- Have you been shot?
- Yes. There was a guy that I didn't know he had a gun,
but I just went up to him.
We had issues, started fighting.
Next thing you know, I feel
like my legs get taken out from under me.
- Whoa. - That's part of, you know,
living that type of lifestyle.
My name is Johnny Chang, former gang member
from the San Gabriel Valley, east side of Los Angeles.
- Was there a hazing process
that you had to go through before joining?
- Like, how you say it's hazing
it's like a fraternity, right?
So you do get jumped in which we call it a put on.
You get beat up for sometimes, it's minutes,
and depending on what they're feeling that day.
I was only 12 at the time, so. - Oh, wow.
- Yeah, so, I got pretty beat up.
What they're trying to do is establish
that you you can take a beating
'cause it's part of like gang culture,
at least when I grew up.
- When you were active,
do you feel like you would've had a long life?
- The gang life, they call it the fast life, right?
So basically, I didn't have any aspirations to live past 18.
I started at 12, so for me,
the whole living was about six years,
and I did everything I wanted to do, right?
Drank, smoked, did drugs, whatever I wanted to do,
because I knew that we were kind of
on a limited type of time,
and we just didn't think anything deeper
than today or what was in front of us.
- What is the purpose like of a gang?
- Most gangs actually come from a struggle.
So where I'm from, the gangs were formed
because there was a lot of interracial bullying, basically.
Started off as an organization to kind of protect each other
and help each other.
But in the end, it always gets corrupted,
and this happens across all races.
There's death.
There's a lot of loneliness. - Yeah.
- There's a lot of betrayal,
impulsive actions, shooting somebody just 'cause,
robbing somebody and hurting other people.
Like there's that part. - Yeah.
- Did it give you like a sense of like family?
Is that why you were there in the first place?
- Absolutely. Absolutely, bro.
My father, he was an alcoholic, and he was very abusive.
And you know, he beat my mom, he beat me,
he beat my brother, and I found the gang
as like kind of like a pseudo-family,
like a family outside of my actual family
because although my dad was there physically,
it wasn't like he was there emotionally.
And then when I got in the gang,
I really just didn't view them as my family anymore.
And I know that sounds crazy,
but at one point, my homies,
my brothers were like really more important
to me than my father, than my biological mom.
- And then how long did you do in prison
if you don't mind me asking that?
- Sure. I went to Youth Authority at 12.
I did four years and then got out for like a little bit
two months and went back into prison
for like 10 years.
- Can you explain the two-second takeoff rule?
- (laughs) So the two-second takeoff rule,
whether I stab you, whether I punch you,
whether I wanna jump you, whatever,
I am going to do whatever I can
within these two seconds if I feel disrespected.
And I don't care if I catch more time,
because if you don't at least in my day,
everyone would punk you.
They would take advantage of you.
They would take your food.
They would take your shoes.
They would take everything from you.
You have to have this mindset
of I'm gonna kill you first before you kill me.
- [Interviewer] Wow. - So in two seconds,
that's the decision you have to make.
And it really turned a lot of children
into having like this murderous spirit,
and just these unstable people
because that's how what I was.
It was really gladiator school.
- Yeah. Wow.
- Hey, how you doing? You feeling all right?
A little stressed?
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Now, let's get back to the video.
- Did you have opportunities to walk away, like sooner?
- There wasn't really a point where I wanted
to walk away, to be honest with you.
I really felt like this was the thing
that I wanted to aspire to be was a gang member.
- Was like, that was your career?
- Yeah, 100%.
You know, I looked at prison like university,
basically like, "Oh, if I get to this prison,
oh, yeah, that means I made it."
And I know that sounds twisted to a lot of people
who don't understand this lifestyle,
but essentially, like that's all I really had at that point.
You know, I seen this as like my hope.
The lifestyle was hope, the power, the respect,
the money, everything was just hopeful for me.
