This book traces the histories of two Chicano gangs in East Los Angeles since the early 1940s, when common gang stereotypes were created by the media and law enforcement agencies. In an unusual collaborative effort, researchers worked with former gang members to make contact with and interview members of various "cliques" (cohorts) of the White Fence and El Hoyo Maravilla gangs (male gangs), as well as female gangs in the same neighborhoods. Interviews were conducted with 156 adult men and women; about 40 percent had joined the gangs in the 1940s and early 1950s, while the rest had been active in recent years. Data are set in the context of economic and social changes in the barrios between the 1950s and the 1970s-80s. Data reveal that in the later era, gangs had become more institutionalized, were more influential in members' lives, and had become more deviant. However, these gangs were not the "crack gangs" that generated media attention, and change has been comparatively slow due to the continuing influence of the neighborhood and of older male ex-members. Changes in the gangs were related to the nature of gangs as "street" agencies of adolescent socialization. In addition, economic restructuring, which has taken "good" jobs away from East Los Angeles and replaced them with exploitative low-wage jobs, has affected the ability of young adults to "mature out" of the gangs. As a result, the gang has become more like an accepting family, with older members readily available, and street socialization has become more competitive with conventional socialization in family and school. A bibliography contains 123 references. Includes end-notes and an index. (SV)