Speaker 1: I have this memory from my childhood. I'm at a
Speaker 1: family party at an uncle's house in the Sangebriel Valley
Speaker 1: where I grew up. I'm tall now, but in this memory,
Speaker 1: the adults were still taller than me. Salsa, probably Joe
Speaker 1: Royo or oscarre Leone, blasts through a bulgy speaker that
Speaker 1: vibrated the entire living room. The adults were dancing, focusing
Speaker 1: only on the music and the person in front of them.
Speaker 1: Their moves felt unpredictable to me. They're swaying bodies and
Speaker 1: pointy elbows formed a human obstacle course. I cut through
Speaker 1: them to grab a cup of Inca cola and a
Speaker 1: bowl of chips from a table in the kitchen. I
Speaker 1: saw my mom sitting in one of the chairs lined
Speaker 1: up against the wall, looking up at everyone. She's not dancing,
Speaker 1: age Um, you know no. One of the reasons why
Speaker 1: we had so many rules at home was because of
Speaker 1: my mom. My mom grew up in a conservative evangelical
Speaker 1: household in the seventies and Lima, Peru. My mom never
Speaker 1: learned to dance as a teen. She said she didn't
Speaker 1: go to parties when she was young. She never learned.
Speaker 1: She says she go to parties kind of. They were
Speaker 1: more like gatherings or hangouts. Friends would get together, eat
Speaker 1: and laugh. There was no alcohol involved. At an early age,
Speaker 1: she knew that her family was different. Her neighbors drank,
Speaker 1: they danced, They threw loud parties. Sometimes the parties lasted
Speaker 1: until five in the morning. My mom doesn't really remember this,
Speaker 1: but as a kid at our family parties, she discouraged
Speaker 1: me from dancing. Yeah, I don't know. When I asked
Speaker 1: her about this, she said, but you didn't listen. You
Speaker 1: love to dance now, and she's right, but it took
Speaker 1: me a long time to get here. That memory of
Speaker 1: my mom not dancing at a family party comes back
Speaker 1: to me when I think about my own relationship to fun,
Speaker 1: how I grew to love moving freely in my own body.
Speaker 1: From my heart's Michael to a podcast network Vice and
Speaker 1: Elias Studios. This is Party Cruise, the untold story. I'm
Speaker 1: Jannis Amlca. I grew up in a place called Roland Heights.
Speaker 1: It's east of downtown and La County, in the Sangerbolle Valley.
Speaker 1: That's gb When people stare at me completely clueless, I
Speaker 1: just tell them the other Valley. I remember growing up
Speaker 1: with Chinese kids, Korean kids, Mexican kids. More than half
Speaker 1: of the population was born in a different country, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the kids were like me, kids of immigrants.
Speaker 1: In school, we spoke to each other in English, and
Speaker 1: at home we spoke in a different language to our parents.
Speaker 1: High school for me was defined by music videos. We
Speaker 1: had a black box, basically a rigged up black market
Speaker 1: cable box, which mean I had access to every channel,
Speaker 1: including MTV jams. It was hip hop music video heaven
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands. Video vixens were queens. Buillip
Speaker 1: She was models like Melissa Ford and Vita Gara. They
Speaker 1: were the director's muses and completely outshined the rappers. I
Speaker 1: was mesmerized by their power. But the video that blew
Speaker 1: me away. It was Beyonce's Crazy and Love Yes. When
Speaker 1: the video was jam of the Week, which meant it
Speaker 1: played every hour all week, I watched it carefully and
Speaker 1: copied base every danceman I even try to look like her.
Speaker 1: I bought the white tank top, the denim shorts, and
Speaker 1: red siletto slingbacks, whatever I could find it to swap me.
Speaker 1: It gave me a glimpse into what being a young
Speaker 1: woman could look like. It was sexy, fun and fashionable,
Speaker 1: a type of freedom I hadn't seen in person. Rebellious
Speaker 1: even so different from the modestly dressed women I'd see
Speaker 1: at church, and I knew off a bit of that
Speaker 1: freedom could rub off on me. I could do anything.
