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The Maras of Guatemala City: Notes on an Anguished World of Teenagers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Deborah Levenson
Deborah Levenson
Affiliation:
Columbia University and Asociación para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales en Guatemala
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Abstract

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Type
Research Report
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 39 , Spring 1991 , pp. 35 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1991

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References

NOTES

1. El Gráfico, October 6 and 7, 1986.

2. Prensa Libre, August 31, 1987; Prensa Libre, September 19, 1987; Prensa Libre, April 9, 1988; “La Música Rock y Sus Peligros,” mimeo, Guatemala, 1988.

3. Interviews with the Director of the Youth Court, April 28, 1988, the Chief of the Juvenile Crime Division of the National Police, February 9, 1988, and officials of the Welfare Ministry, May 4–6, 1988.

4. Plan Nacional Foro: “Fenómeno de las Maras,” Guatemala, August 1987; Plan 6, Investigación sobre la Juventud, “El fenómeno juvenil de la Mara,” mimeo, Guatemala, May 1988. The PDC has studied, debated, and courted the maras without success. Several mara leaders were even installed in an office at the state-run National Youth Institute (INAJU). They left, declaring that “we do not want to be bought off” and taking a good deal of sports equipment with them.

5. According to official figures, approximately 40 percent of high-school age youth in Guatemala City attend school, and one-fourth of these graduate. USIPE, Estadística Inicial, 1987.

6. Plan Nacional de la Juventud, Estudio Preliminar sobre la Juventud Guatemalteca (1988), 113.

7. The interviews were completed by Nora Marina Figueroa, Deborah Levenson, and Marta Yolanda Maldonado Castilla. Our research was sponsored by the Asociación para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales en Guatemala (AVANCSO).

8. Among those we interviewed, the following are quoted under false names in the text: Isabel. Mara Plaza Vivar Capitol, March 1988; Lupe, Mara Las Pirañas, May 1988; Joel, Mara Belén, May 1988; Silvio, Mara FIVE, June 1988; Angeles, ex-mara, interned at Casa Chicas de Hoy, June 1988; Rafael, Mara 33, April 1988; Hermán, Mara Los Angelitos, May 1988; Yolanda, Mara Belén, May 1988; Marvin, Mara Los Garañones, April 1988; Berlín, Mara 33, April 1988; Maritza, Mara de la 4, May 1988; América, Mara Plaza Vivar Capitol, March 1988; Alejandro, Mara FIVE, June 1988; Calixto, Mara ADI, May 1988; Rubén, Mara Escorpión, April 1988.

9. Among others, see Dr. Luis Fernando Galich, “Desafío de la Juventud,” Asociación Pro-Bienestar de la Familia de Guatemala, March 1985; Plan Nacional de la Juventud, Estudio Preliminar; and the regular El Gráfico newspaper column by psychologist Roberto Morales de Pinal, director of Hogar Shalom, an Evangelical shelter for troubled youth.

10. Interview, Byron Morales, executive committee, Unity of Guatemalan Trade Unions (UNSITRAGUA), May 1988.

11. Interview, Ernesto, member of an Anti-Breik y Burgueses gang, June 1988.