Folks Nation
Dierdre Roussin
The Folk Nation is an alliance of street gangs originating in Chicago, established in 1978.[1] The alliance has since spread throughout the United States, particularly the Midwest region of the United States.
The Folk Nation was formed on November 11, 1978, within the confines of the Stateville Correctional Center.[2] Larry Hoover, the chairman of the Gangster Disciple Nation, created the idea for the alliance and persuaded many leaders of large black, white, and Latino gangs from Chicago to join. Folk Nation was created to protect and counter from People Nation invading neighborhoods.
All gangs that are members of the Folk Nation represent their allegiance by utilization of the Star of David, the digit 6, the Roman numeral VI, and a die with six dots visible. Most gangs under the Disciple moniker use horns, a devil's tail, a pitchfork, a horned heart, and a winged heart. Other prominent symbolism of Folk gangs include the digit 2 (used by the Insane Deuce Nation and Insane Two-Two Nation), the digit 3, three dots, a symbol known as the Third World (digit 3 within a circle with a horizontal curved line through the center) representing the power, solidarity and ubiquity of the third world proletariat, the digit 4 (used by Insane Two-Two Nation and the Almighty Harrison Gent Nation), the digit 7 (used by the Almighty Imperial Gangster Nation), the digit 8 (used by the Insane Ashland Viking Nation), the number 13 (used by the Milwaukee King Nation), the Playboy bunny (used by all Gangster Familia nations excluding the Gangster Disciple Nation along with the Boss Pimp Nation), a cane (used by the Almighty Harrison Gent Nation and the Latin Jiver Nation), a top hat (used by the Almighty Harrison Gent Nation and the Latin Jiver Nation), a crown with seven rounded steps (used by Almighty Imperial Gangster Nation, sometimes the Gangster Disciple Nation), a six point crown (represents entire Folk Nation though modern usage is typically by the Insane Gangster Satan Disciple Nation), numerous cross variants, and the number 360, "360" or phrase "360 degrees", usually used to refer to their international presence (360 degrees around the globe) though it has other meanings within Folk literature.
The Folk Nation (also known as Folk) is an alliance of street gangs, based in the Chicago area, which has since spread throughout the United States, specifically in the Midwest and the South. They are rivals to the People Nation.
Within the Folk Nation alliance there are many gangs which all have their own unique colors, hand signs and organization. Many of these gangs have signed a charter to join the Folks alliance. It was formed on November 11 1978 in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Soon afterwards the People Nation was formed to counter the Folks alliance. Larry Hoover, the chairman of the Gangster Disciple Nation, created the idea for the alliance and persuaded many leaders of large Black, White, and Latino gangs from Chicago to join.
After a prosperous beginning in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, the alliance started to break apart in the early 1990s due to wars over money and drugs between fellow Folk gangs. After the split each leader was considered a king in his own right. Each gang had loyalty to the national rules, but following only their set king.
Gangs demonstrate their particular alignment by "representing" through symbols, colors, graffiti, hand signs and words. Representing also encompasses the left or right side of the body. Most Folk gangs represent using the six point star, pitchforks, and identify to the right side (e.g., they wear hats or bandannas turned to the right). Folk Nation gangs use the term "all is one" to greet each other. The six pointed Star of David, a Jewish religious symbol in honor of King David, is used by the gang in its graffiti.
As a kid growing up in Mexico in the 1980s I used to attend a summer camp run by my aunt named Casa Abierta. There we would participate in a whole range of activities which included music, theater and crafts, including a class of pirograbado (pyro gravure), which is a decorative wood-burning technique using a hot metal stylus onto surfaces like the ones of boxes, trays and trivets.
Many years later, when I actually visited El Salvador and other parts of Central America, I encountered those same designs again in tourist areas, airport shops, and beyond. But what I also learned was that this type of craft did not have a long history, but that it all started as inspiration from the work of a single artist, Fernando Llort (1949-2018).
Fifty years ago, El Salvador did not really have a folk art tradition of its own. It being the smallest country in the continental Americas, over the course of its history and at different moments El Salvador has been subsumed both politically and culturally by its much bigger neighbors Guatemala and Mexico, both of which are folk art powerhouses. Llort was influenced by Maya culture and modern art, but sought, as any other artist does, to create a visual language of his own.
One of the topics that have always fascinated me throughout the years are the processes by which the iconography of a nation is generated. When the nations of the Americas gained their independence from Europe in the 19th century, artists were commissioned to compose the national anthems and design the flags and coats of arms of their newly created nations. Artists were given the unusual job of producing a cultural symbol that would help identify and differentiate the new nation from others by drawing from their collective local heritage and history, which, once officially adopted, would then become etched in stone forever (and so we still sing national anthems of our respective countries with 19th century lyrics that might feel a bit outdated and even absurd, but we still sing them anyway out of patriotic duty).
The related instance that I find even more interesting is when the adoption of a style (often through a process of popular viralization) happens in a serendipitous way, often influenced by an even smaller set of factors, including, as the Llort example shows, a single artist.
The case of Llort, however, is precisely the reverse: instead of an ironic appropriation by an artist of an artistic tradition, here the artist creates earnest works that inspire a collective appropriation which in turn results in a recognized artistic tradition that comes to define a national style. While the former aspires to deceive, the latter has no such aspirations, yet sometimes produces the unintended effect of it being (as I once thought it was, in the case of Llort) the result of a long collective narrative and not a whole style generated by a single individual.
The imagery that we would use as model to reproduce came from a series of colorful compositions inspired on traditional crafts that one would often see in people\u2019s homes in Mexico in the 70s and 80s; these were simple depictions of country village scenes with big-eyed birds, butterflies, flowers and red-roofed houses; the only thing we knew about them was that they were crafts from El Salvador. My sister was (and has always been) excellent at making these and other crafts, and still keeps some of these items at home, both the original craft pieces purchased in the 1970s and the ones she made herself.
Llort was born in San Salvador. According to various biographical accounts, he briefly studied architecture and always made art, but the majority of his studies were dedicated to theology\u2014 first in Medell\u00EDn, Colombia, later in France and Belgium and finally in Louisiana in the U.S., where he pursued art more formally. In 1971 he returned to El Salvador for good. \u201CHe was part of an anti-system group\u201D, Salvadoran artist Ronald Mor\u00E1n told me. \u201Che was part of a very organic movement, influenced by hippie culture and liberation theology.\u201D
Shortly after returning to his country in 1971, Llort moved to the small agricultural village of La Palma in the northern mountains of El Salvador where he started a workshop which he titled \u201CLa Semilla de Dios\u201D (The Seed of God). There he started training local villagers to draw and paint; shortly after that, La Palma started becoming known for the creations that emerged from their workshop. Shortly after the beginning of the Civil War in El Salvador, Llort moved to the capital where he opened a gallery that he named \u201CEl Arbol de Dios\u201D (The Tree of God) where he continued exhibiting and selling his work. Over the years, the particular style of compositions that Llort and his artisans in La Palma modeled were adopted by others, to the point that they became a national folk art form. Today, when one searches for Salvadoran folk art online, there are endless examples of this type of objects sold by both online and physical stores\u2014 often with no specific attribution to Llort, but unmistakably reproducing the formal elements, colors and overall style that Llort once spearheaded. \u201CHe did plant the seed\u201D, Mor\u00E1n says, referencing the name of Llort\u2019s original workshop.