- Did everybody in a gang assign for a weapon?
- Oh, do they all get a gun?
- Yeah. - Is that what you?
(Johnny laughing)
- Or different, or knives?
I don't know. - It depends.
I'm gonna speak on Asians in general.
I can't speak on anybody else.
At least in my area, like,
you have to protect yourself some way.
So a weapon, I would say, not necessarily a gun,
but you definitely had your brass knuckles and your shank.
That was like shoes, socks,
pants, shank, brass knuckles.
It's like, it was part of your wardrobe, basically, right?
So yeah, you do get assigned those things,
but most Asian gangs were usually outnumbered
and were usually smaller.
Yeah, we have to defend ourselves.
- Were you ever close to like, committing violence?
Like when you were a gang member?
- When I was a gang member, yes.
I committed a lot of violence.
- [Interviewer] Yeah. - Yeah.
I think that was all I did,
honestly, was very violent.
I felt like I was a victim all the time.
I felt like you guys have fathers who love you
and treat you well, and I don't,
so right then and there, I'm gonna show you,
I was very vengeful.
I was very hateful because I didn't
have things that other people had.
So yeah, I committed, I reacted through anger
and anger alone, bro.
- Have you lost any, like, close friends
like to death in the gang? - Yes. Yes.
I've lost a lot.
Yeah. - [Interviewer] Yeah.
- I've lost a lot.
Not just in the gang, but outside of the gang too.
I've lost a lot, being from where I was from.
Drugs were pretty rampant.
And there's people who have overdosed on certain drugs.
There's people who've completely lost their mind.
I've lost friends to, while in prison,
committing suicide, things like that.
So I've lost a lot of different,
in a lot of ways, I've lost friends.
- Oh man, that sounds really.
That sounds really difficult. - Yeah.
- What was the craziest thing that you witnessed?
- Hmm. My friend dying in my arms
was the most craziest thing, I would say.
- [Interviewer] Hmm. - And that's because
I was supposed to die that night.
We had planned to kind of do something
and rob somebody, basically.
And we planned that, you know, I'm supposed to go
to the right of the car,
and he's supposed to go to the left.
But when I stepped to the right,
he just stepped in front of me.
So naturally, I went to the left and then I hear,
you know, gunshots ring out, and basically,
I see my friend there like dying, right?
So I've been in shootouts.
I've been stabbed. I've been in all that.
But to actually like see somebody pass away
in front of you is, the sound,
it's just very, very traumatic.
- And how did you manage to, in a way,
turn your life around?
How did you kind of exit the gang?
- That point came to me when I felt this depression
and emptiness inside of my heart
that I could not get rid of.
So I assumed, "Oh, it's 'cause I'm in prison.
Of course, I'm empty. Of course, I'm depressed.
When I get out, I'll feel better."
But once I got out, I still felt the same.
If anything, I felt more empty
because I was a two-strike felon,
meaning no one was gonna hire me for violent crime.
So I had to go back to trapping
or selling drugs as they call it, right?
And so, when I was doing that, I was making 30,
$40,000 a month, and I had a nice place, penthouse,
went to Vegas every week, did this and that, you know,
did as much drugs as I wanted to, everything.
But I still felt that emptiness and that void.
And then I'd be in a room
with a hundred different people
from my neighborhood, and I would feel alone.
Like, it's weird, like you're physically with people,
but inside of your heart,
it's just like this hole, you know?
It's just this void.
My turning point was around 24, 25 years old,
and that had to do a lot with finding God.
I had that YOLO lifestyle, you know?
Where it's like. - Yeah, yeah.
- Well, I'm a sinner anyway.
I keep messing up, so F it.
I'm just gonna do whatever. - That's how I be.
It'd be bad for me.
I'm like, man, I already messed up anyways.
You might as well add another tally on it.
- Exactly. - I'm going somewhere.
- Exactly. Dig, dig deeper, right?
