A Primer on Gangs and Ilegals in California

Polar Bear: You guys are probably just too White to understand. Renaming Compton like Bloods call it Bompton.

It was full of Crips when I was there. Crips and Bloods both. The Bloods call Crips "crabs." That's an insult and it's fighting words. Crips call Bloods “slobs.” Same deal. Around here there's Surenos and Nortenos. Nortenos call Surenos "scraps." Same thing. They call Nortenos "busters" for "sodbusters" because of their origin as "farmers." Same deal. It's derived from Nuestra Familia, the Northern California Mexican gang originating in the prisons. The Surenos are derived from the Mexican Mafia, the Eme (“M”), Southern California Mexican gang deriving from the prisons.

Those aren't joking words. Once I called some Norteno kids (really just wannabes) "busters" as a joke, and one of them literally tried to fight me, and I had to take it back. For a while there I had tennis shoes with an “N” on them, and I used to joke that I "claimed Norteno." One guy told me,

Bob, when it gets …