0:00 Oh yeah, that's right. You better not be from anywhere. Like I just told you I literally do not participate in any gangster activity. I'm just here to ████ eat dinner with my family. Like that's right. You best recognize who the ████ we are. Welcome back to another episode of Careful Boys, where today Bart and Joe are going to share with us the positive sides of growing up in 1990s Asian gang culture. >> The positive sides. Oh, dude. I I just want to say like it was probably some of the most funnest times. And the reason why is like um imagine Lord of the Flies but as teenagers
0:50 >> and they have cars. >> You have cars. You have money. >> Yeah. >> You just >> might have a little Molly. >> You don't have any parental control. So sure you might get caught with the law once in a while, but that was also a part of the excitement. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So like getting caught was a part everything was just exciting. And I think being so ignorant and stupid and full of drugs kind of um you're so blind to the real consequences. And then also like looking back like now I feel bad about the ████ I did, right? But in the moment I feel like this is not an excuse, but if you can put yourself into the mind of a 14-year-old who isn't developed yet or 17-year-old or whatever, our prefrontal cortex isn't developed. Some of us is still not developed. Meaning like it's kind of it's in this weird space where you just
1:41 don't understand consequences. Everyone else is an NPC. >> You're just playing. You're just impulsive. >> Yeah. You just want the Now >> what are we doing? We're just going to go to this guy's house to kick it. When you're there, oh ████ someone brought some weed. Now you're high. Hey, someone has a wise idea to go grab someone's car cuz they know that they leave the key somewhere. They just take that car. Oh, what's going on tonight? Hey, it's Wednesday. Oh, guess what? It's Matrix Wednesday. We're going to go to that ████ rave. We're at that rave now. Oh, well, there's other people there. Okay, let's do some drugs and ████ Oh, hey, that guy looked at us funny. Hey, they're getting into a fight, so they're ████ fighting. Oh, we got to get out of here now. Right now, we're at a cafe. It's 4:00 in the morning laughing, drinking, hanging out. And it's like, where are we going to crash? I'm going to go to my friend's house. We go to the friend's house. His mom wakes up, ████ cooks us some breakfast. We're
2:31 just in there ████ we haven't slept yet, cracked out. We're just eating porridge and ████ laughing, having a good time. And you're 247 just kicking it with your friends doing wild ████ >> Imagine multiple cities, thousands of kids this age, >> roaming. >> Yeah. >> From ████ Monterey Park, Alhamra, Rosem Gabriel, like the whole ████ thing. And then you have friends. You start making friends like ████ it felt international at that time, like going to Pomona or something, but that was like going all the way that far. Oh, I got a homie that lives in ████ Dor belinda. >> It's like ambassadors meeting each other. >> We start meeting other homies from like, oh, there's a homie in the OC Anaheim. And it's just like it was crazy. And then any reason any freeway can turn into ████ race. >> So, it's like it it almost feels like
3:22 real life GTA >> cuz it's like just give me a reason to do some crazy ████ And now you got two cars going 150 for no ████ reason. >> And then you think back like, "F███, I was endangering like grandparents, people that have kids that need to take care." >> No, you lock eyes with anyone on the freeway and then it's like, "Let's go fast and furious, baby." Yeah. >> They're just going endangering everyone on the road. Just >> you hit you hit the high beam, click click. Yep. >> And then the the hazards. >> Yeah. It's crazy crazy time. >> And I feel like it's like modern. It was modern day. Like imagine if you were like a Mongol and you have your horde with you and your unit, >> nomadic tribes. >> Yeah. And you're just ████ terrorizing villages. You're going around breaking into homes, taking things, looting, driving, and like it's
4:12 just wild ████ right? And so at the time I thinking back it's it's horrible but at the time it's so exciting that like every ████ day is just so what's going on today? I don't know. You do anything you want and then you don't have it's the first time where you have no parental control. No one's at home. Everyone's like you're constantly out every single day. >> You do whatever the ████ you want until one of you guys get caught and you go to jail. But then you just go to your other friend's house. >> Yeah. I feel like it's like Boys in the Hood meets Fast and Furious meets Euphoria. >> Yeah. >> But then all Asian cast >> and then so I think when me and Joe first started YouTube and you would always go to all these Asian-American conferences or whatever and then you hear all these other Asians are like, "Oh, we never felt like we fit in." I'm
5:03 like, "What are you talking about? We weren't in. It was our ████ world. This is ████ crazy." like like this is like if you saw like a bunch of white boys that came in this like what the ████ are these crackers doing here? Get the ████ out. It's like this is our ████ It was crazy. It was like the other way around. >> And then we would like it would be like let's say like a Mexican birthday party. Someone invites you over and you go over. It's just a bunch of southsiders, like a bunch of cholos there tatted to the ████ ground. And you're sitting there, you're in your teen years. They're calling you Chino. You're hanging out with them and they're like doing gangster ████ too. and you're just like, "Wow, this is cool." And and then and then it's like cross country like UN ████ Now all of a sudden you're at a party with some crips because you're dropping off some weed or whatever. And then it's like it's just this weird like world where I know it exists today, but back then it just felt