You know, it's like I recognized
that that was a deception.
I've been out since 2014, received it, salvation in 2015.
I'm now going back to Prisons this 2023,
and I'm preaching the gospel
and sharing my testimony like this.
And yeah, bro, I feel happy.
I don't live that YOLO lifestyle anymore.
- If you could tell your younger self one thing
before joining the gang, what would it be?
- I would tell myself,
"Don't trust myself." - [Interviewer] Mm.
- Because I joined the gang thinking
that I was gonna make money.
I was gonna have status.
I was going to have just everything.
Respect, power, of course, those things come with it,
but I didn't see the dark side of things, right?
I mean, what does the world teach you?
You know, follow your thoughts,
trust yourself, believe in yourself, and that's what I did.
And when I did do that, I ended up miserable.
I ended up depressed. I ended up lonely
'cause I kept living up and down.
What I call it is like that rollercoaster lifestyle.
Happy when you're happy,
sad when you're sad, happy, sad, happy, sad, right?
It's like a up and down lifestyle.
I've learned now not to really think just for myself
'cause what I want, what Johnny wants to do
is always a stubborn, very like, you know,
zero to a hundred, like just crazy impulsive things.
- Yeah.
- I've learned to kind of put that down
and think about the people.
Think about my family,
think about my friends, think about my church.
think about all the people that it will affect.
And that actually stops me from doing the things
that I actually wanna do.
- Did you ever find a way of like forgiving your family?
Like your mom and dad?
- Yeah, yeah. Me and my dad actually rekindled
our relationship, you know?
And that was only through,
like I said, through Christianity.
I was taught that, you know,
that it wasn't my father who did those things.
And I was like, what?
Like, you don't know that, you know?
You're not my dad, right? You weren't there.
But there was a force inside
of my dad that was dragging him.
I do remember my dad saying
like hitting my mom and then saying,
"I'm sorry, I'm trying not to drink,
but I just keep drinking."
You know, I recognize that, hey, there is something, too,
that's same thing that's dragging me
was also dragging my father.
The way they explained it was like a builder
built this house, and then it comes and gets vandalized.
We don't blame the person that built the house.
We blame the vandal, right?
So likewise, when I looked at my dad,
there was something that hijacked him.
I no longer blamed my dad.
I started to see this other thing that was working in him
which we believe is a evil spirit.
And when I apologized to my dad being the victim,
apologizing to the aggressor was crazy.
But he broke down, and he actually said he was sorry.
And that's the first time I heard him say that he loved me.
That he was sorry. We hugged it out,
and like years of sadness just ended right there.
And we're great. My dad comes to church with me.
We hang out. I get 'em food.
I mean, it's a great thing, you know?
We really bond now, and it's amazing, honestly.
- That's awesome.
- After you quit the gang,
do you still keep in touch with your brothers?
- Yes, yes. I do keep in touch with my brothers.
In the beginning, you know,
they were like kind of laughing at me, of course.
They're like, "Oh, this guy's a little Christian boy."
You know, like, "What's wrong with him?
This guy's different. He's peaceful.
He is not so like, turned up and crazy."
But as they started to recognize that I was kind of growing,
and some of them actually come to church with me.
And they started to see that
they also suffer from emptiness.
They also suffer from loneliness,
depression, void, and all these other things.
And we're taught in that gang culture
to just mask that and never show that.
But I kind of am the person who allows people
to be vulnerable and be themselves, you know?
And it's a much better relationship now
than it was actually even when I first joined the gang.
So, yeah.
- That's amazing. I'm really glad to hear that for you.
- And then on a more lighthearted note,
what do you like to do for fun?
- Bro, I'm like a old soul,
honestly. (interviewer chuckles)
I like to fish. I know, that's crazy.
- Really? Oh, okay. - Yeah.
- No, that's cool. - I like to fish
and I like to eat fish, too, so,
(both laugh)
it's like a double, you know?