Gangs and evangelical masculinity in Central America

In his long-sleeved, buttoned-down shirt, Juan José Gomez looks like any other Central American evangelical hermano (brother in Christ)—until he closes his eyes. That’s when the letters “W” and “F,” tattooed on his eyelids, become visible, announcing his 16-year career with the White Fence gang. And these are not his only tattoos. Teardrops under his left eye and a mural of tattoos on his arms and torso display the gang ideology—from gravestones to female genitalia and marijuana. But these he can keep hidden under his long sleeves, which he wears whenever he leaves the marginal barrio of his Guatemala City.

After all, as an ex-gang member, Juan José wants to avoid the fate of those like his friend Antonio, a former member of 18th Street gang whom I also interviewed in Guatemala City in 2007 while researching for my book on gang exit (see review, page 14). Antonio was an energetic, articulate 23-year-old, fully determined to atone for the violence of his past by quietly managing a shoe repair business. “I still have problems with the gang,” he told me. “I have a green light [death warrant] for years now, and if they haven’t killed me yet it’s because God is great.”

That was in July. By late September Antonio was dead—killed by a gunshot at close range. It was the third attempt on his life.

Deaths like Antonio’s are all too common in northern Central America. Newspapers announce a litany of gang-related killings, many of them aimed at eliminating former rivals or punishing gang “deserters.” By now, readers expect, and some even celebrate, them. In an all-too-typical response to an “update” on gang killings reporting nine deaths in a single weekend, one reader of Guatemala’s El Periodico responded: “That’s great! This is news to lift your spirits.”

‘Social cleansing’: Frustrated by the inability of their government to rein in violence, too many Central Americans have embraced the idea that “social cleansing”—the elimination of gang members through extrajudicial execution—is the only way to reduce gang violence. The odds aren’t good for gang members. But even those who have renounced the gang and its deeply violent lifestyle—or would like to—are under threat. In fact, they are doubly damned. By abandoning the gang, they risk becoming victims of a “green light” issued by gang leaders trying to discourage desertion among their most experienced “soldiers.” But ex-gang members also fear the police, the hit men and their former rivals when they forfeit the protection of their former “homies.”

So far, Juan José, or “JJ” as his friends call him, has fared better. Unlike Antonio, JJ is an active member of an evangelical congregation and wears his hermano identity on his sleeve. In 2008, he married his partner in a formal church wedding, and he actively promotes Jesus as the alternative to gang life among the young boys of his barrio. When I met him during my research in 2007, he worked for a Charismatic Catholic businessman who believed in second chances. In fact, young converts like JJ were in abundance at gang intervention programs throughout Central America.

After all, no one is more committed to identity transformation than the churches that announce, “Jesus can save anyone.” But the small, evangelical-Pentecostal congregations of the barrio offer more than a slogan. They offer a support group and an alternative masculinity that starkly contrasts with the hyper-masculinity of the gang’s vida loca of violent bravado, drug abuse and sex-as-conquest. Not that evangelical masculinity is free of patriarchy. Male “headship” is well-preserved in evangelical churches and families. Still, the contrast with traditional “macho” norms of the barrio is hard to miss. Rarely have I been as surprised as when a Honduran pastor introduced me to an ex-gang member as the young man quietly swept the floor of the little church where he attended. Most men in the barrio—gang member or not—wouldn’t be caught dead doing such “women’s work.”

Hermano: Fortunately for JJ and many others like him, the highly visible nature of evangelical masculinity has the advantage of underscoring the ex-gang member’s commitment to his new identity as an hermano. Even gang leaders claim to “respect” evangelical converts, extending them a “pass” on the “green light” usually applied to deserters—so long as the convert remains committed. (If they should stray, then all bets are off.)

It isn’t likely that Central America’s growing evangelical congregations will arrest the region’s soaring street violence. The social sources of the violence are too deep and too complex to be resolved with individualistic spiritual solutions. But for former gang members like JJ, desperate for safety and a modicum hope, the hermanos present an attractive option. And evangelical pastors aren’t the only ones hoping more gang members decide to drop their guns and pick up a broom.

Robert Brenneman is assistant professor of sociology at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vt. His book from Oxford University Press is titled Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America.