BUILDING BRIGHT FUTURE : GROUP HELPS STUDENT GRADUATE FROM STREETS, GANGS.Byline: Keith Stone Daily News Staff Writer He wore a tie to his high school graduation Friday, but Gabriel Diaz's head was shaved shave v. shaved, shaved or shav·en , shav·ing, shaves v.tr. 1. a. To remove the beard or other body hair from, with a razor or shaver: , his shirt untucked and his pants baggy bag·gy adj. bag·gi·er, bag·gi·est Bulging or hanging loosely: baggy trousers. bag , all in homeboy home·boy n. Slang 1. A male friend or acquaintance from one's neighborhood or hometown. 2. A fellow male gang member. homeboy Noun slang 1. fashion. ``It is half and half; this is to let people know where I came from,'' Diaz said after the ceremony for 62 students at North Valley Occupational Center. ``It is like - from the streets to the books.'' As he spoke, two thick scars from a gang shooting when he was 14 peeked over the collar of his royal-blue graduation gown. He turned to hide his eyes, wet from the memory of a mother he rarely sees and a father he never knew. And then a smile slipped through the street-toughened glare that Diaz wore through his graduation. ``I've got a lot of opportunities, you know,'' he said. In one hand he held his diploma, and in the other a $125 college scholarship, awarded in honor of Javier Castro, a young man whose life Diaz's has eerily ee·rie or ee·ry adj. ee·ri·er, ee·ri·est 1. a. Inspiring inexplicable fear, dread, or uneasiness; strange and frightening. b. Suggestive of the supernatural; mysterious. See Synonyms at weird. paralleled, that is, until he was killed New Year's Day New Year's Day, among ancient peoples the first day of the year frequently corresponded to the vernal or autumnal equinox, or to the summer or winter solstice. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated among Christians usually on Mar. 25. 1995 in a car crash. Like Castro, Diaz was raised by an aunt. Like Castro, Diaz was headed toward a life of gangs. And like Castro, Diaz found strength and direction to pull himself back into school, to earn a high school degree at 19 and find new hope. After Friday's graduation, Castro's aunt, Anita Zepeda, clasped Diaz's hand. Her eyes teared as she offered to help him. Zepeda is a special-education teacher at the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima. ``What I couldn't do for Javier,'' she told Diaz, ``I'd like to do for you.'' Later Diaz pondered the significance of the scholarship that bears Castro's name. ``I will do something with school,'' Diaz said. ``If he can't do it, I am going to do it for him. He gave me this chance.'' Diaz said he might also enlist en·list v. en·list·ed, en·list·ing, en·lists v.tr. 1. To engage (persons or a person) for service in the armed forces. 2. To engage the support or cooperation of. v. in the Marines, if for no other reason than to escape the lure and danger of the streets. Hope In Youth has been a refuge for Diaz, perhaps the reason that he graduated Friday instead of spending the day with his homeboys. The nonprofit A corporation or an association that conducts business for the benefit of the general public without shareholders and without a profit motive. Nonprofits are also called not-for-profit corporations. Nonprofit corporations are created according to state law. group in Pacoima sends its workers onto Los Angeles' hardscrabble hard·scrab·ble adj. Earning a bare subsistence, as on the land; marginal: the sharecropper's hardscrabble life. n. Barren or marginal farmland. Adj. 1. streets to win gang members and aimless youths over to the Gospel of Education and Job Training. Gustavo Valdivia, youth coordinator for Hope in Youth, remembers first seeing Diaz hanging out with friends at Ritchie Valens Ritchie Valens (born Ricardo Steven Valenzuela, May 13 1941 – February 3 1959) was a pioneer of rock and roll and a forefather to the Latin Rock movement. Career Park in Pacoima. He already had been in trouble with the law for skipping school and running with a gang. ``We invited him to our weekly sessions. He refused three or four times, but once he went - and came back again,'' Valdivia said. ``There are a lot of kids like Gabriel, a lot of kids who need to get back into school.'' Diaz remembers going to Hope in Youth with one purpose - to meet girls. ``But when the girls didn't go any more, I kept on going,'' he said. Through Hope in Youth, Diaz said, he realized there was more to life than gangs and jail. Equally as convincing were the two times he was shot. Wounded by a shotgun shotgun: see small arms. shotgun Smoothbore shoulder firearm designed to fire a number of pellets, or shot, that cover a large target area after they leave the muzzle. It is used mainly against small game such as birds. blast in 1990, Diaz at first began plotting how he would retaliate against the shooter. ``But I found a way to forgive. Why go back and do something to him and put his parents through what my parents went through?'' he asked. ``I've got friends who are doing stuff like that. They are in jail now doing life. I didn't want that.'' ``The best thing to give my homeboys is, instead of getting back, is to go back to school and get an education and show the young homeboys there is something out there for us,'' he said. ``If I can do it, they can do it.'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: (color) Gabriel Diaz gets his diploma at the North V alley Occupational Center on Friday. John McCoy/Daily News |
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