Book Review

Book Review:

Always Running: Living La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.

Rosedelle A Chery

Always Running: Living La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. is a memoir written by Luis J. Rodriquez about his life in Los Angeles as a gang member, and his choice to escape to start a new life. By the time Rodriquez was 12 he was already a gang member, fighting to survive against racism, inequality and poverty. Some of the main themes of this book are man versus society and the need for family. Luis starts out as a boy heading down a path that would ultimately leads to his demise, becoming a man, only to have his son follow in his previously destructive path.

The main purpose Rodriquez wrote this memoir was to get his son to realize that a life in a gang was no life as at all. He explains, in graph detail all the fights, shootings, stabbing, death friends and everything he went threw while in a gang, hoping to get his son to change his life. Rodriquez is an American born Mexican growing in time, much like today, where Mexicans weren’t accepted and mistreated. He grew up being shuffled from place to place as his father searched for work to provide for his family. Even though his father was accomplished principal and writer in Mexico, finding a job amiss the discrimination was hard. The continuous a lack of stability and continuous fights with his siblings, left Rodriquez in desperate need of a family to call his own; this is evident when he states “I’m just a ball. Bouncing outside. Bouncing Inside. Whatever” (34). Like many gangs, Rodriquez started about in just started around with his friends, in a clique. However, after a dramatic experience with another gang at one of his school, Rodriquez felt as though he was missing and wanted power and control. Rodriquez states “I wanted to be able to bring a whole school to its knees and even make teachers squirm (42).

Growing up in one of the most dangers places in LA, most young teens felt pressure to joining a gang, for several reasons. For Rodriquez, joining a gang provided a family he could count on, power and protection from not only other gangs, but also from police and other people who attacked him because of his race. This is one of the major appeals of gangs, even today, especially growing up in poverty stricken areas. Young kids, particularly boys of minorities. Most of the time, in poor urban areas teens can feel victimized by society, which set standards that discriminates against them, leading to feelings of embitterment and powerlessness. The people that are supposed to protect, the cops, are the ones harnessing them and growing up around violence eventually desensitizes them to it. They join the most stable and familiar environment that they can find, one with friends struggling against the same causes. At this time, cites became safe haven for violence, whites continued to leave for suburbs as Mexicans moved in. James Kunstler, in his book The Geography of Nowhere, mentions that the influx to suburbs “drained [cities] of their few remaining taxpaying residents… [and] those left behind, inside the wall would develop, in their physical isolation from the suburban economy, a pathological ghetto.(pg 107)” City officials abandon these ghettos and label them slums and urban blight, along with the people in them. This was the situation that occurred on Rodriquez’s “side of the tracks” in Watt. When Rodriquez and his bother go to the “white side” to the grocery and they are brutally beaten for daring to leave their ghetto and entering the suburbs (pg 24). This, sadly, was the norm for Mexicans at that time. They were harassed by citizens and police if they didn’t say in their place, even if these were American born Mexicans.

Always Running: Living La Vida Loca: Gang Days is a perfect example of a bildungsroman. It really provides, in great detail, the development of Luis Rodriguez from a troubled young man to a successful man on the right path and father trying to save his son from going through the pain he experienced. This is probably the most interesting book I have read so far. The best thing about this book was that it was truthful and graphic. It didn’t seem as though he sugar coated anything, and you really are able to go through this experience because he lays out his truth for the world to see. The story in this book is very relatable, especially to me as a young black adult. Its allows a glimpse into the struggles that Mexicans faced, which is so similar to the struggles that Black Americans have also faced in this country. For example, when Rodriguez goes to the “white beach” with his friends and are then harassed and bullied by the cops (pg 67). Also reading about his friends dying or getting arrested reminds me of the all the young people to today, some of which were my friends, going through the same thing. I would definitely recommend this book because it is truly genuine and is applicable to today’s issues. As I read this book, I couldn’t help but to think of the new law that was passed in Arizona that allows cops to ask anyone who they think is an illegal immigrant to show documentation, this is just one step closer to reverting back to the way Mexicans were treated as described in this book. This was a great book and I truly did enjoy reading it.