Father Greg Boyle, the founder and director of Homeboy Industries, and two program participants — called colloquially as “Homies” — David Sanchez and Saul Sanchez spoke in an all-school assembly in Taper Gym on March 12. David and Saul are brothers, and spoke briefly before Boyle about their experiences in the program after being incarcerated gang members.
Homeboy Industries, founded in South Los Angeles in 1988 by Boyle, is a gang intervention, rehabilitation and re-entry service with opportunities including 18-month employment programs for prior gang members. It is the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program, having served over 7,000 people, according to Homeboy Industries.
Boyle said Homeboy Industries was able to help gang members find new purposes in their lives, and as a result, members of his organization did not participate in gang activity during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, despite being known as
“In 1992, after the acquittal of the four police officers who beat down Rodney King, every pocket of poverty in Los Angeles ignited, except my parish, and so the Los Angeles Times wanted to know why that was so,” Boyle said. “I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe part of it is that we had 60 strategically hired rival gang members who had a reason to get up in the morning and a reason not to torch their own community.’”
Nadya Hitomi ’25, who co-leads the school’s Jazz Singers program, said she helped organize this event after working with Boyle when the ensemble visited Homeboy Industries to perform.
“I have been collaborating with Father Greg for almost two years now, being a HW Jazz Singers director, and I’ve seen and felt how his words impact and heal people,” Hitomi said. “I wanted to share that with the [school] community because I feel like now more than ever is a time when we need unity and healing.”
Boyle said he often helps previous members of rival gangs get back on their feet, using cooperation between former enemies as a core component in the rehabilitation process.
“Every single Homie who walks through the door comes with what psychologists would call a disorganized attachment,” Boyle said. “Mom was either frightened or frightening. You can’t calm yourself down if you’ve never been soothed. And so we have the 18-month program, as David mentioned, and it’s a place where people can work side by side with folks they used to shoot at.”
The assembly concluded with an anecdote about a member of Homeboy Industries, and the importance of kinship and understanding. Boyle said it is important to recognize inclusion and sympathy for others who are looked down upon in society.
“This talk in this school is not the place you’d come to. It was always going to be the place you go from,” Boyle said, referring to his speech. “And you will go from here to imagine a circle of compassion, and then imagine nobody standing outside that circle. You go from here to dismantle the barriers that exclude.”
Noah Koo ’27 said he felt Boyle was engaging and sincere throughout the assembly.
“Although Father Boyle’s ability to make his points nuanced and relatable was already impressive in its own right, to me, the most interesting part of his speech was the way he conveyed it,” Koo said. “You could tell it was from the heart, from his eye contact to the incredibly strong emotions from his voice, which made the speech much more impactful.”
Hitomi said her goal was to enable students to hear about an often overlooked point of view.
“The Homies and us [students] have experienced life quite differently, and I think that there’s so much to learn from them,” Hitomi said. “I really hope that the [student] body learned more about kindness to oneself and how that perpetuates kindness towards others.”
