The 'bad girls' of gangland LA: Janette Beckman's best photograph

They'd had to have their car repainted because it got covered in blood when someone was shot'

I was staying with a friend in Los Angeles in 1983, documenting the punk scene when I saw a story in LA Weekly about this Mexican American gang the Hoyo Maravilla. Nobody much thought about East LA and the different communities there. I was fascinated by this culture that I, especially being British, wasn't aware of.

I tracked down the story's writer and he agreed to introduce me. I brought along a box of my prints of punks, mods and rockabillies that I'd been documenting in London for magazines such as the Face and Melody Maker and I said: These are the gangs of London. I'd like to take photographs of you to show to the kids in London what's going on in LA." I spent much of that summer hanging out in a hot, dusty park that was the gathering spot for the Hoyo Maravilla.