Florencia.  When I first started, Florencia was the biggest, baddest, most feared and respected gang in Southern Los Angeles.  We claimed South Side without fail, Sureno all the way, and refused to claim anything else no matter where the fuck we lived.  Florencia started up by Florence and Atlantic, square in the middle of South Central, where the guns never stop popping and the choppers never land.

At one point we owned all of Florence Street - from Inglewood to Sante Fe Springs, through Paramount, Downey, Bellfower .. even into Compton and the South Central Core.  Those days are long over though.  Those were the fifties.  This is well past the year 2000 and that supposed computer apocalypse.  What bullshit that was.

Over the years while I was gone they lost pieces, a barrio here.. a click there as the fucking Bloods and Crips moved in.  Those bitches with no honor, no view of la palabra, no nothing.  They're as bad as 18th Street.  18th Street.  We've been rivals with them forever.  It got worse when the started a South Side click in the 80's.  Some people think they're bigger then Florencia now and maybe they are, but they've got no barrio.  They're a business.  We're family.  My ese Juan has been Florencia for three generations.  Who the fuck can say that in 18th street.

Nobody, that's who.

We're starting to gain again.  La palabra is growing.  The old men remember when I talk about it.  They nod.  They believe and then they go home to their families and teach the old codes.  The way shit was when we were blood.  When you went down shouting Florencia even if it meant you never got back up again.  When there was pride in the streets.

Florencia is the biggest import to Mexico City, where you only see brown faces and the families haven't yet been corrupted by the gringos and their ideas about two parents, two kids and babysitters.  There's no such thing.  There's your barrio.  You took care of each other.  The kids stayed together.  There was always one anciana around to watch everyone.

We were family.

Blood in.  Blood out.