LOS ANGELES, CA — “My parents left me and my brother in El Salvador for five years, and at the age of seven, I was reunited with people who said they were my parents, but I did not know them,” said Alex Sanchez.
It was a difficult life coming to a country with no English skills, facing the racism of the schools, the street violence and no one to defend a small child.
Alex’s mother adopted an ultra-strict religion with many difficult standards, accompanied by physical discipline (beatings), which drove him to seek refuge with other youth, many in worst conditions than his, for companionship and protection.
This would lead to his participation in a gang structure by age 14, now known as LA Mara Salva Trucha, or MS-13. And by 1994, he found himself in prison on a probation violation that led to his deportation to El Salvador.
El Salvador was filled with its own violence, including La Sombra Negra or the Black Shadow, a death squad. Within two days, Alex had a death sentence on him.
Alex then did what many undocumented individuals do and made the difficult trip north to the USA and a return to the neighborhood and MS-13.
Alex later saw that a new organization had formed in El Salvador in 1996 called Homies Unidos. He was soon asked to join their budding leadership at a National Youth Conference in Santa Cruz sponsored by Barrios Unidos and its amazing leader, Nane Alejandrez.
This conference opened a door into the future, showing Alex how different clickas and neighborhoods could come together to work to diminish violence and provide reasonable futures for Salvadorans, Central Americans and homegrown homies.
Alex began helping build the L.A. office of Homies Unidos, and began changing the lives of many youth through his example.
Twice the government tried to deport Alex and jailed him both times. The police and immigration did not like that a former gang member was fighting hard for the human rights of all immigrants.
Since 2015, Alex sponsored an Annual Central American Youth Conference attended by 500 students and teachers from a number of schools in Los Angeles. “We want to give these youth a history lesson into their indigenous history and a great menu of possibilities for their future,” he said.
Today Alex also is helping to design the county of Los Angeles’ first Probation Oversight Commission to improve and monitor this important part of the criminal justice system.
Alex has had to fight to stay alive on the difficult streets of El Salvador and Los Angeles and is now a beacon of hope for all who come to know him.
“When I get my Green Card, I will work on a transnational criminal justice system plan to address the mass deportation of criminalized immigrants,” said Alex.
Alex is a voice for peace and prosperity for every community that he can touch through his work with Homies Unidos.
