The Marvelous Ones: Drugs, Gang Violence, and Resistance in East Los Angeles - Hardcover

by Randol Contreras (Author)

An intimate portrait of LA gang members turning to drugs, nostalgia, and religion as they age and fight to stay relevant in a new era.

Once celebrated in the gang world as rebels who defied the established prison order, veterano Maravilla gang members now grapple with the consequences of leading violent and drug-ridden lives. At once thrilling and tender, The Marvelous Ones sheds light on how these aging gang members struggle to stay meaningful in the face of addiction, violent trauma, and a rapidly changing East Los Angeles.

Randol Contreras spent close to a decade studying the legendary Maravilla gangs of East LA, who made waves in the 1990s for their rebellion against the most powerful prison gang in the United States: the Mexican Mafia, or La Eme. These men granted Contreras unique access to their experiences, revealing how family members shun them, how jail and prison worsen them, how the church and drug treatment redeem them, and how their brightest moments lie in their pasts as legends of the California gang world. The Marvelous Ones gives human faces to the suffering and resilience of some of the most marginalized members of our society.

Back Jacket

The Marvelous Ones achieves a rare feat for academic work: equally engaging the head and the heart, pairing deep empathy with sharp analytical rigor. Unfolding like a novel, it leaves the reader with a rich understanding not only of the Maravillas' history and culture but of their emotional worlds. It will be of great interest to researchers, students and general readers alike.--Luke Billingham, coauthor of Against Youth Violence

"This very lyrically written book combines longue durée historical perspective, sensitive individual life histories, and reflexive ethnography to offer a raw but sensitive vision of the brutal consequences and impact of being a Maravilla gang member in the deeply unequal, racialized, and violent world of East Los Angeles."--Dennis Rodgers, Research Professor, Geneva Graduate Institute

Author Biography

Randol Contreras is Associate Professor of Sociology and of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside.