Nuestra Familia

Nuestra Familia

Nuestra Familia symbol
Founded	1960; 64 years ago (1960)
Founding location	Correctional Training Facility, Soledad, California[1]
Years active	1960–present
Territory	United States, Mexico, Canada[2]
Ethnicity	Mexican American[1]
Membership (est.)	7,000 members and 37,000 Norteños[3][4]
Activities	Drug trafficking, extortion, robbery, homicide[3]
Allies	[1] Mexican Cartels[5] Norteños,[3] Black Guerrilla Family, Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings
Rivals	Aryan Brotherhood[1] Fresno Bulldogs[1] Mexican Mafia[1] Mexikanemi[1] Sureños[6][1]

Nuestra Familia (Spanish for "our family") is a criminal organization of Mexican American (Chicano) prison gangs with origins in Northern California.^[7] While members of the Norteños gang are considered to be foot soldiers of Nuestra Familia, being a member of Nuestra Familia itself does not signify association as a Norteño. Some law enforcement agents speculate that the Nuestra Familia gang, which operates in and out of prisons, influences much of the criminal activity of thousands of Norteño gang members in California.^[8] The gang's main sources of income are distributing cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine within prison systems as well as in the community and extorting drug distributors on the streets.^[9]