Always Running Rodriguez Analysis

In Always Running, is the memoir of Luis Rodriguez battles an external conflict of having to be threatened by the police because he is involved in a gang. Luis ultimately resolves this conflict by making a huge change and leaving the gang and going back school and becoming an activist person; however, this choice also illustrates his true character as a motivation person. Luis’s decision to stay motivated also reveals the universal theme because it’s never too late to make a change in life and also fight for what is right.

Prior to being assigned the reading of the memoir “Always Running”, by Luis Rodriguez, I had never given much thought on juveniles involved in gang life. Rodriguez achieved success as an award-winning poet; sure the streets would no longer haunt him - until his own son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in the vivid memoir, “Always Running.” “Always Running” is the compilation of events Luis experienced during his youth in San Gabriel. The theme of the book is to always strive for the best things in life and to always take a stand for what you believe. Lured by the seemingly invincible gang culture of East L.A., he witnessed countless shootings and beatings, as well as senseless acts of street crime against his friends and family members. As a Latino in a poor neighborhood, Luis struggled through criticism, stereotypes, and mistreatment. With the help of his mentor, Chente, Luis saw a way out through education and the power of word to successfully break free from years of violence and desperation.

In Always Running, Luis J. Rodriguez recalls his time growing up in Los Angeles during the 60s and 70s. Rodriguez writes of the hardships that his family had first encountered while trying to assimilate into American society and how he would often, while growing up, be criminalized by his teachers, law enforcement, other people, his peers, his community, and eventually people who cared most for him. Rodriguez recalls the times where he and some friends came together and created a family, a brotherhood of sort, in order to fulfill his need of belonging, but as other people in the community had also formed groups to consolidate power, thus marked the beginning of rivalry and the introduction of gangs. Rodriguez’s gang life had been filled with tragedies and filled with great times, but ultimately he tried to leave the life of crime and commit to an education. Rodriguez tried stepping away from the gang lifestyle by going to school and writing poetry, but ended up back in the life of crime after a serious altercation with the police. When Rodriguez went back to his gang lifestyle, he found the same gang that treated him as a brother, had shunned him away after Rodriguez had offered a solution to wither away the gang violence.

European history and British literature are perfectly fine classes in most American high schools, however the government has deemed that Hispanic-culture related classes are unacceptable, despite the positive results shown by the students. The prohibition of the ethnic studies program might revert the student to their old ways of dropping out of high school, which would essentially take away the chicanos’ chance of succeeding in getting a career and obtaining a college education. This is only one example of how minorities may not have equal opportunities as the white majority does due to institutional

Always Running by Luis Rodriguez includes several different social issues. For example, there is a lot of hate towards Luis because of his ethnicity. He was constantly bullied because of the language he spoke and where he came from. If Luis spoke Spanish in school, then he

Who is willing to die just to be part of gang? In the book Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez, the author tells a true about his past and how he was involved in gangs and a lot of violence during the time. Once Luis joined the gang, the leader forced him to commit terrible crimes that harmed not just other people, but himself. I believe that gangs and violence should be discontinued because they cause a rift in communities. For example, Luis loses a lot of his friends due to the brutality that he played part in. Eventually, Luis had the chance to escape the affiliation because he was shot by their rival gang known as The Thamos. Surprisingly, Luis survived the attack and he went forth with changing his life by becoming a journalist and getting

The novel ‘Runner’ by Robert Newton describes the slums of Richmond, where life was really difficult for the Feehan family and the general community. Charlie Feehan is lucky enough to win the prime job, running messages for Squizzy Taylor, who is the most dangerous gangster in Melbourne. But things start to get a little too dangerous for Charlie so he decides to quit the job and run in the Ballarat Mile Race. Life was tough in Richmond and it was the support and love that family and friends gave each other that gave everyone the fuel needed to keep going through these difficult times. The following points will be discussed throughout this extended response; Mr Redmond’s family looking out for the Feehan’s, Charlie using his money for Alice’s

