<holler>
ZAAARRRKWAANNN! I want to link this column from a mainland newspaper, which merits some thoughtful discussion here. BUT! I remember you get ~issues~ about how we link/repost onto HT.
E kokua mai lest I get scoldings for nah-ting!
http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/20...2005-09-08.cfm
an excerpt:
<<Polynesian kids don’t seem to fit the profile of gang members, however. Most Pacific Islander families are the picture of stability. And most Polynesian families in Utah belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the pillar of family values and respectability. Because of the Mormon Church, in fact, Utah is home to the largest Tongan, Samoan and other Pacific Islander communities in the United States outside of Hawaii and California.
Yet while Islanders make up only about 1 percent of the Salt Lake Valley’s population, they constitute 13 percent of the documented gang members. Detectives say Polynesian gangs stand out due to their violence. Because of their intimidating physical size, their members often serve as enforcers for other gangs that traffic in drugs. They’re known for their brutal fistfights, and for shooting at their rivals and at law-enforcement officials.
Polynesian parents find it hard to believe that their churchgoing children are involved in the American scourge of gang violence. Their communities are supposed to embody everything this valley has stood for: family, faith and a new beginning.
But the “happy valley” in the heart of the Mormon Zion has become a crowded battleground. The Polynesian Saints traveled thousands of miles from one group of islands only to find themselves in another. On the west side of Salt Lake city, ethnic communities are islands unto themselves, surrounded by a sea of white suburbia;>>
ZAAARRRKWAANNN! I want to link this column from a mainland newspaper, which merits some thoughtful discussion here. BUT! I remember you get ~issues~ about how we link/repost onto HT.
E kokua mai lest I get scoldings for nah-ting!
http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/20...2005-09-08.cfm
an excerpt:
<<Polynesian kids don’t seem to fit the profile of gang members, however. Most Pacific Islander families are the picture of stability. And most Polynesian families in Utah belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the pillar of family values and respectability. Because of the Mormon Church, in fact, Utah is home to the largest Tongan, Samoan and other Pacific Islander communities in the United States outside of Hawaii and California.
Yet while Islanders make up only about 1 percent of the Salt Lake Valley’s population, they constitute 13 percent of the documented gang members. Detectives say Polynesian gangs stand out due to their violence. Because of their intimidating physical size, their members often serve as enforcers for other gangs that traffic in drugs. They’re known for their brutal fistfights, and for shooting at their rivals and at law-enforcement officials.
Polynesian parents find it hard to believe that their churchgoing children are involved in the American scourge of gang violence. Their communities are supposed to embody everything this valley has stood for: family, faith and a new beginning.
But the “happy valley” in the heart of the Mormon Zion has become a crowded battleground. The Polynesian Saints traveled thousands of miles from one group of islands only to find themselves in another. On the west side of Salt Lake city, ethnic communities are islands unto themselves, surrounded by a sea of white suburbia;>>
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