5:54 like okay, it's like a cult almost. It's like this is this is our world and then these ████ that go to work every day, they're like the real weirdos. And then so like that's the outside that's the outside brainwashed ones where we're the free ones. You know, we could do whatever we want, but we're actually just ████ to whoever like is above us, right? They'll send us out on a job. They're like, "All right, you need to do this. Come over here. Um, you know, you're going to go to Vegas. You're going to drop this off, do whatever." And then we And the kids are stupid. We're all stupid. We just do it cuz it's cool. None of us are getting any money out of it. Maybe like crumbs. We're not, you know, like, but you you just do ████ when you're a teenager cuz the big bro told you to do it, you know, >> and then everyone else just rolls with whoever's going. >> They don't even need to be there. But now you got and you look even more obvious cuz now you got five, six guys in a car. You're rolling three, four cars deep, taking ████ detours when
6:46 all you had to do was dress like a square and just drive and smuggle ████ yourself. >> Now it's a car full of bald heads. >> Yeah. Looking hella obvious. You get pulled over, you're like ████ racist cops. And I'm all like, "No, you stupid ass." >> It's Everyone had the biggest pants, Cortezes, ████ wearing sunglasses at night. And they're like, "Why'd you pull me over? Huh?" >> And it was our generation. >> You remember it was our generation. And so like our generation um Asian gangs didn't have like basically some of the south like Cambodians and whatever they looked like street thugs because they grew up around crips and stuff like that. That was how that was their style >> in the San Gabriel Valley. Asians actually had their own GQ like gentleman style. They had slick back hair. They didn't dress like cholo. They wore
7:36 express structure. >> Yeah. But a lot of the guys of our generation and a little bit older got that gangster style in jail. They when they got out of jail, they would start dressing like long socks, cholos, cortezes. And so our generation started looking like that. And older generation like what the ████ are you doing? You want a target on your back? And we're like, nah. And we started looking like like gangster because we wanted to fight. Like we wanted to like oh they look like they bang. Like so if you look like a thug then they were fair game, right? You ask them where they're from. if they're from a rival gang, you get into it. So, that was another fun game where it's like like you see people that look like thugs and then you walk up to them and then you hit them up. Meaning like like where are you from? Right. And then and then if they'll >> and everyone said nword everyone >> everyone whether you're Chinese or white it don't matter. >> Everyone said it
8:26 >> and then and then if they're if they're rivals you get down. If not, you don't. Right. But then some people will lie. >> You don't still bully people that say they're not from anywhere. Some people do. Some people do. >> They're ████ >> Yeah. Some people do. They're just like, "I'm just from Gardina." >> Yeah. >> If they if >> I'm not from anywhere, man. >> People if they're like uh if they're not from anywhere, it's just notoriously known that like T-side watching cuz they're like the ████ They would be the ones that like, "Oh yeah, that's right. You better not be from anywhere." They're like, "I just told you I literally do not participate in any gangster activity. I'm just here to ████ eat dinner with my family." Like, >> that's right. You best recognize who the ████ we are. >> Banging on regular people. Yeah, cuz the old school Asian guys, like the old school Asian gangs, like they like like ████ Nick's dad and ████ over here, >> dude. >> They don't they didn't gang bang. Like they didn't do that. Like that ████ they
9:17 copied from Mexicans and black. Like like Asians didn't do that ████ Our generation did that ████ >> Didn't Asians create it as a way to defend against that exact thing. >> The ones in Long Beach. Yeah. Like the TRGs and the Asian boys and stuff. >> Or like the Valley too. >> Yeah. They they built they their history is they you know they they're all FOBs and they're getting picked on by Asian-Americans and ████ So they're like, "Oh, ████ that. They're war refugees, dude. They they have bullets flying all day." They were the craziest. >> Yeah. It's crazy cuz be just because they were in lowincome housing, they had to like live next to those people that would mess with them. So they had to be a gang to avoid being messed with. >> Yeah. But they were the craziest. >> You know what's funny though? I was thinking about it because you're saying about like the United Nations and stuff. It's funny how we only banged on other people that look like us though. >> That's true. >> I remember I had a homie from 18th
10:07 Street and he'd be telling, "Oh man, those fools from ████ L got us again, whatever." And I'd be telling him like some of the stuff that we just ran into and it's the Latino guy talking about the Latino problems and the Asians talking about Asian problems when you would think it would be Asian and Latinos going like this, but it's just we're only just banging on our own types of people. It's so weird. Huh. >> Yeah. I I think that was a probably one of the fun uh I guess one of the strangest ironic things that were that came out was like, "Oh, wow. A lot of these Asian gangs were robbing Asian families." >> Yeah. Cuz it started off as protection, supposed to be self-defense, but then you end up like expering their own community. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Like all of the people that they targeted were Asians. They weren't going outside and like they didn't break into white people homes because a lot of the times they um they call the police and they follow up on their crimes, but also they're armed.
