Gangs In El Paso Schools (Fort Bliss, Anthony: house, elementary school, living in)

[southernbliss]

Hi everyone,
was wanting so info. on gangs in the el paso schools, I have not heard anything on gangs in to be honest have not thought of asking.

yesterday one of my daughters, guy friends came over the house my daughter is telling him we are moving to el paso, he is from there, been here for about 6 years still has family there.
He tell us how his dad could not get a good paying job in they lived in a bad area so they came here when he was 11years old, he goes on to say he does not miss el paso that there are no good memories. That the gangs were bad,he then tells my daughter to make sure she watchs her back!!because she is white and that there is a lot of racist people there(he is mexican)he said that kids just can not get along there everything is about someones color and that his family will never go back.

now I do not know if maybe this kid just went to a real bad area, are is there alot of these schools? My daughter will be in 10th grade so she will go to school off of base,so this worries me.
I do not think this boy would lie to us, he is a good kid, happens to like my daughter.
so does any-one have any ifo. on the gangs should I be worried or is that just the real bad part of town.

thanks everyone!!

[Muhnay]

I have spoken of this a few times in other threads. El Paso used to have one of the worst gang problems around. Then the El Paso PD formed a Gang Task force and gang violence dropped quickly. Then some smarty pants in the local government said we don't need them, and now its on the rise again. We still have gangs and problems.. and it worries me too.

Your daughter will be going to Chapman ( I think thats the right spelling ) and its on Fort Bliss Land, if you live on Post. Its a brand new school, and I have heard nothing but good things from it.

[KimK]

My daughter has attended public elementary school in the recent past in the area of the Upper Valley and the West side. I was very surprised about the racial remarks made to her by other children. Most of these children are of Mexican descent which makes this whole race thing even stranger to me but maybe living in El Paso their families never felt the brunt of overt racism so it doesn't register. My daughter is Asian and the "flat face," "Chinaman" comments coming from second, third and fourth graders was appalling. I remember one particular incident in third grade where another girl made a racial slur to her. That child is Jewish of Mexican descent. I never quite figured out what some of these parents were telling their children-maybe the problem is they never spoke to them about such matters and their children were only emulating them. Flattering to be sure. My child attends private school now and that is a major reason. Her classmates now are children are from Germany, Finland, Mexico, Turkey and Iran to name a few. We are well into the new school year and my daughter has not reported one slur to include another favorite by little boys, f******G b****h, since we started.

[wilberry]

El Paso is 75 % hispanic
there is in the schools a culture of ganster attitude , don't excel, don't be ambitious , bow to the peer pressure of others , be like us , smoke drink , party,
but that is every where .
it all depends on your childs abilty to adapt , anyway the School on FT Bliss is excellent
the supposedly rich west side highschool with the most white people has the same problems as affluent schools everywhere ,
drugs, partying , racisim , what is new ?

[Muhnay]

Excuse me.. El Paso is far more than 75% Hispanic.. where do you get your stats from?

81.2% - the Census reports from 2005.. and in 2007 I have heard its more like 87-92% now.

Citydata reports 76.6% Hispanic..

Races in El Paso:

* Hispanic (76.6%)
* White Non-Hispanic (18.3%)
* Other race (18.2%)
* Two or more races (3.4%)
* Black (3.1%)
* American Indian (1.2%)

But think it maybe a little outdated do to the US Census data I quoted above.

My Kids 2 in Jr. High and 1 in Elementary have had little problems with race issues.. but have had some. Mostly from adults.

