Intersectional Crossroads: A Deeper Look Into Latinx Girl Gang Involvement and Affiliation.

This article examines how Latinx teenage girls involved in gangs describe and understand their gang affiliation, using multiracial feminism and intersectionality as theoretical frameworks. Based on a 24-month ethnographic study at a California juvenile detention center, the research highlights that gang involvement among these girls is deeply influenced by intersecting identities—including race, ethnicity, class, gender, and family history—and serves as a form of identity formation and protection, particularly from familial abuse. The study finds that these girls maintain neighborhood-based gang ties rather than prison gang affiliations while incarcerated, and that fighting is central to demonstrating toughness and representing their gang both inside and outside detention. The findings challenge traditional scholarship that uses male gang experiences as a baseline, emphasizing the need to understand girls' gang involvement as context-specific, intersectional, and shaped by structural inequalities and agency.