-- by Stephanie Ramage, The Sunday Paper (Atlanta):

It’s a weekday afternoon, and as an Atlanta Public Schools bus pulls into a trailer park on Chattahoochee Avenue in the city’s northwest corner, a few vehicles roll up behind it, all of them bearing American flag plates—some with bald eagles—and all driven by people who look like they fit right in there.

The trailer park is a Latino enclave in a city where, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, they make up only a little more than 5 percent of the population. What looks like a jumble of trailers from the road resolves itself up-close into mobile homes with pots of flowers on sun-beaten porches. The homes huddle against a backdrop of warehouses where walls blare graffiti and gang logos—mostly “Vatos Locos,” a Latino gang that started in East Los Angeles and has expanded to the East Coast. 

Read More