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Blood in the Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang Hardcover – September 1, 2014
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Blood in the Fields is a fascinating yet troubling look at a generation grappling with identity. It is a powerful account, one crafted with sensitivity and sharp human insights, of another Mexico within the United States. Julia Reynolds is a masterful storyteller." —Alfredo Corchado, author of Midnight in Mexico and Mexico bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News
“Both chilling and sad—so many lives lost, so many households ruined, and so many hearts torn apart. Blood in the Fields is a must-read for anybody interested in stopping the cycle of violence for safer communities.” —Gabe Morales, author, trainer, gang specialist, and founder of the International Latino Gang Investigators Association
"Journalist Reynolds’s debut offers a well sourced account of the most important criminal organization you’ve never heard of: Nuestra Familia." —Publishers Weekly
"A sprawling, literary true-crime effort that will reward patient readers with its gloomy account of an unstoppable, violent subculture." —Kirkus
"Reynolds skillfully limns the tough lives, heartlessness, misgivings, and bad decisions made for the sake of family and the home country of Mexico...A riveting tale of a monster of criminality that is still not dead but merely changing shape." —Booklist
About the Author
Julia Reynolds coproduced and wrote the PBS documentary Nuestra Familia, Our Family, and reported on the northern California gang for more than a decade. She currently works as a staff writer at the Monterey County Herald and has reported for National Public Radio, the Discovery Channel, The Nation, Mother Jones, the San Francisco Chronicle, and more.
More About the Author
Julia Reynolds is a journalist and author of the narrative nonfiction book, "Blood in the Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang," published September 2014 by Chicago Review Press.
She co-produced and wrote the PBS documentary "Nuestra Familia, Our Family," and has reported on criminal justice and Northern California gangs for more than a decade. She is a staff writer at the Monterey County Herald, and has reported for PBS, the Discovery Channel, Mother Jones, the Nation, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and more.
Reynolds was a 2009 Harvard Nieman Fellow focusing on solutions to gang violence, a 2010 Steinbeck Fellow in creative nonfiction, and has been an adjunct professor and researcher for the Center for Conflict Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She lives in California's Central Coast.
She co-produced and wrote the PBS documentary "Nuestra Familia, Our Family," and has reported on criminal justice and Northern California gangs for more than a decade. She is a staff writer at the Monterey County Herald, and has reported for PBS, the Discovery Channel, Mother Jones, the Nation, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and more.
Reynolds was a 2009 Harvard Nieman Fellow focusing on solutions to gang violence, a 2010 Steinbeck Fellow in creative nonfiction, and has been an adjunct professor and researcher for the Center for Conflict Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She lives in California's Central Coast.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By
80goingon18
on September 5, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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Reynolds humanizes the gang members. She made me understand that the cultural forces on them since their childhoods have been to equate murderous actions with loyalty to the cause of defending the honor of their organization. She's not excusing their violence by any means. Rather, she's portraying it in context. I live near Salinas where much of the action occurs, so I know the places and people she describes and I find her descriptions believable. I changed my thinking as a result of reading this book. Now I gauge community issues such as affordable housing, local educational opportunities, even urban design through a broader lens, one that now includes what effect those community issues could have on the young hispanic people I see around me everyday, some of whom may be struggling with issues associated with belonging to the Nuestra Familia. Since finishing reading "Blood in the Fields" a few weeks ago, I've thought about it several times daily since. For me, reading this book was a viewpoint-changing experience.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By
Prufrock
on August 28, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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This marvelous true crime story takes place in Salinas, California, the birthplace of John Steinbeck. It is also the home of Nuestra Familia, the most violent gang in America. It tells the story of the gang and the 10 year botched efforts of the FBI to dismantle it. The story is told from the inside out, from the point of view of young gang members as they become enmeshed in murder and betrayal. It is a character driven story, very novelistic, very fly-on-the-wall. The author, an award winning journalist, obviously got very close to the gang members. It almost sounds like she was in the room as they plotted murder. It's fascinating.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By
Joe Livernois
on September 10, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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Compelling and fast-paced account of a sad cultural phenomenon that continues to fester in rural California neighborhoods. Without falling into hagiography, Ms. Reynolds reveals the honest and human character of those immersed in a destructive lifestyle that many of us have only considered an abstraction, and unworthy of our attention. Blood in the Fields provides fascinating detail and honest reporting that can only be achieved by a writer who spent years in the research.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By
D. S. Kane
on September 24, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
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Blood in the Fields, Julia Reynolds
This history of the Nuestra Familia is a must-read page turner for anyone with an interest in the causes and results of poverty and disrespect on any country. At first, I thought I was reading about the etiology of gangs, most specifically the most powerful criminal organization in California. And, it was so interesting, I read it almost non-stop. But after I finished, I realized that the stories of the gang members, all living within the same set of dilemmas, could easily be applied to any fringe group with violent tendencies. And that’s what makes this such an important book.
