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Latin Kings: New York Latin Kings
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The story of the Latin Kings and Queens is a story of empowerment and self-transcendence. The Nation rolled 3,000 deep in New York City. Most of its members are kids in their teens and early twenties who come from the Bronx and Washington Heights, from the poor Latino sections of Queens and Brooklyn. They go through school systems that expect them to fail, are raised in a culture that represents them as violent criminals or welfare cheats and live in neighborhoods where there are no jobs and they are forced into an underground economy to survive. They are socially and economically branded for poverty, crime and prison. In the face of these overwhelming odds and violent police repression, the Kings and Queens have escaped the identity enclosure that the system has created for them and have become a progressive cultural and political force.
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The Latin Kings is a Chicago/New York-based street gang consisting of mainly of Spanish-speaking or Hispanic members. It began as a social organization for the advancement of the Puerto Rican community in the Chicago area in the 1940s[1] and has since spread through all of Latin America and into Europe, specifically Spain. [2]
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The Latin Kings began in prison as a way to provide Latino inmates an organization to defend themselves against other prison gangs. Antonio "King Tone" Fernandez is the "Inca," or leader, of the Latin King Nation of New York State, which publicly espouses Puerto Rican nationalism. Tone's vision was to convert a fierce organization into one whose purpose was to improve the lives of the impoverished. However, the reality of the gang, as captured on surveillance tapes, includes murder, kidnapping, drug dealing and assault. The film shows the Kings at a time when Tone appears poised to purge the group of its violent past and redefine it as a civic-minded entity. District Attorney Deanna Rodriguez feels that Tone has adopted his ideals to conceal his criminal activities.
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The Latin Kings, founded in 1945 by Hispanic inmates in a Chicago jail, later established chapters in the Middle West and Northeast. The New York chapter was begun in 1986 by Luis Felipe... known as King Blood, a charismatic inmate who directed his 1,500-member gang from behind bars while serving time for manslaughter. Convicted of ordering murders by mail, he was put in solitary confinement, but not before naming Mr. Fernandez his successor in 1996.
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In 1994, after an internal political shake-up and in the face of an increasingly racist political culture and an escalation in police violence, the New York Latin Kings became the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation. The Kings and Queens realized that they had become part of the problem in their communities; that they were playing out roles scripted for them by a racist social and economic structure. The Nation broke with its criminal past and attempted to transform into a grass-roots political group working in the poor Latino sections of New York.
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New York Latin Kings is David "King DerMensch" Torruella. Under David "King DerMensch" Torruella Leadership there has not been any illegal activity documented. It should be noted that under King DerMensch leadership there is more structure and order with the New York Latin kings.
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New York Latin Kings