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Diego Anguiano grew up in South El Monte with his parents and brothers. Despite being surrounded by gangs and experimenting with drugs, Diego was able pull through the hard times and graduate High School. After graduating he created a meme page for and about El Monte on Facebook. El Monte Memes took off and soon he a had hundreds and then thousands of followers on the page. After seeing multiple copies of his page and content appear on Instagram Diego decided to take it into his own hands and made an official El Monte Memes account on Instagram, currently at 50k+ followers. Besides keeping both accounts active Diego also works for other social media accounts, including one for PACKS SGV in El Monte.
“I didn’t see everything that was going on. I mean, I lived in a pretty bad neighborhood. There’s, like, drive-bys every day, people dying, a lot of people doing drugs. You know? But I was a kid, and I didn’t see much of it.”
“I was doing drugs, and I have a younger brother and we started sharing drugs. We started keeping that away from our family, and we’d just be in our room sharing drugs. We started doing meth.”
I was stepping up and trying to defend my mom and my little brother and stuff like that. So that’s the point where I became a man, you know, because my father stepped down, and I saw him do this stuff. And I remember on his birthday, probably when I was 15 years old, he put a gun to his head.”
“Once I graduated high school, I was still having trouble coping with the drugs and stuff like that. And I felt like when I got my FIRST tattoo, it really helped me get away from doing drugs and stuff like that. I felt like it was a shield for me. That’s why I have so many tattoos.”
“There’ll be certain memes that would blow up that would get, like, 100,000 likes and stuff like that. So it was just, like, crazy. You know? I was stunned. I never had that type of popularity in my life, you know, for myself. I’m an outcast.”
Diego was born and raised in South El Monte. Technically, it was Greater El Monte, and Diego says that folks say don’t go there unless you want to die. It was a pretty rough area.
South El Monte is much more industrial. There are more factors and blue-collar workers in that area.
For the most part, life was good for Diego Anguiano. When he was younger, like most kids, he did not have any responsibilities. He was able to just be a kid and he was pretty oblivious to all of the bad things happening in the neighborhood. Things like drive-bys, people dying, intense amounts of drug activity. Once Diego got older, he started realizing that it wasn’t the type of environment that he should be growing up in.
It was around the time that Diego was in high school. He started noticing how his close friends and family were dying. Also, Diego started getting into drugs around that time. When he was 14 years old, he started smoking weed, which transitioned to methamphetamines. Diego and his brother would share drugs in their rooms. Then, they started stealing and selling drugs themselves.
When they were younger, it was good. In fact, Diego’s parents were very strict with Diego and his brother. They weren’t allowed to go out very often. Slowly, however, Diego’s brother started going out to the streets and getting involved in gang life. For the most part, Diego stayed inside and played video games or was on his computer. He loved editing videos. Around that time, Diego’s father developed a drinking habit and became an alcoholic. It got so bad that Diego’s father put a gun to his head on his birthday. His father was seriously considering taking his life.
Thankfully, Diego’s father is clean and still working. He’s in his sixties and doing well.
Diego started intensely using drugs during his senior year of High School. He was doing drugs every day. He would do a line of meth, go to school, smoke a blunt, and then go back home and do more lines. His brother was just as addicted. Thankfully, Diego stopped completely about two weeks before graduating. Diego’s brother had to go to a mental hospital.
It was hard for Diego to muster the ambition to do anything. He barely graduated, had just recently stopped doing drugs, and hadn’t applied to any colleges. He was doing everything he could just to recover. He stayed home to stay away from the temptation of any drugs. Unfortunately, Diego relapsed after high school from smoking synthetic marijuana. His mother ended up giving him an ultimatum – telling him he either needed to stop drugs completely or he was going to be kicked out of the house.
Diego always felt a bit like the black sheep. Not because of the drugs but actually due to the opposite. While his family was caving into drugs and alcohol and becoming involved in the gang lifestyle, Diego was rocking a mohawk and preferred staying home, playing video games, and watching YouTube videos.
Diego got his first tattoo shortly after graduating from high school. After his first tattoo, he realized it helped get him away from drugs and toxic activities like that. In a way, tattoos were a shield, protecting Diego from that lifestyle. That is why he believes he has so many tattoos.
Diego’s son is 3 years old as of the recording of this podcast (2024). Diego lives at home, and he loves seeing how his son interacts with his parents. After all of the terrible experiences they went through, it feels good to still be around family and have everyone doing well.
2020 was a very dark time for Diego. He went into a dark place, drank a lot, and got a face tattoo. Around that time, he received a phone call from a man who wanted to open up a shop in the city. He wanted to get Diego involved because of how well his meme page was performing online. The meme page idea actually came about when Diego was smoking with his friends. He thought a page that posted funny and ridiculous content about the city would be fun. It ended up being a huge blessing for Diego.
Diego loves it. It helps him feel in tune with the community. He has folks come up to him and take pictures and he will post about their businesses online. He still does about three or four posts a day on El Monte memes.
Diego believes its friendliness. That is the slogan – ‘Welcome to friendly El Monte.’
It blows Diego’s mind and makes him trip out. He honestly cannot believe so many people view the page. He is amazed and absolutely grateful.
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Music Credits
Intro
Like it Loud, Dyalla, YouTube Audio Library
Stinger
Scarlet Fire (Sting), Otis McDonald, YouTube Audio Library
Outro
Indecision, Dyalla, YouTube Audio Library
