a) Degradation ceremony/ pg. 200: a term coined by Harold Garfinkel to refer to a ritual whose goal is to remake someone’s self by stripping away that individual’s self- identity and stamping a new identity in its place.
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) is a gang organization that commits its members to identify with the gangs collective mentality and dogma. To achieve gang conformity, MS-13 uses many rites of passage to prove that a prospective member is able to serve in the gang. These degradation ceremonies strip an individual’s self-identity so that it may be replaced as a soldier of MS-13. Prospective members are reviewed and upon acceptance they are “jumped in”. “Jumping in” a member is a ceremonial beating that new gang prospect must …show more content…
Positions of opportunity are given to individuals that preform their assignments ruthlessly. Full commitment requires gang members to prove their toughness. Climbing your way to the top of MS-13 means you will wear many hats within the gang. Your status might define you as a murderer, rapists, drug trafficker, and an enforcer. These tasks challenge these gang members and add onto their statuses and résumés. The promotions will ascend them within the ranks of MS-13, and give gang members a master status that exalts them with gang recognition. Before the gang member might have fallen into an ascribed status or family structure, such as brother, uncle, aunt, sister, mother, and father. After initiation a member will have the branding of MS-13 and their relationship within the gang becomes their master status. Originally it was not thought there were higher-ranking officers in MS-13. Brenda Paz’s testimony confirmed bigger players controlled the gang, and that they will become more structured and organized. In the local gangs of MS-13 each clique has a spokesmen. That member has responsibilities that include assigning members to recruitment, making money for the gang, and defending their territory. As long as that spokesman makes the decisions to grow the gang they are safe from gang justice. As seen in the documentary there were extreme consequences for bad decisions. The cultural master status of being an El Salvadorian army ant gives someone that group identity. It also prevents an individual from being alienated out of that culture because it is a group mentality. This allowed MS-13 to recruit people having statuses of immigrant, segregated, and others feeling alienated out of main society.
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) is a gang organization that commits its members to identify with the gangs collective mentality and dogma. To achieve gang conformity, MS-13 uses many rites of passage to prove that a prospective member is able to serve in the gang. These degradation ceremonies strip an individual’s self-identity so that it may be replaced as a soldier of MS-13. Prospective members are reviewed and upon acceptance they are “jumped in”. “Jumping in” a member is a ceremonial beating that new gang prospect must …show more content…
Positions of opportunity are given to individuals that preform their assignments ruthlessly. Full commitment requires gang members to prove their toughness. Climbing your way to the top of MS-13 means you will wear many hats within the gang. Your status might define you as a murderer, rapists, drug trafficker, and an enforcer. These tasks challenge these gang members and add onto their statuses and résumés. The promotions will ascend them within the ranks of MS-13, and give gang members a master status that exalts them with gang recognition. Before the gang member might have fallen into an ascribed status or family structure, such as brother, uncle, aunt, sister, mother, and father. After initiation a member will have the branding of MS-13 and their relationship within the gang becomes their master status. Originally it was not thought there were higher-ranking officers in MS-13. Brenda Paz’s testimony confirmed bigger players controlled the gang, and that they will become more structured and organized. In the local gangs of MS-13 each clique has a spokesmen. That member has responsibilities that include assigning members to recruitment, making money for the gang, and defending their territory. As long as that spokesman makes the decisions to grow the gang they are safe from gang justice. As seen in the documentary there were extreme consequences for bad decisions. The cultural master status of being an El Salvadorian army ant gives someone that group identity. It also prevents an individual from being alienated out of that culture because it is a group mentality. This allowed MS-13 to recruit people having statuses of immigrant, segregated, and others feeling alienated out of main society.