The End of WAR, Fights, Chingasos, Blows, Catos Trancasos

by antoniosolisgomez  2019

Our world has been dominated by masculine energy for the past few thousands years, an age characterized by survival and the need for exclusive groupings to provide the basic life necessities for their members. Often conflicts between groups were resolved by violence and war and where the adage “nice guys finish last” was appropriate. 

Life in the barrio reflected this masculine energy in the roles of men and women, in the turf gangs that characterized neighborhoods, certainly in the manner children were raised. I’m a pacifist type, never actually been in a fight but all my life I’ve been surrounded by violence, some quite bloody and I’ll tell you about a few of them in what follows. My earliest recollection is seeing my stepfather getting home after a night of drinking, agitated, his clothing torn, yelling that a man & his girlfriend had beat on him. I was about 6 and quite frightened because he was going back out to avenge himself.

There were a lot of gangs in my high school and fights broke out all the time. A favorite time for a fight was the last day of school before summer vacation. There was a vato from the Temple Street gang, street smart, unemotional and tight lipped. He chose out one of my friends, a Chinese boy who liked to strut and act tough. They went into the boys bathroom by themselves and within a few minutes the Temple Street vato walked out smiling. When a few of us walked into the bathroom our friend’s face was covered in blood, trying to clean himself with water at the sink.

Other choice times for fights were weekends at house parties, the two combatants carefully removing their nicely pressed Sir Guy or  Pendleton shirt and asking one of the friends to hold it lest the shirt get bloodied and torn, while they mixed it up.

Although I had a lot of aggression I was popular, friendly and generally a nice guy, never in a situation where anger overtook me.  Luckily, I joined the football team and was able to use my aggression to my advantage. I loved hitting, tackling, blocking, and just being plain nasty. I was a good football player and after high school and while in college I played flag football for an all Chicano team at Hazard Park. We called ourselves the Intangibles and joked after the games at a local bar that we should really call ourselves the unquenchables.  

I am back row 4th from left

We had a good team and won the Los Angeles Flag football Championship a few times. One day we were playing an all African American team from South Central LA when a fight broke out on the field. I was sitting out the game because I had suffered a concussion the previous week and by head was still not right. The fight on the field quickly escalated and soon both teams had joined in the slugfest. Some of our team were old veterano gang members and not shy about mixing it up. The police helicopter finally showed up and peace was restored. Happily no one was seriously hurt unlike the following incident that took place a few years later.

I was working a summer youth program at the International Institute in Boyle Heights with youth mostly from the Aliso Pico Housing Projects where hundreds of families resided. There were two primary groups in our program. One were the African American kids and the other were the boys from Tercera, a gang comprised of boys recently arrived from Mexico. There was bad blood between the two groups and the tension finally broke when an African American girl claimed that one of the Tercera members had taken a dime of hers. A friend of hers decided to avenge the wrong done to her but after a brief scuffle, I and other staff members were able to separate the principles involved. Unfortunately  one of the Tercera boys couldn’t let it go and he kicked an opponent and then all hell broke loose. Trash cans, lead pipes, billiard balls, knives appeared from out of nowhere and within 4 minutes 7 boys had to be taken to the General Hospital with a variety of injuries.

L to R front Tudi Flores, Sergio Hernandez, moi, Rafas Lopez with guitar, John Figueroa, Magu on hill with giant placa Photo by Oscar Castillo

Blinding rage, coupled with machismo can quickly overtake a man and he will behave in a manner that falls far short of admiration. Two of the altruistic, generous, compassionate men who worked tirelessly to publish Con Safos Magazine in support of El Movimiento, the quest for Chicano Civil Rights in the late 1960’s, succumbed to just such a rage. Sergio, Rafas, Tudi, Rudy, Pancho, Pete and I had piled into Magu’s van and driven to City Terrace to have our weekly meeting in the East Los Angeles Big Brother Office where I worked.  I had just unlocked the door and was looking for the light switch when Tudi and Rafas began yelling at one another and soon both were in a fighting stance. Rafas, bigger, more muscular and a hell of a good boxer knocked Tudi down two time before I and others broke them apart. I took a punch in the jaw from Rafas for my effort.

L to R Standing TudiFlores , Bear Lopez, Rafas Lopez, standing John Figueroa, Pancho Sifuentes Photo by Oscar Castillo

           

We entered a new age in 2012, one where feminine energy is taking its proper place next to masculine energy and therefore society and  individuals will need to seek a balance with both of these energies.  One can already see that women throughout the world are demanding and attaining rights, long denied them, and have begun to move into positions of power. We will also begin to understand that violence is not our real nature, love is and men will harken to that call and violence will fade into history.

There are individuals in our country that want to hold on to the old values and attributes and they will fight tooth and nail to try to keep them. Primary among those values is Christianity and intolerance of other religions, marriage restricted to a man and woman, extreme nationalism with very narrow participation in international bodies, denial of a woman’s right to choose, broad interpretation of the right to bear arms and very restrictive immigration policies that prevent people of color from gaining entry. They are fighting a losing battle, as we used to say, like shoveling shit against the tide.