[KimK]

I did live on the west side and my child did attend west side schools. They were not mostly white, fyi. Thanks for the caveat "supposedly." I am well aware of their problems which may or may not involve race relations. I was stating one concern among many I have had with the school system which was pertinent to the thread. I re-iterate that I was surprised by the extent of racial remarks coming out of children's mouths along with a plethora of other vile remarks. Interestingly, my child adapted. It was me who would not adapt! I feel that tolerating racism in dribs and drabs is wrong because it then permeates society on such a subtle level it becomes hard to address the problem. One could argue that fleeing it is not addressing it. I do agree with that. Its just sometimes the options are very limited. The schools do not address it in as far as I could see. They have an attitude that kids will be kids (and they can be means little runts to one another). Rather, this could be a learning opportunity but again we are so busy teaching how to pass the TAKS test that it is hard to find time for other learning.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by southernbliss

Hi everyone,
was wanting so info. on gangs in the el paso schools, I have not heard anything on gangs in to be honest have not thought of asking.

yesterday one of my daughters, guy friends came over the house my daughter is telling him we are moving to el paso, he is from there, been here for about 6 years still has family there.
He tell us how his dad could not get a good paying job in they lived in a bad area so they came here when he was 11years old, he goes on to say he does not miss el paso that there are no good memories. That the gangs were bad,he then tells my daughter to make sure she watchs her back!!because she is white and that there is a lot of racist people there(he is mexican)he said that kids just can not get along there everything is about someones color and that his family will never go back.

now I do not know if maybe this kid just went to a real bad area, are is there alot of these schools? My daughter will be in 10th grade so she will go to school off of base,so this worries me.
I do not think this boy would lie to us, he is a good kid, happens to like my daughter.
so does any-one have any ifo. on the gangs should I be worried or is that just the real bad part of town.

thanks everyone!!

It'll depend a lot on the school -- but also the particular crowd she will hang out with or type of friends.

There is a lot of racism --- kids that aren't used to hearing themselves referred to as "anglo" will get used to it -- they will hear it constantly. Or they'll hear themselves called guero and so on -- lots of references to skin tone are made -- not by all kids but a subtantial number of kids. A lot of kids just get used to it and shrug it off or ignore it -- which is the best approach. There are usually nice enough kids from nice families that don't have that chip on their shoulder about Americans that the bad apples don't have to be a problem -- they can usually be ignored.

The gangs are another type of problem -- but usually they keep gang rivalries with other gang types -- usually they don't bother the non-gang kids. You have to be careful your kids don't get involved with the "party-crews" which are semi-gang and not blatantly gang types because they can run into problems with the gangs. You might hear of a perfectly good kid being stabbed at a party and that is usually behind that. They don't have fist fights or wrestling one-on-one fights here -- fights are a group thing and very often with knives here.

The boy isn't lying -- but his experiences might not be what you end up seeing. It exists -- but not the same in all schools and obviously not with all kids in a school.

[southernbliss]

Thanks for the info. everyone, just a little worried my daughter will be moving in the middle of her 10th grade year thats bad enough to put that most people do not like you are the gangs makes me worry.
The boy is from Anthony, he said he lived in a bad area thats why they moved here when he was 11yr. he still has family in el paso. he told us he was just trying to warn her to watch her back and becareful with who she hung out with(they act like your friend but their not)I guess it shocked me a little with him being mexican,that he feels that other mexicans will be racist towards her. he told me not everyone is like that but sometimes it seemed like the only thing that mattered at some schools was the color of someones skin.
again thanks everyone

[el borracho]

theres two towns that are called anthony , anthony tx and anthony nm the state line splits them in half they are not el paso ,anthony tx is not to bad ,its still in tx and the laws of the state of tx still apply here ,on the other hand anthony nm is in nm and the laws of or lack of ,in nm apply you can get away with murder in nm and still be walking the streets anthony nm is the worst of the worst it's about 15miles north of el paso , the gangs are very bad there people have just let it go for to long they just turn the other cheek and hope nothing happens to them ,only untill recently they have started to do something about it but it's going to take a while for things to change ,some parts of anthony nm look like a third world country it's the poorest of the poor and i can say that because i used to install cable there .dont let one person scare you he did live in the worst of the worst and remember anthony is for the most part New Mexico not el paso

[holmes]

I agree here. Anthony is a world apart from el paso. Specifically the NM side. The gang thing has really gotten out of hand there. Sad really, I went to gadsden back in the day and it now has probably the reputation of being the worst school in the area..