The Nuestra Familia was born in California but now has spread, like a cancer, across the United States and Mexico. At first it was a way for Northern Mexican farmers now living in the United States to defend themselves against the Southern Mexico gangbangers. But it’s mission and operations morphed into a criminal business, and Julia Reynolds shows the process through the lives of some of its members.
She also shows what we can do to declaw gangs.
The lessons within her marvelous text can be applied to an understanding of how gangs develop into criminal organizations, such as the Italian Mafia, Russian Mafiya, Irish gangs. Al Qada, ISIS, and other current problem organizations for Western civilization.
I recommend this book for everyone. Indeed, it should be required reading for anyone in law enforcement or politics.
This history of the Nuestra Familia is a must-read page turner for anyone with an interest in the causes and results of poverty and disrespect on any country. At first, I thought I was reading about the etiology of gangs, most specifically the most powerful criminal organization in California. And, it was so interesting, I read it almost non-stop. But after I finished, I realized that the stories of the gang members, all living within the same set of dilemmas, could easily be applied to any fringe group with violent tendencies. And that’s what makes this such an important book.
The Nuestra Familia was born in California but now has spread, like a cancer, across the United States and Mexico. At first it was a way for Northern Mexican farmers now living in the United States to defend themselves against the Southern Mexico gangbangers. But it’s mission and operations morphed into a criminal business, and Julia Reynolds shows the process through the lives of some of its members.
She also shows what we can do to declaw gangs.
The lessons within her marvelous text can be applied to an understanding of how gangs develop into criminal organizations, such as the Italian Mafia, Russian Mafiya, Irish gangs. Al Qada, ISIS, and other current problem organizations for Western civilization.
I recommend this book for everyone. Indeed, it should be required reading for anyone in law enforcement or politics.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By
K. Fong
on October 6, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
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Wow, although there is a lot of intense information throughout this book, Ms. Reynolds writes it flawlessly and without seeming effort. The book flows like a movie and you truly get to know and care about the persons interspersed within. She has obviously done tremendous research for this book as it shows in the detail and depth to which she has gotten to know the people, places and situations she learned about. This book was based on a difficult subject, but it was an incredibly easy and fascinating read.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By
Mandy Spitzer
on August 27, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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This is such a well researched book by an award winning author. It is about Salinas, California, but is pertinent to the whole USA. She takes us into the life of gang members, reveals the reasons folk join, why they stay and how hard it is to get out and the role police and beyond have in it.
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By
Ruben Castaneda
on October 12, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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This is great read which takes the reader deep into the lives of the Nuestra Familia gang and the local and federal investigations which aimed to dismantle it.
Julia Reynolds is a seasoned journalist who knows how to get people -- including gang members -- to talk to her, which is no small feat. In this book she makes masterful use of interviews with gangsters, their associates, and law enforcement officers to weave a riveting story about a major gang which began in California's farm country but became a much wider threat.
The writer focuses on a handful of the gangsters, showing who they are with empathy but without sugarcoating their actions. It shows the gangsters as three-dimensional people, not just villians, which is a great accomplishment. For example, the book tells the story of Mando, a young, charismatic gangster who buys into the gang's mythology that it worked for "La Causa," to protect its own against Southern California gangsters. Mando spends many of his early years in juvie, and when, as an adult, he makes a disastrous decision and carries out an attack on behalf of the gang -- a crime that lands him in big boy prison -- Mando learns that talk of La Causa was just that, talk. He thoughtfully decides to distance himself from Nuestra Familia, and bravely, even heroically, does so publicly.
The book also tells the story of Detective Reyes, who as a teenager and young man flirted with the gang lifestyle, but ultimately became a cop who went after gangs. The book shows similarities between Reyes and Mando -- both men are thoughtful, have setbacks in their personal lives, and want to be part of something larger than themselves. Ultimately, the detective also becomes frustrated with his fellow law enforcers' efforts to go after the gang.Read more ›
Julia Reynolds is a seasoned journalist who knows how to get people -- including gang members -- to talk to her, which is no small feat. In this book she makes masterful use of interviews with gangsters, their associates, and law enforcement officers to weave a riveting story about a major gang which began in California's farm country but became a much wider threat.
The writer focuses on a handful of the gangsters, showing who they are with empathy but without sugarcoating their actions. It shows the gangsters as three-dimensional people, not just villians, which is a great accomplishment. For example, the book tells the story of Mando, a young, charismatic gangster who buys into the gang's mythology that it worked for "La Causa," to protect its own against Southern California gangsters. Mando spends many of his early years in juvie, and when, as an adult, he makes a disastrous decision and carries out an attack on behalf of the gang -- a crime that lands him in big boy prison -- Mando learns that talk of La Causa was just that, talk. He thoughtfully decides to distance himself from Nuestra Familia, and bravely, even heroically, does so publicly.
The book also tells the story of Detective Reyes, who as a teenager and young man flirted with the gang lifestyle, but ultimately became a cop who went after gangs. The book shows similarities between Reyes and Mando -- both men are thoughtful, have setbacks in their personal lives, and want to be part of something larger than themselves. Ultimately, the detective also becomes frustrated with his fellow law enforcers' efforts to go after the gang.Read more ›
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