Ex-Gang Member: What Makes A Violent Man Change? - Johnny Chang - #1140

Tell me how you got here. You grew up on LA’s east side, then spent your formative years in institutions and gang life. What set that path in motion?

I came up in the San Gabriel Valley, in project housing, with immigrant parents chasing something better and landing in poverty. I wasn’t the Asian-kid stereotype; I was into fighting, guns, and the streets. My dad was a chef trying to provide, but alcohol took over. He hurt my mom, my brother, me. At ten, I got jumped and robbed, walked home barefoot and bloodied, and he decided I was lying and beat me again. That’s when I understood: I can’t depend on either parent. Anger became survival.

LA in the nineties was gang culture, drugs, gangster rap. At twelve, older kids tested me, pulled guns, fed me, and introduced me to an older shot-caller. He was gentle, respectful, strapped, and everybody listened. For a kid without a father figure, I thought, bro, this guy is amazing. Then he gave me a mission against somebody he called an enemy. I didn’t know the person; I just thought, your problem is mine. We got caught, and I caught kidnapping and robbery charges in a gang case. California Youth Authority was fight after fight. Refusing violence made you a target, so violence became the language.

After parole, I lasted sixty-seven days before a freeway shooting put me back in court. At sixteen, they tried me as an adult. I took ten years for two assaults with a deadly weapon and served most of it. Maximum security ran by race; I had to back people I once considered enemies. Prison was less openly chaotic than youth authority, but more lethal when it went off. A small disrespect could become a riot. One minute people were your brothers; the next, they decided you were the problem. It built absolute distrust in me.

That belonging is intoxicating. The gang gives men a place, an enemy, status, even a script for proving themselves—sometimes more efficiently than ordinary society does.

Your number gets called. Refusing can get you hurt, but doing it can ruin your life. I got pushed into starting a riot over a debt near release. I knew it was manipulation, but respect felt like a drug. After roughly twelve or thirteen years back-to-back, I got out with structure, anger, hypervigilance, and a hustler’s brain. At Walmart, I asked a security guard to take me to the bathroom because that’s what uniforms did inside. He gave me the code and said, “Go yourself.” I was like, wait, that’s it?

A Muslim cellmate was my first real mentor: disciplined, respected, studying, training with me, telling me I had a brain. But after release, background checks shut doors, and I returned to what I knew—serious money, the streets, living loud, feeling empty every night. Then a close friend died in a robbery, another took his life in prison, and a younger kid who reminded me of myself got killed. I was suicidal. My mom needed a ride from church. I told her, don’t try converting me. Then I smelled black-bean noodles, my favorite food, and went inside.

Pastor Kim asked if I knew what sin was. I gave the usual answer: doing evil, breaking God’s rules. He said it was deeper—an identity problem, not just bad actions. Somebody finally named my emptiness without calling me a monster. He said I couldn’t save myself by trying harder; I needed saving. Then he challenged me to apologize to my dad. I was furious. Why should the kid who got beaten say sorry? But at a noodle place, I told my dad I was sorry for becoming a gang member and destroying his dream. He cried, said he stayed away from prison because he felt responsible, and we both said sorry. We hugged. That was scary.

That reframes strength. Plenty of people endure physical pain, then avoid one vulnerable conversation for years. Suppression isn’t strength.

Exactly. I thought peace meant weakness until I saw how much harder it was to hear somebody out instead of react. I work hard, get up early, mentor people, but I don’t treat God like a vending machine. I put in the work and leave the result with Him. Discernment can’t just be feelings; my feelings once told me violence was loyalty. I go back to scripture. Forgiveness wasn’t giving my dad a pass. It was taking off my own shackles. Forgiving myself is tougher, but I’m learning not to punish myself like I can rewrite history.

Going back into prison to speak terrified me. I had panic attacks driving there because men knew my old name and what I’d done. The first time, I turned around. My pastor didn’t shame me; he said I was being challenged because I was trying to do something good. When I returned, guys I knew welcomed me, and strangers recognized that nighttime emptiness and suicidal thinking. Seventy-five men in one class, opening up. I broke down afterward. My past could have purpose—not glorifying it, but showing people they don’t have to follow every thought they have.

My mom saw it before I did. She endured my dad drinking, both sons locked up, and me out armed and making money, yet she carried peace. I thought she was crazy saying my dad could change or I’d preach one day. Now my dad goes to church, my brother’s saved, and sometimes I catch my parents holding hands on the couch. Pops drops her hand when I walk in, and I’m like, bro, I caught you. But it’s beautiful. Peace and love preach louder than anything you say.

There’s no amount of money, recognition, or status that outruns a life without peace. If you get everything and still can’t rest at night, what was any of it for?