺乏历史研究方法，而是侧重于“帮派成员的根本原因和人际交往后果”（117）。相反，塔皮亚（Tapia）全面概述了美国百年奇卡诺帮派经历的历史，组织和亚文化元素。

他专注于紧密联系的埃尔帕索（El Paso）和华雷斯（Juárez）的城市绝非偶然。埃尔帕索（El Paso）在美国拥有最古老的巴里奥帮历史，并且是“人妖装pachuco和大多数奇卡诺的发源地[结束第365页]（72）。此外，没有其他两个边境城市展现出这两个城市之间存在的“文化和实际交流的范围”（77）。它们之间的任何比较都带来了暴力犯罪率的明显差距，由于埃尔帕索（Al Paso）始终出现在美国最安全的城市名单上，而华雷斯（Juárez）则保持着世界上最高的谋杀率。就从华雷斯（Juárez）到埃尔帕索（El Paso）的暴力流血事件，塔皮亚（Tapia）借用了埃尔帕索（El Paso）的“非帮派，非卡特尔卷入的奇卡诺斯”（Chicanos）挥舞着这种轻便小提琴，“在华雷斯发生的事留在华雷斯（79）”。

该书由六章和两个附录组成，列出了两个城市的历史街头黑帮。在第一章中，塔皮亚（Tapia）简要介绍了该地区帮派在1915年至1960年代之间的历史。作者对口述历史和报纸档案的使用为他的有关黑帮犯罪趋势变化的文献增添了色彩。第2章重点介绍了新墨西哥州的拉斯克鲁塞斯，并详细介绍了加利福尼亚街头帮派的强大影响力，同时也承认“来自埃尔帕索-华雷斯的最直接，最明显的帮派影响力”（36）。虽然大多数章节都集中在较大的城市区域，但第3章记录了在新墨西哥州安东尼市农村环境中的帮派活动，考察了在一个小得多的城市中的帮派影响和网络联系。

第4章记录了几十年来华雷斯城的帮派连续体。Tapia很好地证明了，如果不考虑华雷斯城（CiudadJuárez）及其对这些社区的影响，就无法衡量西得克萨斯州和新墨西哥州南部的帮派场面。第5章介绍了埃尔帕索的现代帮派及其最大的帮派，巴里奥·阿兹特卡（Barrio Azteca，近几年）的出现，包括它在德克萨斯监狱系统中的出生以及与华雷斯的毗邻，这使得帮派在墨西哥黑社会中蓬勃发展。很快

最后一章讨论了历史和地理对边境地区犯罪亚文化的影响，并提供了有价值的概述，使对边境地区的讨论成为现实。这位审稿人很高兴找到Tapia关于如何使用数字“ 13”（对于M，第13个字母的字母）进行夸大的讨论，该数字如何被用来夸大该团伙的复杂性和内在危险，以及该团伙与墨西哥黑手党（MM）和加利福尼亚州的隶属关系南部帮派或Sureños。

每章都充斥着帮派名称，为防止混淆，有一个附录列出了埃尔帕索和华雷斯的历史街头帮派清单。多年来，稀有的照片使这些帮派栩栩如生。此外，作者对德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校的口述历史的使用，阐明了边境地区黑社会的现代历史，这些黑社会在第一人称方面非常丰富。社会学家，犯罪学家，德克萨斯帮派和犯罪的历史学家以及一般读者将特别感兴趣这本书。作者的流畅的写作风格以及他对犯罪学和历史学学科的划分，使其成为想要了解...的更广泛动态的任何人的必读[End Page 366]。