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Introduction:
Why would any group of high school kids possibly insist on
attracting the wrath of a well-known gang by wearing that gang's colors?
Indira Kajosevic of the Reconciliation and Culture Cooperative Network in New York
tells the story of a group of Albanian high school teenagers
fighting over colors with the Bloods of the Bronx. She suggests that to make sense of
this situation, one must understand it in terms of cultural identity.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Repression in the Land of the Free
Indira Kajosevic
Co-director and Project Coordinator of the Reconciliation and Culture
Cooperative Network, Inc., New York
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A: If you went to a
high school in the Bronx and there were problems of Albanian kids in the tight
group and they had an arranged fight with the best or biggest local gang,
someone might say well this is what is traditionally happening in this area in
the Bronx - Italians fought Irish and Irish fought Latinos. What they fought
about was not some disagreements, but whether Albanian kids would be allowed to
wear black and red because these were the colors of the Bloods, a Latino gang in
that area. They have this fight on the premises of an educational institution in
NYC and they have an excellent conflict resolution program, but it's not working
because those kids are not coming to the CR programs so you do have to take a
culturally sensitive approach and understand why these kids wear black and red.
If you know this is a gang, why the hell do you want to wear these colors? Those
are the colors of their national flag and the Albanian kids would never give it
up, because it was so hard for them to maintain it under the repressive Kosovo,
and they come all the way to America to have a gang do it as well; of course
they're going to fight.
Q: Land of freedom, and they still can't have their flag...
A: Right, because of all the social environments and the circumstances they
live in. Having an active presence is the most important part for our work,
that's my advice.
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