Book Review: Always Running By Luis Rodriguez

Rodriguez lost all connection with his family. He was unable to converse with them he had grown so far apart. Rodriguez felt “embarrassed” to embrace his personal background. He spoke of when his parents came to school and could not not speak English fluently and how it made him embarrassed because he did not want to profess his ethical background.

This separation from his family caused a longing in his life. But this longing was superseded by what he suspected his teachers could give him. Rodriguez develops a double personality of sorts. The person he is at home, the polite child who lovingly does what his parents ask of him. And then the academic persona he

Can you imagine having to join a brutal gang for your own safety? That's exactly what Luis Rodriguez had to do. In Always Running Luis shares how his life changed when he had to join a gang for his safety and demonstrates how all the drugs and violence affected both him and his loved ones. In this memoir, Rodriguez shows how his identity and life was affected by the brutal environment of gangs by giving us a peek into the mind of a teenage gang member.

Growing up in East Los Angeles was especially rough for a young Latino teen. The area where he grew up in was full of violence and drugs. In order to be able to live there, you have to have a strong sense of character to avoid all the temptations that the gang life can provide you with. You need to have an even stronger character to even get involved with a gang in the first place. I’m saying this because once you are in a gang there is only 3 ways out: going to jail, a hospital, or the cemetery. For young Luis, living these experiences with his homies gave him a sense of belonging. There’s nothing more self fulfilling than thinking you’re a part of something. It’s even better when all of your friends are involved as well. Getting accepted as one of the gang was great for young Luis. His initiation was to fight 5 guys and stay standing by the end. This way of initiation is mandatory for all those affiliated in it. They test your strength and loyalty to the gang when they jump you in. For

In the the story Always Running Luis the main character had many changes in his life. From being the innocent kid to becoming the violent, drug addict, gang member teenager. Luis’s character changes when he becomes involved in gangs, starts using drugs, and loses interest in education. These changes made Luis a whole different person. Besides being violent he also became suicidal and depressed.

In chapter 1 of “Always Running” by Luis J. Rodriguez, it starts off as Rodriguez reminiscing about his family, when he was young and how it was growing up. Rodriguez begins to explain that his father was a principle of a school in mexico, and his mother was a school secretary. Both Rodriguez parents were unable to find a job within their profession in the U.S. This really describes how Rodriguez and his family grew up and how their lives were hard to live. As I read through chapter 1, it explains how he and his family had to move often because of financial problems, his ethnicity was a major factor in his life too. He recalls being discriminated against because of his race, he also recalls being pushed aside because his first language was

In the beginning of the story, Luis Rodriguez talks about how Los Angeles alone has over 800 documented gangs. Also the city is home to over 120,000 gang members Luis Rodriguez states. Luis says that he is raising a son in the barrio, a mexican gang in South LA. One reason why he writes this story is because he is raising a child in this area. He calls Los Angeles the gang capital of the world. His son later on gets convicted for a crime.

As he gets older his life with gangs started to appear. He tried the gang life doing it with his brother, whom he admired. After the top gang in the area lost their leader. Luis joined a gang called “Lomas” and and took over. Later from this Luis and his brother soon

It started with him and his 3 friends, which created a gang called, “the impersonations”. He didn’t feel loved, when he went to his gang he didn’t have to seek company, they were just there. To demonstrate that he is determined, “there are choices you have to make not just once, but every time they come up,” (132). This is meaning that he has multiple chances to get away from the gang life but it’s a constant thing.

Therefore, for a lot of black families the mother was the head of the household. In this case, without a father figure in their life, a young African American youth would find it difficult to avoid going down a criminal lifestyle because of the lack of a father figure guiding them through these difficult stages. Even worse, if the father figure is gangster himself, then a young black youth would find it nearly impossible to try and avoid gangs. In the film, one gangster said that he was simply born into the gang life without even knowing why, and not having a positive father figure can be a big factor. In A Better Life the Mexican family is depicted as a kind of patriarchy. Family is the most important aspect in a Mexican family where the father is the head of the household and the mother is the moral center. With Luis’ mother abandoning him during his infancy, Luis was faced with a serious issue as he did not have this moral center guiding him throughout his youth. This could have played a major factor in his association

¨La Vida Loca¨. What is ¨ La Vida loca”, what it means is in the book is living the crazy life filled with drugs, sex, gangs, violence etc. Luis Rodriguez shares his life and what he went through when he was a teenager. He also shares how he got involved in “La Vida Loca” through his book Always Running. Rodriguez also wrote about his life through his poems one if them being “Mean Streets”and also “Watts Bleeds”.

School districts feel they need to take out fiction books because they feel the non fictions books have more benefits than fiction books. Some believe that non fiction book are more accurate than fiction books because they focus on real life events. They think that if they take out fiction books everyone will read non-fiction books and people will understand and learn what life is really like. I have found an article, and in this article it talks about how a school district took out some fiction books from the school. The students were affected because if they start taking fiction books now, then what will the students generations from now read? Now it's not only affecting us, it's affecting other generations after us.I think we should have a say in what we read and what we don't. If school districts make us read only non fiction books ,then most of the students in the schools won't be as interested to read because the books may not be ast interesting. Schools districts across America are removing a fundamental part of educational

Despite the school board’s recent sentiments regarding the lack of value that fiction provides, fiction should remain in the school’s curriculum due to the life lessons, improves empathy, and expands your vocabulary. The first claim

In the article Fiction vs. nonfiction smack down by Jay Matthews, he says, “By reading text in history/social studies, science, and other disciplines, students build a foundation of knowledge in these fields that will give them the background to be better readers in all content areas.” (page 2). If giving the students the ability to strengthen all subjects, this can help them have the chance to find some type of career to pursue in the future. Also, Matthew says, “Among other things, students are being asked to read more nonfiction, considered to by many experts to be the key success in college or workplace.” (page 1). According to Matthew, there is an important link between reading nonfiction and how it can affect the student’s future. With nonfiction being pointed as a help to student’s future and subjects they currently learn, this we can in fact see the importance of

The author, Franz Kafka struggled with being accepted and he didn't have a good relationship with his parents. On the other hand, Amanda does have a good relationship with her parents but some people still think she is responsible for the death of her roommate, so they are not accepting of her. Comparing fiction and nonfiction enhances a story because it shows that the content in fiction and nonfiction can be the same but the characters can still be different. An advantage of this would be that an event can become more interesting by including fictional characters. For example, a story can be about a family getting into a really bad car accident and the father dies but the characters in the fiction story can be rabbits and the characters in nonfiction would be humans. I think nonfiction is more interesting because I know that the piece of literature written is based on true events, so it's cool to know that it actually