Why Violence Is Safer Than Vulnerability - Johnny Chang - #1140

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Tell me about your history. How did you get to where you are today?

**Johnny Chang** (0:04)
Yeah, so I grew up in the St. Gabor Valley, east side of LA., some project housing.
And I grew up kind of not the stereotypical Asian. Like, I didn't like anime, and I didn't like mathematics. I liked guns and gang banging, basically. And prior to that is because my parents were immigrant parents.
They did not fend very well, obviously landed in poverty. They came with the American dream in mind, realizing that it's not as simple as other people were portraying it, like our family back home. So yeah, we landed in the projects. They didn't understand gang violence, gang culture. They just thought, oh, this place is cheap. The government helps us. Why not land there? And my dad, he was a chef by trade, but he tries to do everything that a man can do, right? Provide for his family. And he starts to develop this addiction, which is to alcohol. He's drinking soju all the time. And then he starts beating my mom, beating me, beat my brother. Basically, he had a lot of, I remember it like kind of like a victimized mindset, where he's like, I came to this place, I tried my best, and now everybody's out to get me. He broke all of his friendships with his friends, I remember. He would just blame everybody, blame everybody.

**Chris Williamson** (1:26)
Was the alcoholism a response to him feeling like things were slipping through his fingers?

**Johnny Chang** (1:31)
Yeah, yeah, it was. And then he would talk about certain things in the past that I didn't, I was too young, but I remember he would say certain things, like, I never meant to do that. He would keep saying these types of things, and I'm like, okay, whatever, you know, you're a kid, you don't understand. And then he ends up, you know, just kind of full-fledged, like, you know, broke my mom's ribs, you know, he's like beat my brother really bad before he's beat me really, really bad. And so I kind of get to this position where I'm like, all right, I'm like eight years old. I can't really like, you know, depend on my dad because I know he's going to go kind of crazy. So I try to just hang out in the streets. And I think at eight years old was when I started to fight more. I got suspended when I was 10 years old, and I just started to kind of hang around that. And a lot of people don't know, but in LA around like the 90s was gang culture. It was just crazy. When Snoop Dogg and Tupac and this gangster rap was hitting the scene. And so it literally came like a wave, as well as crack cocaine, meth, going through rapid through the neighborhood. And so we started to kind of see a shift in the area where people were just being more crazier.
So the one event that made me kind of solidify that I couldn't trust my dad and my mom either is at 10 years old, I remember walking from High Hall Market, which is a market near my area in the hood.
And these kids pull up on me in a car and they beat me. Four kids beat the dog crap out of me. And I get jumped for the first time.
And they take my backpack, they take my shoes. So I end up walking home barefoot, with a bloody nose, whatever, ripped shirt. And, you know, my dad, he asks me, he goes, where's your clothes? Where's your stuff? Like, what happened? Are you fighting again? And I was like, yes, but I got jumped. And for him, he couldn't understand why kids would do this to kids. Like, I'm 10 years old, why would anyone just come and beat us up? Well, my dad didn't know at the time was that there was a war between the Asians and the Mexicans. So it was just solely, they were just praying on us, you know, unfortunately.

**Chris Williamson** (3:43)
You know, you want a part of it. Yeah, even if you were a part of it.

**Johnny Chang** (3:47)
Yes, exactly. So, and a lot of kids during that time, through the green light years, what we call it, is they were getting beat up. And so, and that's because two gangs were, you know, going at each other. But, you know, my dad's like, I remember him saying vividly, when are you gonna stop lying? And then he's like, today's the day you're gonna stop lying. And I'm gonna beat it out of you. So I got jumped. And then when I went home, my dad basically beat me.