All God's Children: Inside the Dark and Violent World of Street Families
While Nelson sat in prison, the society he had helped form grew into a national phenomenon. Street families spread to every city from New York to San Francisco, and to many small towns in between, bringing violence with them. In 2003, almost eleven years after his original murder, Nelson, now called "Thantos", got out of prison, returned to Portland, created a new street family, and killed once more. Twelve family members were arrested along with him.
Rene Denfeld spent over a decade following the evolution of street family culture. She discovered that, contrary to popular belief, the majority of these teenagers hail from loving middle-class homes. Yet they have left those homes to form insular communities with cultish hierarchies, codes of behavior, languages, quasireligions, and harsh rules. She reveals the extremes to which desperate teenagers will go in their search for a sense of community, and builds a persuasive and troubling case that street families have grown among us into a dark reversal of the American ideal.
Rating:
Review:
Every once and a while a book comes along that changes your view on life. After reading Fast Food Nation, my view on the United States food production systems changed. Now when I bite into that McDonald's hamburger, I think about that feed lot my cow came from. For some people they probably stop buying the hamburger, but come on, they are so convenient. Another example would be reading On The Road. Man, does that book ever get your juices flying and create the desire to hit the road yourself...that is one to keep away from me when I reach my mid-life crisis.
Anyways, this book is one that changes you. How? Well, I will never look at a homeless street kid the same. I live in Portland and see these kids all the time, so it hit a little close to home. But, just reading about how they get by and how they treat each other. It is just terrible. I used to think they were pretty harmless, but not anymore. That quarter I was willing to give them in the past? Sorry, not any more.
I'd recommend you don't read this if you want a rosy outlook on life. If you'd rather not know about a problem or know how bad a problem is, don't read this book. But, if you aren't afraid to be enlightened to the perils of street youth, this is the book for you. This isn't a book that was a hit on the charts, but I was able to find it at the Multnomah County Library and bought a copy at Powells for a friend. Enjoy!
