Luis Rodriguez

Delinquency History: Shoplifting, burglary, robbery and attempted murder in relation to his membership in a gang. Spent time in jail, both as a juvenile, and for a short time as an adult. Arrested for disturbing the peace at an antiwar march.

Sitting in the back of a black bus chained to other young Chicano boys and men, his head still groggy from the blow of a sheriff's billy club, and his eyes still burning from a macing, 16-year-old Luis Rodriguez wondered what was in store for him.

Earlier that day, August 29, 1970, he was one of 30,000 Chicano protesters gathered in East L.A.'s Belvedere Park to oppose the Vietnam War. Still a member of South San Gabriel's Las Lomas gang, Rodriguez was beginning to shed his gang "jacket" as he became swept up in a new kind of youth empowerment brewing in the barrios—community organizing and political protest.

The bus' first stop was at juvenile hall but there was no room so Rodriguez was taken back to L.A. County Jail. Though it was illegal, the police held Rodriguez and the three other teens, including a terrified boy of 13, in the adult facility. They soon moved the four boys into the Hall of Justice jail, known as the Glasshouse, and tossed them into "murderer's row" where the most hardcore criminals awaited trial. In the cell next to the boys was none other than Charles Manson, who soon began ranting and raving racial slurs and urging the few white inmates to kill them all.

But Manson's ravings were only the beginning of Rodriguez's problems. Within minutes after being placed in the cell, one of the murderers pressed a razor against Rodriguez's throat while several others covetously eyed the other boys. For Rodriguez, it was do or die. He knew that if he showed fear, he and the other boys could probably be raped or killed.

Years of La Vida Loca, "The Crazy Life"—gang membership, violence, drugs and watching friends die—had prepared Rodriguez for this moment. He stared down his assailant, signaling that he would not go down without a fight. The older cons backed down and left the other boys alone.

They began shoplifting food, but quickly moved to stealing cars, ripping off homes and sticking up trucks and stores for bigger loot.

Although he survived, Rodriguez calls the time he spent in adult jail "his ten days in hell." Throughout this stay, he kept up his front but feared that at a moment's notice he or one of the other boys would be assaulted. "Placing kids in adult jail cells is a guarantee that you will destroy them," says Rodriguez. Those who are assaulted "can't whine, can't cry, and can't tell nobody" because the abuse will only grow worse. Those, like him, who were not assaulted, are still harmed because they are forced to ally themselves with more criminally sophisticated adults.

Rodriguez's teenage encounter with Charles Manson is just one of many compelling stories recounted in his highly acclaimed memoir, Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. The book chronicles every step in Rodriguez's evolution from a hardcore gang member to an accomplished poet and author. Rodriguez's life is a testament to the resiliency of children, their capacity for change, and the important role that committed adults must play in helping them gain control of their destinies.

Born in El Paso, Texas in 1954, Rodriguez was the son of a high school principal in a large town on the Mexican side of the border. Shortly after Rodriguez's birth, Rodriguez's father was jailed after a dispute with local politicians. As soon as he was released, the family fled Mexico for the barrios of South Central and East L.A. where they ultimately settled in a neighborhood known as South San Gabriel.

Describing himself as a "shy and broken down" kid, Rodriguez was drawn to the gang life at 11. "We didn't call them gangs," says Rodriguez, "they were clubs or clicas," loose affiliations of neighborhood teens who bonded together for self-protection against other teens and abusive police officers. Shortly after Rodriguez and three friends formed their first club, "The Impersonations," Rodriguez's family moved to a new neighborhood smack in the middle of the territory presided over by the area's two largest gangs—Las Lomas and Sangra.

For a while, Rodriguez and three friends tried to operate outside the confines of the two rival gangs. They began shoplifting food from the local grocery store but quickly moved to stealing cars for a local chop shop operator. They then started ripping off homes and sticking up trucks and stores for bigger loot. But Las Lomas and Sangra began taking over all outside clubs to consolidate their power. Rodriguez and his friends were forced to choose.

Rodriguez chose Las Lomas and was initiated into the gang with a barrage of blows and kicks from steel-tipped boots. Later on the night of his initiation, Rodriguez and the other newcomers were piled into a pickup and driven into rival Sangra territory. The truck pulled up beside a group of teens in a Desoto who were listening to music and drinking beer. Soon, tire irons and two-by fours were raining down on the boys' heads and destroying their car.

