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Vampires, Dragons, & Egyptian Kings


 

 

In my second book, Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York (Princeton University Press, 1999), I explore how adolescents' created their own "social spaces" and responded to a period of tremendous social change, particularly as African Americans and Puerto Ricans migrated to New York and pushed the boundaries of New York's "ethnic villages." I argue that youth gangs allowed adolescents to defer entry into the labor market, to resist the imperatives of school and family, and to develop a culture that was linked to but separate from postwar youth culture. Gang members tried on street roles and forged masculine identities through conflict with other gangs and by dominating adolescent girls. I link gangs to the economic and social transformation of New York, and in my conclusion, I argue that, in the contemporary city, gangs have changed from a means of resisting unskilled work into a means of entering the underground economy.

 

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