ABSTRACT
Law enforcement officials estimate that there are 500 to 3000 Vietnamese gang members in Orange County, but even these broad estimates are highly speculative. Unlike the traditional ghetto and barrio gangs of other ethnic groups, most of these relatively new gangs do not adopt the formal trappings of group monikers, colors, symbols, or turf claims. Rather, many of our respondents characterize their association as not so much a “gang” but, rather, a loose collection of friends, amorphous and fluid in structure. Membership is determined almost arbitrarily; initiation rituals are absent. Such characteristics still prevail today, although Vietnamese youths are starting to copy black and Chicano gangs. Hand signs, clothing styles, gang names, and even graffiti are becoming more common among Little Saigon’s groups (see Kent and Felkenes, 1998).
