Michael Vasquez is an artist who explores the life and the reasons why young children turn to gangs as a replacement for a missing parental figure. The color images he creates showcases the rough but idealized male figure a young boy yearns for when growing up in a single parent household. Through his work, Vasquez also explores a gang as a family with its own set of values and as a ritualistic system with its own right of passage when becoming fully apart of the gang as well as becoming a man. Vasquez's works are insightful, as many never would have understood why someone would turn to a lifestyle typically related to violence. By showcasing these works of his friends he show cases a story that may have never been told and understood with simply words. While this will not stop children and teens from turning to gangs and other actions and groups for support, I feel as though this could help our society if more stories like these were known. We would not simply teach abstinence from something and build another prison, but work harder to give them love and other activities better within their community.
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April 2016
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