Sureños

The Sureños (Spanish for "Southerners" [1]) are a group of hundreds of Hispanic street gangs with origins in Southern California. They are connected with the Mexican Mafia prison organization; opposing the Mexican Mafia is the Nuestra Familia, which similarly has spawned a street chapter, the Norteños.

Gang identification

The Sureños were the first California gang to make use of gang colors to distinguish themselves from other gangs. The state of California prison system provided railroad handkerchiefs to inmates in one standard color: blue. Hispanic inmates from Southern California selected or claimed the blue bandanas to identify themselves. Once a member of the Sureños "graduates" off the street and into the prison system they are designated a part of the Mexican Mafia organization.

The Sureños identify themselves with the color blue and sometimes gray, mostly with Los Angeles Dodgers (the baseball team of their home town), Duke University and Dallas Cowboys apparel. Their gang number is thirteen, using Arabic or Roman numerals, or a combination of both: 13, XIII, or X3 and other creative means of symbolism. This signifies the 13th letter of the alphabet, the letter M, meaning "La Eme" or "The M"; the Mexican Mafia. Numerals are also incorporated into the tattoos, such as Tres Puntos (Spanish: "Three dots") (see also: Three Dots Tattoo) which is the representation for the number three within the Aztec numeral system.

Opposing Gangs

The Norteños, who rival the Sureños, identify themselves with the number fourteen, representing the letter N, the 14th letter of the alphabet.

Sureños usually refer derogatively to their rival Norteño gangsters as "busters" and "chapete" and "leva" (although "buster" is slang Norteños use to refer to a Norteño gang member, the Sureños use this term in a derogative way). In nothern California, Norteños refer Sureños as "scraps".