The, Run, Running, Out, They 're Coming ! By Jose Garcia

Reading The Night We Became People Again was a pleasant and refreshing experience. By comparing Jose Luis Gonzalez's tale with the work of his contemporaries, we see his style of writing is different. His way of developing a plot is more lively and cheerful; he even includes humor in many of his dialogs and events. In The Night We Became People Again, Jose Luis Gonzalez is telling the story of the day his first son was born. He starts off with a normal day at work when a longtime and mentally challenged friend of him, Crazytop, rams in and announces Jose's wife is in labor. They both rush out and face a few setbacks along the way, like a power outage during their ride in the subway. Soon enough, he arrives and gets the opportunity to greet

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 the story, ”Like Mexicans” by author Gary Soto explains how he was always told him to marry a girl from his same ethnicity, but unexpectedly fell in love and married a Japanese girl. Sotos grandmother advised him to marry a girl that fitted the stereotype of a Mexican girl. He decided to ask his mom about the issue. His mom agreed that if he were to find a righteous Mexican women to marry her. Soto decides to ask Scott as well, who happened to be a second generation okie. An okie was what his grandma would call any person that was from a different ethnicity than them. They talk about their future how one day they hope to reach the American Dream. They share the same vision of marrying someone. It was shocking to him, that he ended up marrying a Japanese woman because he never imagined marrying someone that wasn 't Mexican. When he was twenty years old, he fell in love with a girl that he knew his grandma would be concerned about. Soto told his mom about the woman and how she was the one for him and the more he talked about her the more his mom seemed to be worried. That’s when he realized that his mother wanted him to marry someone from his own social class. Everyone agreed that indeed he wasn 't good enough for his fiancee. One day Carolyn took Soto to her home to meet her parents. Soto was nervous, until he sees her house and how alike their houses looked. He acknowledges how alike their ethnicities were, mainly in the economic sense. As Soto is in the roadway he

Richard Ramirez’s chances at a normal life were greatly reduced by biology, but his environment certainly did not lead him toward a good future. Julian was a very abusive father and Richard witnessed him beating his older brother on several occasions. In spite of the violence and negativity that he faced every, people in his life thought of him as “a good boy” until he was about ten years old. (Bruno, 2012) Around that time, Richard’s Cousin Michael, a former Green Beret for the United States military, returned to El Paso from Vietnam. Richard and Mike spent most of their time together doing drugs and discussing the violence that Mike experienced during his deployment. Mike told him about the women who he beat, tortured, and raped just for pleasure, and Richard was very intrigued with his gruesome details and photos. At age

In the book Punished by Victor Rios, he presents the argument that the consistent labeling by every state run institution that cast young Latinos as criminals or cast “at risk youth” expected to commit crimes is symptomatic of the social structures that creature the criminalization process of young Latinos. Non-state institutions as well as parents, who often seek help from them, are often advised to

And about two-thirds are there for either property or violent crimes” (Lopez, 2016). “A lot of mainstream media attention goes to the federal prison system and war on drugs. But most people in prison are held at the state level, and they 're usually in for violent offenses” (Lopez, 2016). In this theory it is notable that predominantly Black and Latinos are receiving longer and tougher sentences. "Tough on crime" policies that are still with us today are the reason for Mass Incarceration (Lopez, 2016).

Imprisonment is more common in some social groups than others and makes it easier for racial groups to fall into that stereotype. It becomes more widely expected for groups such as Black males and even Hispanics when they live in the low income communities. At some point one in three Black males and one in six Hispanics will be incarcerated at some point in their life (Berg, & DeLisi, 2006). Nationwide, African American men are confined at 9.6 times the rate of White men.

In Ramirez’s view, economic need creates “interdependence and closeness.” In the barrio, when you are poor, which most of the residence are, you will do anything to help your family out, even if you are a kid. Children in the

The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela is arguably the most important novel of the Mexican Revolution because of how it profoundly captures the atmosphere and intricacies of the occasion. Although the immediate subject of the novel is Demetrio Macias - a peasant supporter of the Mexican Revolution -, one of its extensive themes is the ambivalence surrounding the revolution in reality as seen from a broader perspective. Although often poetically revered as a ‘beautiful’ revolution, scenes throughout the novel paint the lack of overall benevolence even among the protagonist revolutionaries during the tumultuous days of the revolution. This paper will analyze certain brash characteristics of the venerated revolution as represented by Azuela’s

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”.

Gonzalez’s arrest sends a different message: face further abuse or get deported. This is cruel and untenable choice. It’s also dangerous; already, far too few undocumented victims seek protection.

The story illustrates the overlapping influences of women’s status and roles in Mexican culture, and the social institutions of family, religion, economics, education, and politics. In addition, issues of physical and mental/emotional health, social deviance and crime, and social and personal identity are

The Mass Incarceration in the United States is a major topic of discussion in our society and has raised many questions about our criminal justice system. There are few topics disputed as much in criminal justice as the relationship between race, ethnicity, and criminal outcomes. Specifically, the large disparities that minorities face regarding incarceration in our country. Minorities such as Hispanics and African Americans are sentenced at far higher rates than their white counterparts. There are multiple factors that influence this such as the judicial system, racial profiling by law enforcement, and historical biases (Kamula, Clark-Coulson, Kamula, 2010). Additionally, the defendants race was found to be highly associated with either a jail or prison sentence; with the “odds increasing 29 percent for black defendants, and 44 percent for Hispanic defendants” (King, Johnson, McGeever, 2010).

This is the story of Victor a homeless man in Chicago. Victor used to live with his brother until he died from a heart attack and with nowhere else to go he was forced to live in a shelter. He never felt safe in the shelter, for one the living conditions were poor, there was an outbreak of bedbugs, and others living in the shelter were difficult to get along with and often stole his belongings. In the end he decided he was better off living on the streets than he was staying in the shelter, although this choice came with risks. Victor tells us of the time he was sleeping on a train and someone stabbed him and tried to rob him of cash that he’d been saving up to afford a steady place to stay.

Stories,” mainly because I personally live in the Los Angeles area and my parents grew up in parts of South Central and East Los Angeles as children. I found this this book would be most relatable to myself, since I am a Latina and my parents who have experiences a tremendous amount of discrimination, poverty, and violence in the past. They have over came these obstacles and were determined to provide my siblings and I with a brighter future. While researching a little more into the subject matter, I found that my initial perceptions on this book were true. Luis Rodriguez wrote this book to give his neighborhood of East Los Angeles a voice, in order to bring awareness to the unfortunate experiences that many, like my parents, have had to go through. My parents have shared many of their personal experiences while growing up in such a tough neighborhood and I was extremely interested in listening to the stories of