Chapter one talks about gang’s early history, prison gangs did not start in prison, they had to be street gangs; Mexican Street gangs have been in California since the 1900. Mexican street gangs from the south side of Los Angeles had over 50,000 members 600 from different gangs. The founder of the Duell Vocational Institution (DVI) from Tracy, California was a man named Luis “Huero Buff” Flores. The original members of these street gangs we not in fact Mexican nationals but Citizens of the US. A majority of them spoke English and Calo and very few, close to none spoke Spanish. What shocked the author was that the members of the gang were at some point in time were rivals on the street. Flores created the gang but did not run it, the book says he made it so no one man controls the gang but instead everyone voted, and the majority won. He wanted all members to have equality.

Always Running In the novel Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez, the main character “Grillo” is trying to find a way to better himself and beat the street and gang life of South Central Los Angeles. The author Luis Rodriguez wrote the book about his childhood and teen years, so he did beat the streets and he also became a famous author. In order to accomplish this goal he had to overcome many obstacles throughout his life. One of the obstacles was school and education.

The movie Boyz N the Hood is an illustration of how a group of early adolescents’ lives was affected negatively due to the environment they lived in. These adolescents lived in an environment where drugs, gangs, and shootings were the center of their community. Living in a predominantly African American community these adolescents were faced with many misfortunes. Ricky one of the adolescent characters I have decided to evaluate for this particular paper was faced with adversity.

When reading this autobiography it reminded me of my adolescent years; I remember feeling like I knew all there was to being a grown up, I also felt like my parents didn’t know much because they didn’t go to college. I strongly feel like they could have always done more than they were doing. Upon reading this, I felt as though I was reading Richard Rodriguez’s journal and he was a very unhappy kid living in the ghetto. He was also embarrassed of his own life and he seemed unhappy in his own skin... “(Ways of reading pg.339) A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget that success was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student”.

The Mendez v Westminster case of 1946 ultimately attempted to create an education system that strived to promote success for children of Mexican descent by desegregating the public schools in California. Racist individuals dominated society by supporting these segregated schools which lacked a full staff and satisfactory teaching materials, thus inhibiting Latino youth from attaining a noteworthy educational experience. A photograph of Hoover Elementary, a “Mexican” school, found in the Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections shows the horrible

The work benefits from Goffman’s hands-on approach. She befriends her subjects and reports on their daily lives and struggles to give the reader a portrait of the struggles and systematic bias that a member of the black community faces all the time. The piece is anecdotal and reads more like a novel, giving the issues more color and heart as opposed to abstract paper. The benefit this will give you in a presentation of the criminalization and over-incarceration of black bodies are real, heartbreaking stories of people who are constantly on the run. The pitfall of On the Run is the author’s many degrees of separation from her subjects in terms of a societal role and didn’t expand much beyond how her stories of her subjects contribute to an overall larger narrative of similar experiences faced by black people across the

“That one has a jail-cell with his name on it”, (Ferguson 1). A quote this powerful lays a foundation of the stories shared within the book Bad Boys.  This book allows us to see how the public school system is shaping black masculinity, and the affect it brings on these young boys.Yet, in the book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, it tells us about  Robert’s struggle from poverty, the streets of Newark, and his education at Yale. These two books give us a powerful message. One that allows us to see the underlying triumphs Black men face. With poverty, biases, prejudices, and many more obstacles thrown in their path, they will always be set to prove themselves. The odds are constantly against them, as they are seen and viewed as

“The Republic of East L.A. Stories” captures the heartbreaking experiences Mexican-American’s were forced to endure. Escaping poverty, alcohol abuse, drug use, and gang violence was an everyday struggle for many families during this time. African American and Latino gangs were initially created as a response to white racism. They were restricted as to what areas they could live in and where constantly harassed. As their populations increased, so did white gangs, in order to take control of their “territory”. African Americans and Latinos had no choice but to protect their families by fighting back. As time went on, the violence only continued. The Civil Rights Movement led many gang members to join organizations like the Black Panther Party, but the government quickly responded by breaking them up and soon enough, street gangs quickly returned. The violence escalated, alcohol,