Master Chef Alvaro Oceguedo remembers being approached by his trusted business partner Pedro Gonzalez with an unusual and risky idea: could the family bakery business Oceguedo had carefully built train six former gang members from rival gangs in the skills of baking?
As a youth minister to young men and women at St. Albert the Great Church in Compton, Oceguedo understood something about reaching out to those at-risk. "You can't know someone if you don't give them an opportunity," he says.
So began Mi Vida/My Life Bakery's alliance with Homeboy Industries last June, when six "homies" -- several with long track records of being in and out of juvenile facilities or prison -- traded in the late-night gang lifestyle for early-morning baker's hours of mixing fresh ingredients, kneading dough and monitoring ovens to pull out fresh-baked raisin bread, Mexican conchas, tortillas and cookies.
In the process Homeboy baker-in-training Andres Gomez says he's learning about "facing responsibility. The responsibility has always been there. I never faced it."
For several months Gomez and his fellow homies have been attending baking classes at Los Angeles Trade Tech and putting their new skills to practice at the Lynwood bakery.
Whether it's showing up to work on time, getting along with co-workers or learning a trade, practical work skills often elude at-risk youth and young adults who may have dropped out of high school, struggled with substance abuse or haven't had parents who could model holding onto a job.
Since 1992 Homeboy Industries has helped thousands of gang members, parolees and at-risk young men and women leave behind criminal activity for gainful employment --- and in the process recover their sense of dignity, pride and ability to contribute responsibly and provide for their families.
"Communities need to be clear about gangs," says Jesuit Father Gregory Boyle, 51, founder and director of Homeboy Industries in the Boyle Heights community of East Los Angeles. That message is a complex combination of caring and challenge: We love you. You're not the enemy. We'll do anything to help you.
"And it's not acceptable that these gangs even exist. Not one good thing has come from them," says Father Boyle. "We will always encourage you to distance yourself from your past and to embrace a future that God intends for you."
Hope and heartbreak
The "anything to help you" commitment includes comprehensive services like free tattoo removal, counseling, anger management, job training, even clothes.
Among the entrepreneurial enterprises created by Homeboy Industries to offer former gang members valuable work experience are Homeboy Silkscreen, Homeboy Maintenance, and the new Homegirl Café and Catering. The original venture, a bakery, burned down in 1999, but plans are in the works to build a 20,000-square-foot building at Alameda and Bruno Streets in Chinatown that will include a new bakery, the café, a merchandise store and headquarters. A promising graffiti removal business was shut down after two Homeboy workers were killed by gang members while removing graffiti.
The vocation to intervene in the lives of gang members has meant enduring a lot of heartbreak. Recently, the native Angeleno priest buried his 138th and 139th youths, two brothers ages 14 and 18. They were gunned down at a neighborhood market.
"There is no grief that is more unfathomable than burying your kid, except, of course, burying two of your kids at the same time. It's just unspeakable grief," he says.
Undeterred, Father Boyle, whose family ran a dairy business, perseveres. "Nothing stops a bullet like a job," is one of Homeboy's mottos, the other being "Jobs not Jails."
The priest's recruiting methods for new employees don't make most employer manuals. In the course of a year he says Mass and visits youth at 25 different juvenile detention facilities, rotating through three or four of them a weekend, passing out business cards and urging young inmates to see him immediately after they get out.
A renowned storyteller, Father Boyle, tall and sporting a silver beard, remembers the youth who walked into his office with a big smile and told him, "I just got out yesterday, and you're the first person I came to see."
Except that the young man's neck was covered with hickeys.
Remembers Father Boyle: "And I said, 'I have a feeling I was your second stop if you know what I mean.' Well, he just howled with laughter."
He told this story at a probation camp in Lancaster to implore the teens to come see him right away. A while later, another teen arrived at his office, saying he wanted to do the hickey kid one better by coming straight from the Lancaster probation camp to Father Boyle's office. He was still wearing his camp ID bracelet.
Thrilled, Father Boyle gave him a gift card to get new work clothes and told him he had a job at Homeboy starting Monday.
The priest wasn't always so sought after.
"He came at us with holy water and we shot back with a water hose," says Gomez, remembering the days when Father Boyle was pastor of Dolores Mission Church from 1986 to 1992 and had taken to visiting incarcerated youth from his largely Mexican-American parish. Eventually the Irish-American Jesuit won them over by not abandoning them no matter what.
Gabriel Hinojos was first sent to a juvenile facility at age 15 for stealing cars. He met Father Boyle in the facility after Mass, but the priest's message didn't stick and Hinojos, a member of a South Central L.A. gang, got sent to prison again for discharging a firearm into a house. This time he resolved to see Father Boyle as soon as he got out.
