The Real Life “Mi Vida Loca” – PlayBoy’s From Echo Park

BooBoo was living with her homegirls Nena and Chunky in a seedy one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. They took turns sleeping on a single mattress on the floor, when they weren’t running the streets.

BooBoo was a chola from the legendary Playboys. In Junior High School, when she got jumped into the clique, her homies named her after the bear that kicks it along Yogi Bear.

“I wanted to belong to something,” she said. “I was, what, 12 years old? And I see a bunch of girls hanging together. I figured, yeah, I want to kick back with them, so I said I’m a get into Playboys. I’ll never be from another neighborhood, ’cause this is where my heart is.”

Back, when BooBoo was 19 years old. She said she had more than 30 tattoos, including a little Playboy bunny below her right eye and the signature body art of gang life: three dots signifying Mi Vida Loca, or my crazy life.

Look Through Our Collection of Photos

WATCH THE FULL DOCUMENTARY ABOUT The Echo Park Gangs. (This is in German Dubbing)

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