(continued from part 2...)
At first, the Langdon Street Gang (LST) tried to make a move on us. They were a Latino gang that controls the area surrounding our school. They’ve been around since at least the late 70’s (from my understanding). They were the largest Latino gang represented at Sepulveda and sure enough, tensions arose between us. We were outnumbered by about 2:1 but we never backed down from them. We would get into fist fights with them inside of school but would not hang out outside of the school, knowing damn well their hood is just a few blocks away. They never caught us slipping and never posed a real threat inside of school so they started to back off from us.

Then came the Asian Boys Gang (ABZ). This is a notorious Asian gang that has clicks from the San Gabriel Valley, San Fernando Valley, Northern California, and even in the East Coast. Their hood was also near our school and we obviously posed a threat to their dominance of the Asian gangs out there. We would feud with them throughout my years at the school but again; we played it smart and handled everything inside.

Although we were starting to get deep, we still had to earn our individual respect the old fashioned way, by building our reputation and standing up for ourselves. I remember one day, as I was walking to class, I got into a sort of stare down with this one cholo from a Latino gang called East Side Longo (Longo stands for Long Beach). I confronted him in the hall way and called him out. I guess he felt since I was Asian, I was going to back down or something but I knew better. We met up early the next morning to throw down one on one. A small crowd formed and we went at it. The result of the fight: two black eyes and a busted, bloodied nose. I came out without a scratch, only a white t-shirt with his blood splattered all over it. I changed shirts thanks to a donation from a homie and went to class. A few hours later, I was called in to the school police officer’s office and was questioned about my confrontation with the cholo the day before. They asked me if my homies had jumped him after school because of our little argument and I denied everything. They let me go and I was feeling high as a kite. These cops thought he got jumped by a number of my friends because of his wounds but little did they know that it was all me who laid out the damage that very morning. I walked around during lunch and found all these people I didn’t even know patting me on the back. I started to get big-headed and my actions after this incident would reflect that.

I really felt like we were the baddest gang in Los Angeles. The homies in L.A. did a lot of dirt (shootings, robberies, drug deals, etc.) and the valley heads were holding their own. I was young and naïve and didn't realize at the time that we weren’t untouchable, just lucky. Our luck was going to change soon though…