In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio

In “Street Culture’s Children,” Bourgois discusses the offspring of his subjects. He turns to the story of Candy’s son, Junior. Junior had grown up around drugs and soon became a drug dealer himself. Bourgois recalls when Junior was 13 and he asked him what he wanted to be when grew up. Junior said that he wanted cars, girls, and money, but that he didn’t want to deal with drugs. Despite his early innocence, he was now living the same life as his mother and father.

Bourgois details the double standards of street life in contrasting Junior's story with Jackie’s: "His twelve-year-old sister, Jackie, on the other hand, was more fully incorporated into the rites of passage of street culture at a younger age—but in the brutal manner reserved for girls" (267). Jackie is raped by two or three boys after running away from home with a guy she likes. She was gone for three days. During this time, Candy and the others were worried about Jackie's fate, yet when she finally returns and explains what happened, the men blame her and joke that she got what was coming. Even Primo and