Where You From? The Raced Ethnographer Doing Gang Research.

• In Event: Latina/o/x Criminology Panel 4: Adaptative Strategies for Survival

Abstract

This paper reveals how my position as an Afro-Latino shaped my field research on the Black and Brown tension among gang members and residents in Los Angeles. As a Dominican, Mexican and African American participants struggled to make sense of me, especially my Blackness. Thus, they reshaped it to meet their ethnic expectations, which then allowed them to candidly discuss race. But their reshaping of my Blackness stripped me of ethnic autonomy. I then experienced a triple-consciousness, or a position where I saw the world through three lenses: a Latino lens, a Black lens, and an American lens. I struggled to reconcile these three worlds since each one rejected me in their own way. However, this triple-consciousness became a crucial methodological tool that gave me insight into how Mexicans and African Americans, especially gang members, constructed race in Los Angeles.

Author

• Randol Contreras, University of California, Riverside