"Father G. I want to change my life," he remembers telling him a year ago. Since then he's worked in the Homeboy office. His leadership skills shone and now he supervises about 20 employees working part-time in the office or fulfilling community service hours.
"I'm doing it step by step," he says of kicking his drug habit for a working man's life instead. "It's cool. I'm finally paying bills --- rent, telephone, electricity. I feel like a normal person."
Hinojos, who's nickname is Spider, still bears a patchwork of tattoos, including the ones on his head he got in prison. But he's gone in for 22 tattoo removal visits so far, withstanding the painful process of lasering them off.
"My mom's happy. She sees I'm taking off my tattoos, and that was one of her main things she wanted me to do," he says.
His father used to beat his mother. His older cousins got involved in gangs. Father Boyle has proved to be the adult male figure he can rely on.
"I call him Pops," says Hinojos, 25, and a father of four, the youngest named Gregory. "He doesn't give up on us."
In awe of the poor
Father Boyle's refusal to give up on a gang member's ability to transform his life is a cornerstone of his faith. Others might become disappointed with an at-risk teen's frequent setbacks. He keeps the bigger socio-economic picture in mind.
"Why in the world would you take anything personally?" asks the priest. "It's all about enormous pressures. So the task is how can we look at the poor, and stand in awe at what they have to carry, rather than stand in judgment at how they happen to be carrying it?"
There are some 1,100 gangs in L.A. County. Gang members from 500 of them from Lancaster to Long Beach have sought out Father Boyle -- or G-dog as many refer to him -- hoping for a way out of gang life.
"God is compassionate, loving-kindness. And the second truth is that God only asks one thing: That we be in the world who God is. Then everything falls into place --- kinship and justice," says Father Boyle.
His bright yellow office is a smorgasbord of Latino folk art, photographs of youth and gift toys, including one of Jesus playing basketball. In a corner are bags of clothes he can give to homies in need.
He gets exasperated, too. Teens show up late. A homeboy doing well suddenly unravels when his girlfriend breaks up with him or he loses his housing. The priest dips into a reservoir of patience.
"Alright, good luck, son," he calls out to a young man going out on an interview. The youth came in wearing baggy clothing more appropriate for a rumble, and Homeboy staff scrambled to find him suitable clothes. "Trust me on this one," Father Boyle tells him when he complains the dress shirt doesn't fit.
He's had to fire homies who continue to engage in illegal activities like drug dealing. He tells them they can't work at Homeboy's "right now." If and when they decide to leave their past behind, Homeboy tries to give them another opportunity. Often youth and young adults need multiple chances to kick their addictions to drugs and gangs.
The dramatic rise in gang-related homicides peaked in 1992 at 803 in Los Angeles County and is now half that rate. Father Boyle credits the growth of multiple responses, including prevention, intervention and law enforcement.
"That's part of the air we breathe now. We do all three. Before we just did enforcement," he says.
With an annual budget of $3.2 million, Homeboy Industries raises much of its funds from private donations, foundations and its annual "Lo Maximo" awards dinner, which has been hosted by celebrities such as Martin Sheen, Anjelica Huston and Cheech Marin. Even Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton attended this year's event.
Homeboy businesses are meant to be the first stop for at-risk young men and women until maturity and responsibility take hold and former gang members are ready to fully enter the world of work. The next hurdle is getting employers to agree.
"The point of all this is really to get employers to give people a chance. To say, 'Oh, I could probably hire somebody.' That won't happen unless they know they're dealing with human beings," says Father Boyle.
'No excuses'
As the Homeboy network of compassionate, caring, courageous entrepreneurial adults continues to grow, what once seemed impossible becomes possible.
Alvaro Ocegueda, who worked more than a dozen years for Bristol Farms before starting his own bakery, says he's committed to training his homeboy bakers in every area of the operation including the intangible qualities of becoming a successful employee.
"I'm teaching them not to make excuses for not doing a good job," he says. "I want them to know I have confidence in them and trust them."
The bakery, which makes 10,000 tortillas a day in nine different flavors (spinach, jalapeńo, chocolate), also specializes in sugar-free breads suitable for diabetics.
In baking for diabetics, the new bakers "are learning they can help another person," says Ocegueda.
At first the men were quick tempered whenever they made mistakes, says Carlos Ocequeda, general manager of the bakery. "But they have had the desire to learn, and now they are happy to see their bread come out well made," he adds.
Perhaps it's the joint effort, or the satisfaction of doing good work, but in the process of baking bread together, these six men from rival gangs have discovered something the streets and jails could never teach them.
"I came to find out he's a real good person, says Juan Mendoza, gesturing to another homie. "If I see him on the street, nothing's going to happen. I know him." Editor's note: For more information about Homeboy Industries see www.homeboy-industries.org.
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