At fifteen, Victor Rios found himself a human target-flat on his ass
amid a hail of shotgun fire, desperate for money and a place on the
street. Faced with the choice of escalating a drug turf war or eking out
a living elsewhere, he turned to a teacher, who mentored him and helped
him find a job at an auto shop. That job would alter the course of his
whole life-putting him on the road to college and eventually a PhD. Now,
Rios is a rising star, hailed for his work studying the lives of African
American and Latino youth.
In Human Targets, Rios takes us to the streets of California, where we
encounter young men who find themselves in much the same situation as
fifteen-year-old Victor. We follow young gang members into schools,
homes, community organizations, and detention facilities, watch them
interact with police, grow up to become fathers, get jobs, get rap
sheets-and in some cases get killed. What is it that sets apart young
people like Rios who succeed and survive from the ones who don't? Rios
makes a powerful case that the traditional good kid/bad kid, street
kid/decent kid dichotomy is much too simplistic, arguing instead that
authorities and institutions help create these identities-and that they
can play an instrumental role in providing young people with the
resources for shifting between roles. In Rios's account, to be a poor
Latino youth is to be a human target-victimized and considered an enemy
by others, viewed as a threat to law enforcement and schools, and
burdened by stigma, disrepute, and punishment. That has to change.
This is not another sensationalistic account of gang bangers. Instead,
the book is a powerful look at how authority figures succeed-and fail-at
seeing the multi-faceted identities of at-risk youths, youths who
succeed-and fail-at demonstrating to the system that they are ready to
change their lives. In our post-Ferguson era, Human Targets is
essential reading.
