Delta college alum, north side scum
But make no mistake I never fake when I’m from
Local hip-hop trio G.L.U. (Guy Like Us) debuted a song, “Stockton ‘The Anthem,” at last weekend’s Miracle Mile Night Street Festival. The proud homage to Stockton is part of G.L.U’s new rock hip-hop CD, which trio member Esteban Aguila describes as ”like, Pink Floyd and the Flaming Lips meets the Beatles.”
Want to hear it?





The fatal beating of Rin Ros
Members of street gangs want two things: identity and respect. Identity, because so many gangsters have parents from another country, another culture, virtually another planet. Respect because they are marginalized, discriminated against, impoverished, intimidated.
Many youths face a Hobson’s choice: join no gang and be prey; join and be protected. But at a cost. The cost of bad choices.
It’s pointless to lament the way Southeast Asian groups were ill-prepared to immigrate. Vietnam is history. But its social pathologies smolder on like napalm in communities such as Stockton. Containing the blaze requires effective anti-gang programs such as Peacekeepers. The programs, in turn, require money, and we all know how that’s going.
Immigration is a multi-generational phenomenon. Three generations and — presto! — assimilation. But woe is the second generation, and the community that harbors its desperate anger.