Speaker 1: High school was also the time that I started to
Speaker 1: help my parents out. My parents both worked a lot.
Speaker 1: They cleaned houses for a living, so when I got
Speaker 1: my license, my mom made me drive their cleaning crew
Speaker 1: around On the weekends. I chuttle a team from house
Speaker 1: to house in a big white astro van. It was
Speaker 1: the car Elent you drive in. But at night I'd
Speaker 1: have the van all to myself, and I have a
Speaker 1: lot of memories in that van. I remember driving my
Speaker 1: mom's astro van and packing girls in it. Yea our
Speaker 1: little party crew. Yes, so many memories in that van. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I drove my mom was like cleaning
Speaker 1: astro van and drove with girls to parties. That's Sammy
Speaker 1: Selina's She was one of my best friends in high school.
Speaker 1: We've lost touch over the years, but when we catch
Speaker 1: up it's like we haven't missed a beat. We met
Speaker 1: at her home in Morono Valley and gathered around the
Speaker 1: dining table. Her kids watched us, but they probably had
Speaker 1: no clue what we were talking about. Like I remember
Speaker 1: like girls a whole like there was no seats because
Speaker 1: there was like cleaning supplies and then like all the
Speaker 1: chemicals for cleaning, and I was just like going around
Speaker 1: the car. It was fun. So what are we here
Speaker 1: to talk about? Um? Back then, I'm him the two
Speaker 1: thousand parties going now snicking out. When Sammy and I
Speaker 1: first met, we instantly hit it off. I felt like
Speaker 1: we were closed. I felt like with you we could
Speaker 1: top hours on the phone. Sometimes I couldn't express my
Speaker 1: feelings because I was hiding it for so long. But
Speaker 1: with you, she's like we could talk about boys and
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? And you know live. We're
Speaker 1: both outgoing, both with religious immigrant parents, and we both
Speaker 1: definitely felt the pressures from it. I couldn't do a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, like you know, watch TV. If he
Speaker 1: was really protective. My dad, he had me a little
Speaker 1: bit older, so he didn't understand, you know, a little
Speaker 1: bit of teenage girl. I guess while saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: we go through. At that time, I was going through
Speaker 1: a lot because my parents had divorce, So I think
Speaker 1: doing stuff was something that was using to kind of
Speaker 1: like keep my mind out of it, you know. Together
Speaker 1: we found an escape. On the weekends, Sammy and I
Speaker 1: would think out of our homes and dance the night away.
Speaker 1: Somehow we'd get back in our rooms before our families
Speaker 1: woke up. I'd always be falling asleep the next day
Speaker 1: at church. I guess you can say we were partners
Speaker 1: in crime back then, like Thelma and Louise Oh with curfews.
Speaker 1: I had friends catching me through my window to sneak out,
Speaker 1: and I mean ten thirties. One of the parties. Third,
Speaker 1: Sammy and I were part of an all girl party
Speaker 1: crew called the Lustful Ladies. Ladies spelled lay d easy.
Speaker 1: I know it's a little embarrassing and the details are
Speaker 1: kind of blurry, but the way I remember it, back
Speaker 1: in our day, if you wanted to join a party crew,
Speaker 1: you needed to know someone or get recruited. And once
Speaker 1: I was in for Sammy, it was a no brainer.
Speaker 1: It's just like naturally with you guys, just you guys
Speaker 1: doing it, I'm doing it too. Then would you ever
Speaker 1: your nickname. I think it was like I wasn't wasn't
Speaker 1: this Caramel. If you were in a party crew, chances
Speaker 1: are you had a nickname like miss Caramel, Giggles or Flacca.
Speaker 1: Sammy pulled out an old picture of us that she
Speaker 1: had on her phone and zoomed in into a big
Speaker 1: laminated card she was holding that was clipped on a
Speaker 1: lanyard that she was wearing around her neck. It was
Speaker 1: a badge, like a name badge, and it had her
Speaker 1: nickname on it. I remember making that badge on Photoshop,
Speaker 1: which I downloaded a flme wire. Oh yeah, this is
Speaker 1: Caramel Diva. Oh Caramel Diva. Yeah it's a little bit
Speaker 1: oh shure, Oh yeah, Caramel Diva. My nickname was Mocha,
Speaker 1: just a short version of my last name, Yamocha. I
Speaker 1: guess you can say I was the Mocha to her Caramel.
