Writing Against Erasure: How Gang-Affiliated Mothers Document Gendered Stressors, Survival, and Healing

• In Event: Girls & Women Involved with Gangs, Violence, & the Criminal Legal System: Old Structures Dealing with New Phenomena

Abstract

Interdisciplinary scholars have explored the health consequences of gang membership, particularly in relation to violence, victimization, and substance use. However, fewer studies have focused on its impacts on mental health, including anxiety, depression, and stress. Relatively, little attention has been given to the families of gang members, particularly the health of mothers within gang-affiliated networks. Based on Mayra’s testimonio of mothering through gendered violence, findings reveal how mothers in gang affiliated networks experience the negative health effects of life course criminalization and trauma. Utilizing feminist theories and decolonial methodology, the testimonio describes how gendered stressors are produced by 1) biopsychosocial factors 2) gendered social experiences and expectations and 3) discourse of failed womanhood and motherhood. Positioned as a co-created archive of knowledge, this life history has been shaped by a bond of friendship, challenging the multifaceted traps of survival and illustrating that love can serve as both a tool and a resource in the journey of healing from severe trauma. This testimonio serves as a direct intervention against gendered stressors, which are not experienced in isolation or individually but collectively, as gang-affiliated mothers teach us.

Author

• Katherine Maldonado Fabela, University of Utah