Being a Sureno from the Bay Area, a typical question is "why are there Surenos from Northern Cali?".
There are quite a few reasons the homies have from up here, but one of the biggest is the rejection of Norteno culture and or having families based in SoCal. As we came up in the 80's and 90's, being Chicano, and or kids of recent immigrants, we just weren't a fit for what Nortenos offered. Nortenos have pretty much adopted everything black. Cornrows, sagging to their knees, nigga this, nigga that. They hang out with blacks, have kids with them, back them up etc. This is also the reason that there are quite a few Border Brother neighborhoods up here too, and it's because of that same rejection of the joining of Norteno culture with blacks. They also have a huge white population in every many Norteno varrios. We are talking like middle class white kids with good families and blond hair blue eyes. The Nortenos try to use Mexican and Chicano symbols, art, and culture, but everything about them is the opposite. They are so heavily integrated with black culture, that it is like they forgot about who and what they are.
So when you have family from SoCal, and or recently coming over from Mexico, you reject all of that, and it makes it easy to decide to war against it.
Plus, you see Sureno neighborhoods in almost every NorCal city and when you go down south to visit family or whatever, you never saw one Norteno neighborhood. It seemed really weak to not even control your own side of the state. I remember the first time being in a county jail down south, the younger homies who hadn't been to the state prisons yet, they had never seen a Norteno and would ask me 50 million questions and were super curios about them, like as if I was telling them about aliens from outer space or telling them of a big foot sighting

There are even cities in NorCal that Nortenos were completely removed from. For example, Richmond. RST, VFL, CSL, and Easter Hill Locos cleaned them all out, the nearest ones are in San Pablo (VSP). I couldn't even imagine that happening in any city down south.
It's not that the Nortenos are weak, don't get me wrong, some Norteno varrios are down as fuk, but they just don't have the numbers, willingness, or organization to move Sureno neighborhoods out. Most Sureno neighborhoods have been around up there since the early 70s, and are now permanent.
It's so different up here, from down south, since we all have a common daily enemy, no real lasting Sureno neighborhoods beef. I've even been in situations where we would run into other Sureno neighborhoods and five minutes later be backing each other up against right then and there against Nortenos at a street fair or wherever.
The homies from down South have always been more than cool as fuck when we have rolled up in county jails down south too. Always steady with the Norteno questions though, ha