Speaker 1: Can you describe the what you're holding? It's like a
Speaker 1: sign that tells you pretty much who you are. And
Speaker 1: I think it's a girl dress like a I don't know, laundry.
Speaker 1: The girls. She's talking about dress and lagerie. That's our
Speaker 1: logo for the lustful ladies. And then your name under
Speaker 1: me pretty much, just like that's your entry sign, Like
Speaker 1: this is my crew and this is my girls in
Speaker 1: the back kind of way, you know. Yeah, it's how
Speaker 1: we wrapped our crew. You know, just a bunch of
Speaker 1: teams at a backyard party with lanyards and badges hanging
Speaker 1: around our necks, looking like tech bros at a networking conference. Okay,
Speaker 1: The easiest way to explain a crew is a group
Speaker 1: of friends who are dedicated to throwing and going to
Speaker 1: house parties on a good night. The parties cramped over
Speaker 1: a hundred kids in a backyard. There were all girl
Speaker 1: crews like ours, all guy crews, and co ed cruise
Speaker 1: like Infamous Ladies three two three, Alcoholics and Huggies productions.
Speaker 1: Some crews were about dancing. Some are really stylish, but
Speaker 1: some are really competitive about throwing the best parties. And
Speaker 1: in our world, the best parties had to have certain elements.
Speaker 1: Imagine this. You get handed a flyer at school or
Speaker 1: at the mall on a Friday. It's a glossy, baby
Speaker 1: pink flyer. The all girl party crew, the Sweethearts is
Speaker 1: throwing a party and you're invited. On the back, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of phone numbers to call for the directions
Speaker 1: to a secret location. Once you and your friends make
Speaker 1: it to the location, which is usually an empty house
Speaker 1: or a warehouse, you pay a few bucks to get in.
Speaker 1: Immediately you're surrounded by fog and lights, and you're tingling
Speaker 1: from excitement because you hear the DJ play the first
Speaker 1: few notes of your current favorite song, Little John the
Speaker 1: Side Boys didn't Yankee, You're a song that stand out
Speaker 1: from that era. Yes, every party had the best music.
Speaker 1: It's two thousand and four, so thaying early hip hop
Speaker 1: music you can grind too. In the dark, fenced in
Speaker 1: backyard was always just bodies and bodies just like you
Speaker 1: don't think about anything. You just close your eyes and
Speaker 1: just listen to the music and just dance away with
Speaker 1: your friends. It's like, yeah, one of those feelings on
Speaker 1: a concrete dance floor in the muddy backyard of someone's house.
Speaker 1: We made the rules. Alcohol was provided for a fee,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the cruise will get fancy and make jellowshots
Speaker 1: or provide smernovices, and of course the party wasn't a
Speaker 1: party without a nov tank in the corner, the big
Speaker 1: old tank and balloons. It will sell those. I think
Speaker 1: a dollar too, and then I don't remember how I
Speaker 1: Gotama would just get them. No, it's nitrous oxide. It
Speaker 1: gives you a quick head high when you inhale it.
