*Excerpt from an interview with Chivo conducted by Carmilla Floyd, August 1995.

Chivo: I got a job now. Work changes everything, it really does. When your mind is focused on something else, you don't have the time or energy for banging. You find that you don't have time to hang out in the neighborhood-you work, you come home, you're tired, you wanna relax, be with your family. You ask all the guys, "What will change you?" And they'll say, "Give me a job. I'll change." And you know what. It does. They will. I'm a perfect example. One out of ten maybe, they like the lifestyle of the drugs and the gangs and all that. But, within a year, you're going to that person's funeral. A job changes your life. My grandfather was a very hard worker, he used to walk all the way downtown. He was one of them that worked those skyscrapers down there. He worked real hard and made money, and bought his own property in East L.A. He was born in 1901. He died last year. Before he died he made them promise never to sell that property. He worked so hard for it.

But it's hard for a gang member to find a job or to even get an interview. Or if you look like a gang member, if you have the baggy clothes, the shaved head, it's hard to get anywhere. There are a lot of people who're prejudiced. If my uncle hadn't worked in the company where I got a job, they wouldn't have given me nothing. They would've given me one look and turned me away. And fact is, when I started there I didn't have the bald head. I just shaved it yesterday because of the heat and everything. Bald heads, nowadays, it's weird. If a cop sees a bald head, boom, he's there. His eyes are on you, he's checking you out, checking your car, checking who's in the car with you.

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