From his perch in the pickup, Rodriguez observed the beating but felt almost oblivious to it. He was shaken from his stupor when an older Lomas leader suddenly thrust a rusty screwdriver into his hand and led him to one of the wounded boys. "Do it," directed the leader. Rodriguez followed orders, stabbing the already injured driver in the arm. He was now a full-fledged member of Lomas.

As Rodriguez's criminal activity escalated, so did his drug use. He started using drugs when he was 12, sniffing spray paint, aerosol, gasoline and anything else that would give him a cheap high. After a friend had to use mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive him, he stopped sniffing and moved on to reds (downers) and whites (uppers). Heroin soon followed. The drugs numbed his emotions and tended to meliorate Rodriguez's rage rather than fuel it.

By 15, Rodriguez had been expelled from school and thrown out of his house by his mother, who had tired of picking him up from police stations and waiting up nights wondering whether he'd come home alive. He lived on the streets for a while, sleeping on the floors of friends' houses, crashing in fields, in parks, in cars, or wherever he could get some sleep. He felt hopeless and contemplated suicide, even taking a blade to his wrists on one occasion.

The Youth Center director, Chente Ramirez, agreed to mentor Luis on one condition: he had to reenroll in high school.

As the violence between Las Lomas and Sangra gangs escalated and the death toll mounted, the South San Gabriel community rallied to halt the violence and reclaim their youth. Funded by federal anti-poverty money, community centers sprung up throughout East L.A.'s barrios, offering dropout programs, job placements, counseling and recreational and cultural opportunities for young people. Rodriguez hung out with other Lomas members at the John Fabela Youth Center (named after a fallen comrade), where he first met the Youth Center's director, whom he gives the pseudonym Chente Ramirez in his book.

"Youth is youth for a good reason. Youth are very malleable and it is society's obligation to try to change them: I am living proof of the capacity for change."

Ramirez played a pivotal role in changing Rodriguez's world view, channeling his rage into a constructive activism and assisting him to leave the gang. Rodriguez was instantly drawn to Ramirez, a former counselor for the California Youth Authority, an experienced community organizer and a native of East L.A.'s barrios who had come back after college.

Ramirez was drawn to Rodriguez, attracted by his thirst for learning. As a youth, Rodriguez had read all the history books about Mexico he could find in the library. He also read books like Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land and Alex Haley's The Autobiography of Malcolm X and later Puerto Rican Piri Thomas' Down These Mean Streets, autobiographical novels which spoke to and inspired Rodriguez. Ramirez agreed to mentor Rodriguez on one condition: Rodriguez had to reenroll in high school.

Rodriguez agreed to give high school a second chance. He immediately became a leader of the Chicano student club and soon led the charge to break down the barriers between white and Mexican students. He and a female co-leader became the first Mexicans to be the school's mascots "Joe and Josephine Aztec"—dazzling the judges with their well rehearsed authentic folkloric routine in full Aztec costume dress. He also organized a successful walkout for Chicano studies, helped open up the football team to Mexican players and convinced the school to make soccer a school-sponsored sport.

Rodriguez's creative side also blossomed. Inspired by a book of Mexican muralists, Rodriguez led teams of youth gang members throughout the nearby city of Rosemead, painting vivid and colorful murals, doing their best to copy the Mexican masters Rivera, Siquieros, and Orozco. He began writing in earnest, compiling his thoughts and reflections on gang life in a journal and pounding out a weekly column in the school's newspaper.

But just as Rodriguez's life started to turn around, he was pulled off course by "La Vida Loca." When a friend from Lomas was jumped and called a greaser by a neighborhood club of white bikers, Rodriguez was recruited to participate in the payback. He shot one of the bikers, was arrested as he fled the scene, and was charged with attempted murder.

Ramirez came to the rescue. He helped get Rodriguez out of jail and convinced Rodriguez's parents to take him back in. The bikers refused to identify Rodriguez as the shooter, choosing instead to pin the rap on the boy who had lent Rodriguez the gun and with whom they had a long- running beef. Rodriguez's life was back on course.

When Rodriguez returned to school, he learned that he had won a writing contest, earning him $250, a publishing contract and a plane ride—his first—to Berkeley. Unbeknownst to him, Ms. Baez, a school counselor, had entered Rodriguez's work in a Chicano literary contest. Rodriguez graduated high school and with Ms. Baez's and Ramirez's assistance, he received an Economic Opportunity Program ("EOP") Grant to attend California State University.