Speaker 1: I passed out a couple of times with that. But
Speaker 1: it's hard to describe the feeling. But it was one
Speaker 1: of those feelings that it felt good kind of way
Speaker 1: at that time. But like my friend Sammy said, for us,
Speaker 1: it was about showing up with our girls, the lustful ladies,
Speaker 1: to let it all out on the dance floor. Yes,
Speaker 1: lots of grinding and lasts of boody shakings twerking while
Speaker 1: we were dancing. It was the first time I was
Speaker 1: discovering how my body could move and see how others
Speaker 1: reacted to me. It was the release I was yearning
Speaker 1: for doing handstand twerking and I don't know freaking, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't appropriate dancing. I remember the handstands
Speaker 1: and literally I was like you guys had to be
Speaker 1: there too to believe it. But I have no idea
Speaker 1: how we were so limbered strong. How do the parties
Speaker 1: like make you feel when you were like dancing, how
Speaker 1: are you feeling? It's just like you're free, free, is
Speaker 1: how I would describe it too. Free from parents, free
Speaker 1: from judgment, free from expectations, free to move your body,
Speaker 1: free to express yourself any way you wanted. But sometimes
Speaker 1: that freedom came at a price. House parties UNSIL would
Speaker 1: usually be broken up by the cops or by gunfire,
Speaker 1: which was crazy to think about it now. These underground
Speaker 1: parties move from site to site, and how all too
Speaker 1: often they attract drugs, alcohol and jiang violence. The moment
Speaker 1: where I thought safe for the shooting, when we were
Speaker 1: just like in the house and we just didn't know,
Speaker 1: like what was going to happen next, and we're just
Speaker 1: like waiting for the cops to cop for one day
Speaker 1: to the next, you just whispers you know, some mutual
Speaker 1: friends and be like, damn so and so, gosh, no
Speaker 1: longer here. That's after the break. So many memories of
Speaker 1: my party crew days are blurred, but I do have
Speaker 1: this picture in my head of some thing that happened
Speaker 1: One night I was sixteen and a huge group of
Speaker 1: us were going to a party that our friend's crew
Speaker 1: was throwing. It was the party of the night because
Speaker 1: everyone I knew from the scene was going to be there.
Speaker 1: I remember the street was lined with cars. We had
Speaker 1: a park a few blocks down. There was a line
Speaker 1: in the front and you could feel the base bumping
Speaker 1: from the speakers as you walked closer. I remember the
Speaker 1: rush of excitement, and I remember walking in and there
Speaker 1: was a thing that crews would do. They would call
Speaker 1: their names when they would walk in a party. I
Speaker 1: remember leading my friends through the crowd, who formed a line,
Speaker 1: each one of us holding each other's hands. I led
Speaker 1: them straight to the dance the blush. I felt like
Speaker 1: we danced all night. My legs were sore in my
Speaker 1: hair was drenched and sweat from all the moving and
Speaker 1: shaking I was doing, and from all the body heat
Speaker 1: surrounding me. Then suddenly my friend threw his body on us,
Speaker 1: and that's how I realized something happened. Shots had been fired.
Speaker 1: We all dropped to the floor. I can't exactly remember
Speaker 1: if the music stopped, but in my head, the whole
Speaker 1: place went quiet. Everyone scattered, the party was over. None
Speaker 1: of my friends got hurt that night, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: we were young, and we felt invincible, like nothing could
Speaker 1: touch us. That wasn't the only time I was at
Speaker 1: a party where someone got shot. Shootings did happen in
Speaker 1: an instance, a party she can turn into a war tonight,
Speaker 1: A look at a few casualties for them. The party's
Speaker 1: over shootingstead have left a half dozen partygoers dead or
Speaker 1: wounded in the past three months, and police raided these
Speaker 1: parties often. Law enforcement officials say they're coordinating on every
Speaker 1: level to attack the problem. It was very high on
Speaker 1: our priority list. People drank and did drugs and then
Speaker 1: sometimes got behind the wheel or got into fights. Despite
Speaker 1: the dangers, I felt like my friends and I were invincible.
Speaker 1: But then in two dozen and six I got a call.
Speaker 1: I was told whee our good friends Hector got shot
Speaker 1: at a party. Hector was tall and thin, with jet
Speaker 1: black hair and thick eyebrows. I always thought he looked
Speaker 1: like Kevin from the Backstreet Boys. He worked with a
Speaker 1: small group of disabled adults, taking care of them for
Speaker 1: the day. I'd see them at the court having lunch together,
Speaker 1: or browsing books at the bookstore that used to be
Speaker 1: inside the mall. I remember him being really proud of
Speaker 1: his job. He was part of a crew called Wicked Productions,
Speaker 1: and he went by the nickname Hectic. He died a
Speaker 1: few days later. He was twenty one, and when I
Speaker 1: look back at my teenage years, I realized I made
Speaker 1: it out in one piece, and in some ways I
Speaker 1: feel relief, but mostly I feel guilt, guilt for surviving
Speaker 1: the scene when others didn't, like Hector and Emory. That's
Speaker 1: why Emory's case hit close to home. I also felt
Speaker 1: shame because I put myself in danger and hid it
Speaker 1: all from the people who wanted to protect me the most.
