Gangsters Without Borders Summary

Bridge 1 Gangsters Without Borders by T.W. Ward is an ethnography about the El Salvadorian gang Mara Salvatrucha. Ward chose to focus the majority of his research on the male members in order to earn their trust. With that in mind, I am presuming that the views of women portrayed in this ethnography are fundamentally the thoughts of its male members. Nonetheless, early on in my reading on this ethnography, I identified the role gender plays not only for the ethnographer but also for the gang members. The gender roles for these gang members mimic those of most societies, although some of the roles appear contradictory. The Mara Salvatrucha gang is in itself a kinship system, which creates the family its members never had. Although this new family is just as dysfunctional as their old ones, which imitates certain aspects of the families in which these youth came from. With these distorted observations of how a family should operate, the gender roles become more apparent. The overall distrust of women is deep-rooted in the majority of the male gang members. Most likely caused by the abandonment issues these youth encountered at an early age when their mothers came to the U.S. seeking work. While the homeboys do not

By demonstrating aggressive behavior similar to the homeboys, these home girls can earn the trust and respect of their fellow homeboys. Although this prestige comes at a cost. Instead of making the home girls more desirable to their male counterparts, the opposite happens. Hence, the double standard most women face in gang life, once they achieve the ultimate rank they have a hard time finding those that want to be in an intimate relationship with them. Whereas homeboys exact behaviors earn them an advantageous status with the opposite sex. Possible because the roles in most cultures has the man as the protector and the women as the