0:00 did you like examine the benefits of each group it's like oh okay this is like [Laughter] yeah Asian boys has good dental [Music] welcome back to a very special episode of careful boys today we got someone really great with us here today we got Mr Johnny Chang hey welcome I first came across you I was doing my little jogs on my treadmill like this just like that with his hip sway yeah and I was just looking and then uh I saw an interview of I saw your face and then it said um this is what it said ex-gang member something like that and I was like what Asian thugs
0:57 see what the ████ that's crazy and it's after I watched that's when I dm'd you yeah yeah and you were so friendly oh yeah yeah I'm super down such a good interview by the way cool thank you bro yeah so if in case we we sent it to our Discord but in case you guys haven't seen it the software underbelly interview with with uh Johnny's amazing uh I I watched that um like a friend of mine sent it to me and he was like Hey you have to see this it was like new and then I I checked it out and I had to pull over and I I started crying bro like when you got to the middle of that talking about your I don't want to spoil it but just check it out it's a lot yeah yeah can you give like can you give like cliff notes of it because obviously it's your story it's super good so I don't want to Butch it or anything but like uh is there a way you could give like just a short version of it yeah so basically I just talk about you know how I grew up I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley predominantly
1:48 like Chinese you know and Mexican area um I kind of went through a lot of struggles with like bullying and just gang banging and you guys are from the area you know you know it was early late 90s early 2000s was pretty hectic and it was a tail end of like the gang banging era but um essentially like I grew up in that you know I ended up going to Hawaii which is like you know the worst of the worst um is that like juvie it's it's no it's it's like a child's prison basically oh ████ because people from Hawaii you can be 10 until 25. oh yeah but it's like hard crimes like murder yes yes children that's committed hardcore so it's like the Harvard but on the other side it's called Uh Youth Authority right yeah Youth Authority Harvard okay congratulations
2:38 I'm graduated I graduated but yeah so from that you know I ended up going to prison and then after that I came out and changed my life through like Ministry basically Christianity what part of sgv you grew up in Alhambra Monterey Park area I mean I was all around I lived in Pomona for a little bit South San Gabriel uh Almani so but I was the gang that I was around was in Monterey Park in Alhambra so was ours I grew up in Monterey Park too uh um how old are you 32 33. oh so you would have been the pee-wees of the generation that we got I'm 38. oh okay so um and I grew up in Monterey Park area too but his face looks so familiar though it does bro but then I feel like I was bald headed back then I was too yeah so wasn't that a prerequisite yeah
3:29 no no do you openly talk about the hood you were from and stuff I mean people ask where I'm from and you know I let them know you know it's it's it literally says watching and the title I'm from Oceanside watching oh interesting damn that's interesting I never talk about where I was from but I'll tell you off camera for sure yeah yeah I was just gonna ask you but that was like yeah did y'all used to chill with um Monterey Park a lot uh well back then we all would function right so it's like Sunnyside Monte Park Ken side um they had like age group I mean all these different they're all fine they're all from the dub as a true sgv person because everyone always argues these things do you consider Arcadia in the sgv dang yo to be honest he's gonna roast all the Santa Anita
4:20 homie yeah because if it's Monterey Park Alhambra maybe even Alhambra like and north of Maine come on Arcadia Pasadena Arcadia had I mean I feel like every city had gangs right but I remember San Marino and Arcadia they only had the kids of Mafia bosses or they had like the United bamboo guys or like four seasons four C's or they had Taiwanese watching so they were like that t-side yeah they were all like I don't know what the best way they weren't gang banging that's the best place they were hanging around use the vernacular of dead they were loitering as long as you make it feel difficult to say that's good they're soliciting they they were in groups and they dressed apart and if you hit them up
5:11 they would kind of run away um so you're saying they're kind of like they weren't they weren't street thugs you're also talking about like San Marino that's like the nicest area exactly you know what I mean not really a gangbanger area yeah they were all sophisticated like they were all teenagers doing major Deals they got 4.0s man yeah they was they were like the hustlers they're kind of ahead of their time like how it is nowadays everybody's trying to just get money they were back then we were just killing each other for a name right so exactly they were kind of ahead of their time how did you get like how old are you when you first joined the gang and how did you like get into it so I was 12 years old when I first joined and then three months into it I caught my case so yeah I was Bang three months and then yeah how I got in is they call it a put on you know you get beat up by like however many people jumped in yeah I get
6:02 jumped in and get put on and then from there you got to put in work after that did you like examine the benefits of each group it's like oh okay this is like four seconds yeah applying for college boys has good dental did you look at all maybe they got a good dentist inside the you know great 401K yeah I joined more for like protection I would say because we we kind of went at it where I lived at was a lot of Hispanics so I got jumped when I was like 10 years old and after that it just changed me bro I was like you know I'm not gonna never do this again and then you see back then they had like the rice rockets and stuff you know the hackers and whatever and you would see the homies like they would have like super baggy jinko or like Anchor Blue packs solos solos right tubes yeah and
6:53 stuff from irvins or whatever and anyway yeah they they you'd see them and they have respect and you're like damn I want to be that and then how I got put on was they hit me up you know I was walking on the street little kid yeah are you banging on me and I was like no you know I didn't know it was like a gang of when they pulled the strap and then one of the dudes and sitting shoddy was like you want to kick it and I was like hell yeah so they let me in the car and then I started going around with them and then yeah but it wasn't no sampling no pamphlets here you should have an older brother or any older cousins in the same game yeah I have an older brother in the same game so the thing about OS is that was it your brother that hit you up you know what's crazy is I don't think we ever ran into each other but we've heard of each other like I've heard of
