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By: Anthony Boyce
Date: 19/12/2019
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Hispanic gangs in the City of Santos, San Andreas – El Burro Heights area

Digital_Present.pngSituated just east of the Los Santos canals, El Burro Heights has long been a gateway for newcomers to the city. From the 1920s to the 1950s it was Los Santos’ most heterogenous neighborhood, serving as home to large concentrations of Jews, Mexicans, and Japanese Americans, as well as Russian Molokans, African Americans, and people of Armenian, Italian, and Chinese descent. Today the neighborhood is primarily Latino, and it continues to serve as a port-of-entry for a number of the city’s immigrant groups. The nearly 100-year old Jewish synagogue, El Rancho Boulevard Synagogue is also known as the Congregation Talmud Torah of Los Santos still sits on El Rancho Boulevard in El Burro Heights. Although it is currently not open, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. This community was the heart of Jewish life during the starting in the 1920s but decades later the Jewish community moved northwest into Mirror Park. Much of the Jewish history in El Burro Heights has been preserved, but in 1994, the Los Santos City Council and the County Board of Supervisors changed the name of Brooklyn Avenue, previously the center of Jewish culture and life, to César Chávez Avenue. One of that last Jewish owned businesses in the area was RON gas station, a gas station at 2306 El Rancho Avenue. The Zellman family opened their gas station in 192, but they continued operating the gas station years after Jewish flight, serving the Hispanic community until 1999. The gangs in El Burro Heights identify with East Los Santos (East LOS / ELS) but the jurisdiction of East Los Santos is east of Indiana which is unincorporated Los Santos County policed by the Los Santos County Sheriff’s department, and El Burro Heights is in the City of Los Santos, policed by the Hollenbeck Department of the Los Santos Police Department (LSPD).
 

Hillside 13 is a sureño (southern Mexican) street gang located in El Burro Heights, geographically placed in the eastern part of Los Santos. El Burro Heights is one of East Los Santos' oldest barrios (gangs), dating back to the early 1900s. Around that period of time, the neighborhood consisted mainly of working-class families with Italian and Irish descent, but as the migration of many Mexican immigrants happened a majority of the other ethnic groups such as the Jewish, Irish, and Italian population moved up northwest towards Mirro Park and West Vinewood. Many of the Hispanic population was working in local shops as well in the nearby industrial area. That came to a change as the Murrieta Oil Field was bought in 1921. Almost instantly, cheap Mexican laborers began to flood into the area, working in the oil fields in slave-like conditions, being used as cheap labor hand. As the new laborers began to settle down in the neighborhood of El Burro Heights, they were faced with severe racism by the locals, despising them for stealing their jobs and because of their cultural differences. This caused violence coming from both sides, forcing the Hispanic community to band together and protect each other from the racism and violence that was directed towards them. The gang was originally formed by young teens associated with the Catholic Church in the neighborhood. The gang was probably formed in 1921 when there was an influx of Mexican immigrants into El Burro Heights fleeing religious persecution in Mexico. Between 1926 and 1928, persecution in Mexico closed the churches and drove the priests into exile causing hundreds of families to settle in El Burro Heights, a predominately Jewish neighborhood at the time. The Mexican immigrants preserved their Catholic traditions and Father Cordero, one of the exiled Mexican priests, was named administrator of the Mission of Our Lady of Talpa. The first mass was celebrated on Ash Wednesday, 1927 and the first Baptism was recorded on October 27, 1928. It was the young boys of the families that attended this Catholic Church that formed the gang that would eventually become Hillside 13.  The gang came into prominence during the Pachuca era of the 1940s and were one of the first gangs to develop rivalries with all the surrounding various, including Varrio Nuevo Estrada and El Hoyo Maravilla. During the 1950s, Hillside 13 members socialized at the Jewel Theatre on Whittier Blvd near Indiana Street but by the 1960s, the theatre was closed. Today, Hillside1 3 is one of the largest geographical gangs in the El Burro Heights and in 2019 the Los Santos City Attorney’s office filed a civil injunction against the gang, labeling it a nuisance. During the years to follow, the Hillside community has undergone a serious gentrification transition, with new buildings constructed, old buildings renovated and rents increasing. According to retired Sheriff deputy Richard Valdemar, “Hillside was one of the largest and most violent gangs in Los Santos when I was growing up during the 1950s and 1960s. They claim to be the first gang to carry out a drive-by shooting and are largely responsible for moving warfare from the fair fight to the urban terrorist mentality we see today.”


 

Edited by G-Funk
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