10:58 So, a lot of people were like, "Don't break into white people homes. They got guns." >> At that age, too, I also thought all white people were cops, too. I was so ████ dude. I was so ████ >> All white people are cops. >> Yeah, but like you you have profiles, right? Cuz he goes, "Okay, white people are risky cuz they all call the cops no matter what. Asians don't call the cops. Uh uh um black people don't got money, so you break into their they don't have money anyway. They And then Mexicans have too many dogs that'll ████ bite you." And there's >> stereotypes are also funny. There's like 15 people in the house. There's never anyone that's not home. >> Yeah. It's not going to be home alone. Yeah. >> So, Asian gangs targeted Asians all ████ day. >> That's crazy. Yeah. >> It was what they knew. >> That's what I think sucks so much is that like now that ████ Next Sharkers found out about like, you know, like there'll be like uh I think NLE Chopper someone's rapper said it in a song how
11:48 like you got to rob Asians because they keep cash in their house. >> But it's true. >> Yeah. And then all these things, all these other uh robbers have been getting caught saying the same thing that they've been targeting Asian Asian Asian. And then next Shark was like, "That's so racist." Like, "Yo, Asians also started that." >> They all do. They all do. Yeah. >> Asians used to rob Asians for the same exact >> That's not racist. That's just market data, dude. >> Yeah. They're not promoting it. They're just rapping about their story. That's their story. >> You know what the best thing to do is stop evading tax and ████ put your cash in the bank. Maybe then you won't get robbed in the same way. But then everyone knows that Asians like cash and Asians dodge ████ taxes. So they have hella cash and that's why they get follow home robberies from their store to their house because they know they're bringing the cash back. >> Yeah. And another thing is that's crazy, dude. >> All the Asian gangs would just ████
12:38 extort their own community. They would go to the cafes. They would ████ >> you know, >> collect money from them. And like I'm like restaurants already work on small >> and they ruined the the businesses by starting trouble inside those places like like families would stop going to those cafes. >> Yeah. You know how like every week there used to be a shooting or stabbing at all those ████ cafes. >> And I don't know like thinking back that's crazy. Like everyone risked their lives after clubbing like every ████ weekend. Isn't that crazy? Knowing knowing there's going to be ████ even if you're not a gangster people still went there. That's ████ nuts, man. It's like the It's living that exciting lifestyle >> cuz nowadays >> it's like you I hear something or if it doesn't even look right I just avoid it. >> Yeah. >> But back then it's almost like you know what it reminds me of like the agitators. Oh, there's a ICE operation.
13:28 I'mma go over there and see what the >> like you're looking for action. You're looking for like now I'm like oh that sounds like it's not a good place to go. Like these characters look shady. Like I stay away from it. Imagine if the agitators met with the peacemakers >> for Voltron, dude. >> They'd probably get their ass beat. >> The peacemakers be making peace >> being a child soldier and and and you know like a lot of um they did brain scans on people who were juvenile like criminals and stuff. They have the same uh PTSD as people that came back from war. >> What the heck? >> Yeah. because the ████ that you see at at a young age and if you if you if you've been into if you've been in like situations of violence and like you know I mean you're getting bullets you know flying by you and all that. You're shooting too and it's like you're you're
14:19 basically a child soldier. >> Yeah, that's true. >> So it's like it's pretty crazy. >> Everyone in your neighborhood is bullying you all the time. >> Yeah. It's like >> that sucks. Yeah. >> You shouldn't be living like that, right? Like >> apartment complex is just Yeah. You can't hide. >> Can't even focus on homework. >> Yeah. You can't do nothing. On the negative side, I can't imagine now where you go somewhere you want to go and then you see someone in there and you turn away. But before it' be like you'll see like you you see a rival or whatever and you're like, "Oh, ████ This is about to pop off." >> Yeah. >> And you just don't want to deal with that kind of drama. So imagine going to a place you want to and then turning away because a different person. >> You're like, "I'm about to eat some dim sum today." And you're like, "Oh, ████ I guess I'm going to go to In-N-Out then." And now you could get your ████ dumplings if you want to. Huh? >> Unless you're with like everyone in your crew. >> Yeah. Then you're like, "Okay, hell yeah.
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