Puerto Rican Gangs in Chicago The history of Puerto Rican gangs in Chicago is indelibly linked to politics. Many gang members of today might forget that fact, but the origins of those gangs and some of the more fundamental aspects of their formations were related to politics. Additionally, the racial situation in the United States contributed a lot to those early gangs. The reality was that as each new immigrant group came to the country, it found a land diversified by nationality and ethnicity. The two most prominent Puerto Rican gangs in Chicago -- the Young Lords and Latin Kings -- were based upon those lines of segregation and ultimately came to reflect it from a Puerto Rican perspective.

Although there are stories that Puerto Rican gangs existed as far back as the earliest part of the 20th century and the 1930's, they did not truly emerge to prominence until the late 1940's and early 1950's. Perhaps the most seminal event in the formation of Puerto Rican gangs was Puerto Rico's change in status from a colony to a commonwealth. This political change resulted in the fact that for the first time ever, elections were held in Puerto Rico and numerous people were able to contribute to the political process by voting. Thus, Puerto Rican immigration to the U.S. began in earnest during the aforementioned time period. A number of Puerto Rican families migrated to Chicago, specifically, and found themselves together because of the ethnic barriers which have typified this city for most of its history -- at least since the latter portion of the 19th century when most of the immigrants were of various European nationalities. Thus, the earliest Puerto Rican gangs were founded along basic familial ties, and the commonality of their homeland. Many Puerto Ricans initially chose to relocate to Chicago because New York was oversaturated, and there was perceived to be more job opportunity in the former. Significantly, most Puerto Ricans found employment as migrant workers when they initially came to Chicago, which was an extension of the history of Puerto Ricans as migrant workers in their homelands.

One of the earliest manifestations of Puerto Rican gangs in Chicago -- which would eventually found the tradition that begat the Latin Kings and the Young Lords -- was known as La Hacha Vieja. This gang was formed of Puerto Rican males, partly in response to the aforementioned racial tension and segregation in Chicago based upon nationalities and ethnicities. This earliest gang was a manifestation of Puerto Rican hegemony, and a survival mechanism to cope with the presence of some of the aforementioned gangs that were established in Chicago around this time period. These include gangs of African-Americans, Mexicans, and various gangs of Eurocentric origin. Another critical facet of the formation of Puerto Rican gangs in Chicago is location. Gangs are dependent upon territory for survival; for instance, Chicago's African-American gangs have predominantly claimed the south of the city. The early migration efforts of Puerto Ricans centered upon the west side of the city, which was where the early activity of La Hacha Vieja was based. However, due to gentrification, the Puerto Rican community eventually relocated from the west side of Chicago to Lincoln Park, and areas surrounding it such as Logan Square, Uptown, Humboldt Park, and Logan Square. This territory would prove to be the very grounds that the Young Lords and Latin Kings would claim as their own, and would provide the basis for Puerto Rican gangs in Chicago. The impact of gentrification on the actually locality of the territory that Puerto Rican gangs claimed is demonstrable of the social forces prevalent in Chicago that affected Puerto Rican gangs. Gentrification is reflective of socio-economic changes and climates, and helped to play a principle role in the establishment of the Latin Kings and Young lords in Lincoln Park.

At this point, it is vital to reference the intersection of the two most eminent Puerto Rican street gangs in Chicago, the Young Lords and the Almighty Latin King and Latin Queen Nation, with the zeitgeist in which they were formed. Both of these gangs were active by the end of the 1950's. As that decade waned into the turbulent 1960's, the political and civil unrest that characterized America at the time (due in no small part to its racial tension and the socio-economic ramifications of that tension) affected the direction and the nature of both of those gangs. A cursory examination into the etymology of the Young Lords reviews a salient parallel with that of one of Chicago's most notorious...

In that respect, the former was somewhat patterned after the latter, although the former had a definite Puerto Rican and Latino slant in its agenda. The significance of this parallel becomes magnified when one considers that many of the African-American gangs in Chicago became politicized during the 1960's. Simultaneously, so did the Latin Kings and the Young Lords.
In fact, one can argue that the political history of these gangs helps to account for their prominence in Chicago history and in their enduring relevance today. Again, it is because of the thoughts and sentiments that characterized the 1960's in which various groups and movements -- virtually all of them minority, repressed, and desirous of more accountability form the country that was responsible for repressing them -- actively championed for civil, social, and political rights. It would have been virtually impossible for Puerto Rico's street gangs in Chicago to ignore this trend, and to not only become influenced by it but to also influence it. In this respect, there was a marked change in the agendas and, perhaps, maybe even the very meaning of these two gangs in Chicago throughout the 1960s. Prior to the radicalism that enveloped the country at this time, the concerns of the gang were provincial. There was violence, of course, that enacted against other factions and nationalities, and even that which took place within each respective gang. What is notable about the basic function of these two respective gangs which changed from the 1950's to the 1960's was largely a question of scope. Early on in the history of these two gangs, they were banging to show solidarity and to, on some basic level gain assistance in achieving the basic necessities of life in terms of employment, familial needs, and other socio-economic concerns. These same concerns continued to proliferate and animate these gangs during the 1960's, but now they were couched within the larger context of the imperialist appetites of America and its penchant for attempting to consume minorities and those that functioned at relatively low levels of the socio-economic scale.

For the aforementioned Puerto Rican gangs, then, this concept took on particular significance. Gang members began to elucidate their current plight and that of Puerto Ricans in Chicago in the same terms that other oppressed people were. This proclivity was largely attributed to the fact that there was no shortage of groups protesting oppression at this point, as typified by the anti-Vietnam movement, to the Civil Rights movement, to the origins of the Black Panther movement, Chavez's famer's movement, the overall Chicago movement, and even the separation advocated by the Nation of Islam. However, Puerto Rican gangs could internalize this concept perhaps more readily so than other organizations because of the prolonged colonialism and thinly veiled imperialism which their island had endured ever since Spain's initial forays to it. Additionally, the universal nature of the struggle enacted during the 1960's as felt by myriad oppressed groups helped to broaden the perspective of these gangs. The Young Lords, for example, had a formal revolutionary proposal in which they issued a series of demands from the U.S. pertaining to their socioeconomic condition.

Although the revolutionary era of the 1960's has since passed, it is critical see how it has still affected the Latin Kings and Young Lords today. Both of these gangs still exist in part due to the countercultural perception that they embodied during the aforementioned time period. The gangs still exist as a means of protection and to provide the sort of family atmosphere that is sometimes difficult for members of their historic minority group to attain elsewhere due to the socio-economic climate and hardship which it can yield. However, the validation for their means and methods is now couched within the same revolutionary tendencies that flared up in an incendiary fashion during the 1960's. The political nature of the repression that these gangs endure due to the prison industrialized complex system, police brutality, the systematic removal of jobs to offshore environments, etc. influences their actions and their justificatiosn for their actions. Ultimately, it is due to these conditions that the ALmight Latin King and Queen Nation and the Young Lords continue to exist today. They are viewed by their members as a means of counteracting those forces from a decidedly Puerto Rican perspective, and one with a fairly lengthy history and some degree of success.