Rodriguez began California State in Los Angeles in the fall of 1972, majoring in Broadcast Journalism and Chicano studies. He worked odd-jobs to help pay for college, joined Mexican clubs at school and wrote for a club's newspaper. He also trained and organized youth from neighboring high schools. He met a beautiful girl, Camila Martinez, who would later become his wife. But a chance encounter with the L.A. County Sheriffs again set him back.

At a club one evening outside the barrio, Rodriguez saw several L.A. County Sheriffs assaulting a woman. When he called out for them to leave her alone, they pounced on him, cuffed him, and tossed him into a squad car. He was charged with assaulting a police officer and, for the first time in his life, faced hard prison time as an adult.

On the day of his trial, Rodriguez's Public Defender urged Rodriguez to enter a plea. Rodriguez wanted to tell his side of the story but the PD kept saying the judge would never believe him over the deputies. Ramirez urged Rodriguez to take the deal. Rodriguez swallowed his pride and pled guilty to drunk and disorderly conduct even though he wasn't drunk. He had to spend nearly three months in a jail, but he escaped a longer stint in state prison.

His jail time set him too far back to continue at Cal State. He stayed in the barrio, worked odd jobs and attempted to mediate a truce in the still-brewing gang war between Lomas and Sangra. Viewed as a traitor, Rodriguez became a target of members of his own gang. When several life-long friends opened fire at him, he was finally ready to leave the gang. Ramirez again came to his rescue, hiding Rodriguez in a San Pedro housing project and helping him find work outside the barrio.

For the next seven years, Rodriguez worked in steel mills, foundries, and construction sites in the industrial corridor that ringed L.A. He continued his community and organizing work and stayed out of the barrio and the gang life. He married Camila and had two children, a daughter, Andrea, and a son, Ramiro.

But something was missing. His new life, consumed with work, left little time for writing. Without an outlet to unleash his pain, he began to drink heavily. His marriage crumbled and Rodriguez soon saw little of his two small children.

This time, writing brought Rodriguez out of his despair. When he was fired from his job in 1979, he moved back to East L.A. and got a job paying $100 a week working for an East L.A. paper. He went back to school, got a certificate in a journalism training program and soon began working regularly as a crime reporter for a San Bernardino daily. Unable to find a newspaper job at a big Los Angeles daily, in 1985, he moved to Chicago.

In Chicago, Rodriguez's career took off. He published two books of poems, Poems Across the Pavement and The Concrete River, both of which won prestigious literary awards. He founded Tia Chucha Press, a company dedicated to publishing the works of young, mostly minority literary voices.

In 1993, Rodriguez wrote Always Running and dedicated the book to 25 close friends who died during his days in Las Lomas. He also wrote the book as a gift to his own son, Ramiro, who had moved to Chicago to live with Rodriguez as a teenager but soon thereafter joined a gang. Rodriguez was unable to keep Ramiro from following in his footsteps. In 1997, Ramiro was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 28 years in prison.

The tragedy of losing Ramiro to "La Vida Loca" brought Rodriguez's whole family closer together and helped crystallize for Rodriguez what he wanted to do next with his life.

"I tried to save Ramiro but he saved me," says Rodriguez, referring to the fact that he has become a more attentive father to his children (he has two other children, 10-year-old Ruben and 4-year-old Rodriguez Jacinto) and a better husband to his wife Trini. He has finally stopped drinking and has poured his heart and soul into Youth Struggling for Survival ("YSS"), a program he founded to help Ramiro and other gang members transcend violence and gang involvement.

YSS is Rodriguez's attempt to replicate the type of mentoring program developed by Ramirez a generation earlier in East L.A. Through the program, which involves 15 youth and eight adults, Rodriguez aims to help young people take charge of their lives. The program builds trusting and respectful relationships between youth and elders, exposes the youth to a heavy dose of the arts and culture and empowers them by giving them leadership roles in keeping the peace within the community.

Ramiro's experience has also inspired Rodriguez to step up his advocacy efforts on behalf of youth. He now speaks out forcefully against many of today's policies, like trying children as adults. "Youth is youth for a good reason" says Rodriguez. When youth commit murder, "it is a grave crime" but it is not "an adult crime."

"Youth are very malleable and it is society's obligation to try to change them: I am living proof of the capacity for change."