7:44 you guys yeah um and I mean your hood was like it was down but I I never it's so weird because I feel like I ran into everybody but OS in real life like at other parties or whatever everyone says that that's crazy because we're not that deep you know we're very very like you know even back then like we weren't that deep maybe like 10 people you know that's not a lot compared to all like your hood had more people you know so I mean yeah because it was the main and there was the hangarounds exactly yeah yeah with us we we kind of screened a lot of people you know like we that's better because you didn't have little ████ like we did [Laughter] I went to Hamburg for a little bit I got kicked out you know I brought a shank to
8:35 school or whatever got into a fight and then I got sent to Century you guys remember yeah the continuation school oh my God it's so crazy the thing is is just bringing back so much memories like I went to keppel and I felt like all the dubs at that time went to Alhambra and all the Asian boys went to keppel yeah for sure I guarantee you I know why during that time there was the Asian and Mexican beef is because the Asian boys in our high school had issues with the Lomas and they started having stuff so they had they just wanted to ████ up any Asian kids because they probably thought you're Asian boys or something yeah exactly and so I'm thinking you grew up around the South San Gabriel area yes I knew it that's ████ crazy like a historian dude you got it down to the region
9:25 wait until it gets to feudal Japan you know what mine's got the red and blue samurai his area is literally like a three minute drive like a couple like you could walk yeah to the to the area that he grew up in from where I grew up that's not stupid yeah small world you were just about to mention something about like having an older brother yeah so I had so our neighborhood had we're all family like I think our side has the most brothers so that's why we we ride like that because it's you know what I mean oh yeah it's a personal thing yeah you're like way tighter yeah how does your brothers feel about you opening up and just doing all this stuff they love it bro oh yeah yeah I mean that's the one thing like they can't stop like they can't stop being my my brothers you know what I'm saying yeah it's like they might not like it or whatever but the
10:16 amazing thing is they actually support it bro do you think a lot of the all the your family did all of them kind of turn around or no I mean there's still people who are like I'm not gonna say active but they still have that mentality but I mean it's it's kind of like we're really reputable so they just kind of hold on to that you know what I mean like they don't change they don't they don't like change for the better but they don't also I don't know like continue that life yeah just like kind of in the middle they're still down for their stuff you know what I mean but yeah I mean I would say I graduated out of it a lot of my homies were just they're still like the same mentality but they just know that they can't really move like that anymore where it's like somebody says something go ride on them you know yeah but they still have it in them like 100 did you have one pivotal moment that made you go ████ like what what am I doing with my
11:07 life I need to turn it around yeah when I was locked up um so when when I went to ya I did four years maxed out so when I was in there I think I became a monster bro like there was too many Mind Games in there you know I would see kids get raped I would see kids get stabbed um you just see a lot of stuff and then they would steal your stuff and play games like oh I didn't steal it and it was just a lot of manipulation so it kind of fortified like this mindset like established a mindset of like okay I need to be like that too or else I'm gonna get eaten alive I see so you had to kind of adapt and there was so much manipulation everyone knows like they called it throwing ████ like you literally you just talk ████ and you'll be like f you and your dad homies like just out of nowhere like people would just go just to mess with you yeah and then you would have to fight the car so they called it lining it up where you'll
11:58 fight one person and then let's say like you guys are homies right like if I fight him then I have to fight you and it's like a one minute break and then you're home yeah to fight his homie so it's like it's it's not even really a riot because riots they just go all out there was none of that it was like oh you beat up my friend well I want to fight you too it was like that you know so yeah and then you just keep they call it Gladiator school because you're literally fighting I think I fought like over 40 times for sure almost every day type of thing it's almost an everyday thing yeah and then later you kind of get a little established but at the end of the day it's like there's always New Booty new people coming in trying to prove themselves you know and I'm so glad that they closed down a lot of those oh they shut it down yeah yeah I went to Nellis Y which is in Whittier that one was like the craziest one you know if you ask anybody all the way babies who know they know like Nellis why there's yts Nellis there's all these
12:50 different ones but now this was like the most it was terrible bro kids were getting killed and stuff is that that's not the one that's not that was on Whittier Boulevard is it yeah now it's it's like it's a shopping center that's so crazy they used to film movies and stuff there after they shut it down exactly yeah and then now it's like the block basically exactly you mentioned so you went to Hawaii and then you went to prison after that yeah so I went to ya uh got out for like 67 days and then you know committed my second crime um basically two counts of assault with deadly weapon there's a shooting a nice way of saying shooting and yeah that that I went and got tried as an adult I went to the big leagues after that how old were you at the time uh at that time I was what 16 going on 17. you know they gave me 10 years but you don't do the full 10 years it's usually percentages so 85 yeah I started with Aiden some change