Speaker 1: My parents had no idea I was going out at night.
Speaker 1: That's why for so long I haven't thought about my
Speaker 1: party crew days. I stored those painful memories away, like
Speaker 1: handwritten notes from high school in a box under my
Speaker 1: childhood bed. For me as a teen, the party crewscene
Speaker 1: was fun and exciting, but at the same time it
Speaker 1: was scary and learning about Emory all these years later
Speaker 1: it brought back all those memories. Emory's family told me
Speaker 1: that when she died, they not only had to deal
Speaker 1: with her loss, but also a kind of judgment that
Speaker 1: she was involved with a party crew. Sine upset because
Speaker 1: it's not what we were expecting. This is her aunt
Speaker 1: Becky again. And then I started getting calls from France
Speaker 1: or just people are saying, well, I didn't know Emory
Speaker 1: attended those parties. I didn't know she was that kind
Speaker 1: of person. So that made me very upset. So I
Speaker 1: just told my husband when the phone rings, I said,
Speaker 1: don't answer it or I'm not here. It irritates me.
Speaker 1: Here's Crystal Emory's sister again, describing the news coverage. I
Speaker 1: know under that video specifically, there's someone who commented, that's
Speaker 1: what you get for going to those parties. And I
Speaker 1: remember I commented the bag, and I was like, that's
Speaker 1: my sister that you're talking about. You don't know who
Speaker 1: she was, You don't know what's going on at the time.
Speaker 1: Stay out of it. I mean, like I said, they
Speaker 1: made it more about the parties than her actual murder
Speaker 1: and disappearance. The thing is, Emory wasn't shot or found
Speaker 1: dead at a party. She was found alone in an
Speaker 1: abandoned warehouse days after disappearing. So this raises another question.
Speaker 1: Did Emory's death actually have anything to do with the
Speaker 1: party crew scene? We don't even know really where the
Speaker 1: crime scene is. We're calling the crime scene where the
Speaker 1: body was found. I think we couldn't even verify that
Speaker 1: she even went to a rape party that night. We
Speaker 1: had conflicting information on that So did she go or
Speaker 1: didn't she go? That's next time. This episode was written, reported,
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Janeyamoka. Our show is produced and
Speaker 1: reported by Sofia Pelissa car, Victoria Lejandro, and Kyle Chang
Speaker 1: and edited by Antonio Shio. Additional editing by Any Abeless,
Speaker 1: fact checking by Nidia Bautista, Sound design and original music
Speaker 1: composition by Kyle Murdoch. Our supervising producer is Janet Lee,
Speaker 1: Art by Julie Ruiz and Victoria Koon. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: from Vice Audio is Kate Osborne. Our executive producers from
Speaker 1: Elias Studios are Anthonia Sedihivo and leog Our Vice President
Speaker 1: of Podcasts from Elias Studios is Shana Naomi Crocmail Special
Speaker 1: thanks to the UCLA Department of Communication Archive for access
Speaker 1: to their news collection Party Crews. The Untold Story is
Speaker 1: a production of Elias Studios and Vice Audio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Ihearts Michael Buddha podcast Network. From our podcasts, listen
Speaker 1: to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows, and Hey, were you and a
Speaker 1: party crew? Send it your party flyers or photos. I'd
Speaker 1: love to see them, even a voice message about your memories.
Speaker 1: Anything you can send us a message or a picture
Speaker 1: at party crews at Elias Studios dot com. Support for
Speaker 1: this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Donna Crawford,
Speaker 1: who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better
Speaker 1: place to live. This program is made possible in part
Speaker 1: by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded
Speaker 1: by the American people.