The tricky thing with the Sournios is that you don't know if they're going to attack you or not.

You better not be afraid to die and you better be willing to kill. In my unit, there was only one Sourennial. Make a little tomahawk out of my razors and I freaking slice them. The white boys are like, oh, okay, it's killing season. And then people just start dying. Paul Calvo is from Fresno, California. At a young age, he got jumped into the Fresno Bulldogs,

one of the most notorious Chicano street games. dying. Paul Calvo is from Fresno, California. At a young age, he got jumped into the Fresno

Bulldogs, one of the most notorious Chicano street gangs in Central California. Paul specialized

in gun running and ran an interstate meth for guns trade from Oregon to Fresno when he caught

a Fed case at just 19 years old. Paul did eight years flat on some of the wildest federal yards in the

country, where he witnessed and took part in beatings, killings, and high-level drug trafficking.

He was all set to be in and out of prison the rest of his life when something in him switched.

While he was still on parole, Paul began attending community college, where he excelled in math

and science. After receiving straight A's,

he was accepted to Stanford University and is preparing to graduate this fall with a degree

in chemical engineering and a six-figure job waiting for him at a Fortune 500 company. This is a

fascinating, almost inexplicable story of transformation, from a gangbanger destined for life in prison to a

flourishing stand-up citizen. And for more on how he made this change in his time at Stanford,

check out the bonus episode with Paul at patreon.com slash the Connect show.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Paul Calvo, the Fresno Bulldog, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. I could hear it in my mom, like the pain and suffering and the stress that I'm causing her. Don't you want to make something out of your life? I just got disgusted with myself. I told her, like, guys like me don't go to college. She's like, all right, you're going to be an engineering major. The math professor that I chose was the hardest math professor.

She was, like, feared at Fresno City.

I killed the class, bro. Annihilated it. That's when I see the lights behind me start to flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on. Then I parked the car, popped out, closed the door, and I started running. and he pulls out a burner, shank. It's like six inches.

And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this.

He was the reason I made it out of that place alive. And Fresno, you know, you hear about that

from being in Oregon. You heard, hey, Fresno, that is the dregs.

Yeah.

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