13:41 something like that your brother in jail or yeah my brother was locked up too so do they put you in the same I never ran into him oh you know which is great because my brothers how do you know your brother did time then I'm gonna go up to him today bro hey how did I know he's like I was there he probably hung out of here your Arcadia were you guys different details all together yeah yeah my brother went to a level four so his crime was a little more crazier he his first him too he his first offense he caught um I think it was like 14 years so 14 months yeah first time getting caught basically and um yeah they washed them up he was 17 years old as well so he was at I was at level threes so level three how does
14:32 that stuff so level four is like the maximum security it's the highest you could go okay and then level three is kind of like like mid-tier um it's where all the Knuckleheads kind of go probably a lot of our homies have been to level three very few get to level four like you have to do some kind of murder or something like that pretty crazy stuff yeah and then um level two is just kind of like I carried a gun you know and and somebody pulled me over and they gave me 18 months level two Ron plays wrong time exactly level one is the same thing like you just drive golf carts and you like drive people around like it's really chill in level one but level three yeah it's pretty cracking level four is pretty cracking damn yeah and how uh you said like eight and a half years in prison there so you said after that in your very short synopsis uh you found like Ministry where was that so that was after after I had gotten out my my mom
15:25 she was actually Buddhist like traditionally being Chinese we were all kind of raised Buddhists right Asians in general even if you're Christian there's a little bit of booty Christian with incense I know yeah but I was I was raised um you know Buddhist and my mom would chat like she was pretty hardcore she would go and meet the monks and stuff like that there was a uh I don't know if it's called the monastery or whatever it was on Main Street I don't know if you guys remember that but it was on Main uh right near Maine and sixth I don't know it was like a big thing but anyway she would take us as kids and she would just pray and chant and do all these things so in prison she tried to kind of tell me about it in the beginning when she would
16:15 visit me she'd visit me maybe like once or twice a month right and she would talk about like oh you need to you know do good karma Johnny you know like if what you put out you're gonna get it you know get back and um but I never really listened to her you know and then all of a sudden like maybe four or five years before I got out she started talking about Christianity and I really didn't like that I was like Mom that's Hood hopping right there I'm like what the ████ dude no loyalty dude oh dude all of a sudden dude straight to Christianity why are you switching a straight a religion pick up your mind yeah so she you know went over to
17:05 Christianity and and yeah I just didn't want to hear it I didn't know anything about it you know I was just like and and we had like preachers and chaplains in prison and they would like be so condemning like their their actual prisoners too but they'll be like you need to stop sinning and we're just like shut up bro you know what I mean like you're in here you're you're a lifer like you did way worse stuff than me and you're telling me to stop sinning you know so we just we didn't like that you know it was a bad stigma and then also in prison if you if you copper unlock which means you you unlock to go to church it's really looked down upon like you don't you're not down basically you know because a lot of people when there's problems like there's a riot that's gonna happen they'll unlock and be like I gotta go to church so they can avoid the right so it's very it's like bro like you're running away from service yeah being like a little ████
17:56 or something yeah and you know in prison is strength in numbers so you have to you everyone counts especially the the Asian car like the other car we're very limited we don't have much people you know I think the the prisons that I've been to like been to a few of them like the most Asians we've ever had on one yard was like 30 but then that's compared to 600 Mexicans holy ████ damn 400 blacks you know whatever so yeah we really had to you know like none of nobody was Christian in the other car like there was it was it was bad when her mom comes to see you like uh is it do you feel relieved because you get to finally be with the family member like what is that do you look forward to like what's that experience like I'll be honest the first two years I didn't
18:47 um I just ignored her like I know it's messed up she would drive two hours to Ironwood State Prison and I wouldn't come out because I didn't want to face her yeah so the first two years my mom you know I'm always sorry about that but being in there like you you don't want any you don't you have to like preserve your mental I heard that from everybody dude because it makes you soft and then you feel like you miss her and then like you can't you gotta be an animal inside that's for sure yeah people tell you you just forget about your family like they straight up say that you know and it's like damn how do I do that you know but you'll see people cry and stuff and it's really like looked down upon um but yeah she would come for the first two years and even the CEOs correctional officers would be like Johnny you're you're ████ up you know like you should at least visit your mom because my mom would come in she's old she's not knowing how to navigate the prison
19:38 system she comes in wrong clothes she doesn't have a clear bag for her purse like so she would there's a whole process she went through a lot and I didn't help her at all with that nobody helped her with that right my dad was an alcoholic he didn't care about that you know my brother was locked up so no one could actually help her she made it you know a point to try and see her kids obviously but yeah what what kept her going for two years um she just kept she told me like by faith you know she was like you know the she was like they'll see me sooner or later and she did that for all your brothers she had for my brother too did your brother catch the case the same time or separate he caught it uh so a year after me for the same thing you guys did together or whatever no no he did it himself he did another whole separate thing okay he did so he he went in separately and your mom was visiting both of y'all going back and
20:28 forth damn she was going to Chino and visiting him and then going to Ironwood visiting yeah that's rough bro thank you
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