Ms13

Passengers of a local Honduras bus scream and duck as bullets rush from the barrel of a crazed man. Innocent women and children fall to their death as the gunner methodically shoots at will. Ruthlessly, the attacker fatally injures twenty eight people without warning or even a sign of reason before they must shut their eyes for the last time. This crime is one of many merciless slaughterings done by the infamous gang, Mara Salvatuchra, or otherwise known as MS-13. This crime stemmed from one man aboard the bus who had ties with the gang. According to the Seattle Times, “The suspected mastermind of the bus attack is Lester Rivera-Paz, who is tied to an original MS-13 cell in Los Angeles” (Kraul, Lopez, Connell). The gang is known for their heartless actions of violence and moral codes of revenge and cruel retributions. They have internal units specializing in recruitments, logistics, intelligence, murder, drug trafficking, and extortion (Wolf).
Today, the gang has spread from Central America to the United States, originating in Los Angeles and evolving across 32 states. For this particular paper I will focus on the gang’s membership in the United States alone. I will take an ethnographic approach to attempt to understand why people join the gang and what they wish to accomplish by doing so. I will key in on the main goals of the gang, reasons for brutality, and how they have managed to spread with such popularity throughout America. The Mara Salvatuchra are suitable for Cultural Anthropology because they have grouped to create a system of violence and corruption that has affected the safety and well-being of numerous people in the United States. In a sense, they are a culture; a culture that thrives on inducing fear into the souls helpless victims. As stated in the article by Sonja Wolf, “MS-13 is a highly structured transnational criminal organization whose propensity for extreme violence makes it an unprecedented threat.” I will be conducting my research