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

Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation. Achieving success as an award-winning Chicano poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more -- until his son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running, a vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants. At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-learned lesson for the next generation.

Rodriguez joined his first gang at age eleven, and by age eighteen, he was a veteran of gang warfare, killings, police, drug overdoses, rapes, Mexican funerals, and suicides. He has watched his friends die one by one at such early ages as he waits his turn of his finalty. The turning point of Rodriguez's life turns out to be when he killed an innocent man as his initiation to a new gang. Because of this he was sentenced to jail where he was able to think hard about what he wanted to do with his. And now look at him he is an award winning journalist and author. but despite his successful transition he later experienced the karma of his childhood when his son Ramiro falls into the wrong crowd in their home Chicago, and joins a gang. Always Running is a novel dedicated to Ramiro Rodriguez and all the other lost children in the world who has lost hope and turned to the hellish streets of gangster life. Through his novel Luis not only shares his life experiences, but he also shares with us how he saved his son. So waste no more and read this very compelling, moving story of a father and son reunion.


LA Vida Loca: "The Wrong Life"ÿ   December 3, 1999
Nathan (California, U.S.A.)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

Always Running is a book into one man's life and his constant movement away from Mexico, drugs, gangs and relationships. Although a tough young thug schooled on the streets of Los Angeles, Louis T. Rodriguez is a promising young man, all he needs to do is look into his soul to find out who he really is. Rodriguez' unique writing style take's leaps and bounds throughout his life highlighting all of his mishaps and accomplishments. Each page draws you in with a new story each one more interesting than the last. He doesn't bore you with small detail and foreshadows a life taking turns for the worst with each new episode. From a young age he is on the move hardly able to get settled in one place with his family. He's forced to live a life of poverty on the streets where he seeks companionship. He finds it in many different gangs and men who decide to run his life for him. In gangs he learns how to use a gun, run from the cops and indulge in many elicite drugs. He's caught up in a battle between his family and the one's he's met on the street. Dropping in and out of school he's confronted by many teachers who give him direction, if he choses to accept. It's a lot like the movie Blood in Blood Out, with all the gang affiliations and subtle cries for help from young men with no where to run. Leading a crazy lifestyle Louis tries to convey a message of morality to a son who is slowly slipping into a life he has often seen.

I was so intrigued by this bookl that I hardly ever put it down. I finnished it in a matter of hours it seemed and went back over it to find new insights. I thought it grasped a much deeper side of me that wanted to know why people chose gangs. The novel painted a picture of greatness through all the trials and tribulations brought forth by an inteligent street smart man, wanting to bring hope to those like himself. I couldn't beleive how captivating it was as I could hardly wait to read about each next encounter. It had my eyes glued to the text and mind racing with enjoyment. I would recommnend the book to anyone who enjoys reading something which will change your outlook on everything. It will make you see the real person behind an iron mask of a gang lifestyle.


Always Challanging   April 6, 2006
Stan Ginsburg (North Hills, CA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Many young people face the same perils Luis Rodriguez shares in this auto biographical coming-of-age story; some overcome these challanges, while others succumb. But, how many rise as far above them as Rodriguez has?

Read chapters Six and Seven, where this dropout gang banger-by-night, drops back in and emerges as high school political organizer. Here, we are given intimate access to Rodriguez's thought processes as he resolves dramatic inner and outer conflicts, transforms his thinking, and ultimately decides to trade his unproductive life of folly, for one dedicated to social justice. It's a "makeover" of epic proportions.

Perhaps the real reason one school district attempted to ban this book from its classrooms, and a small-town Council attempted to remove it from their library (despite the outrage of the American Library Association) is not because of the sex, drugs and violence in the book, but because the book details the political transformation Rodriguez went through in becoming: first a high school organizer; second, a community organizer; and finally, an internationally-known advocate for social justice.

I've asked my high school students if the descriptions of sex in the book (mostly groping and rape) made them want to have sex; if the drug use (od's, wasting away and death) made them want to take drugs; and if the violence (shotgun blasts in the face, maming and death) made them want to be violent. They just sat and shook their heads -- no!

It's a page turner. Read it, but read it all, even the "boring" parts about trying to save a community, being shot at for advocating a gang truce, and learning how to turn anger and self-hatred into something positive.




Running out of words for this book...   November 12, 2001
LABookLover (Los Angeles, California United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

Rodriguez' book is one of the most impressive contemporary American novels I've read. He doesn't gloss over the acts of violence he participated in, but he does provide a framework for those terrible experiences that make his involvement in the LA gang scene almost inevitable. However, I was amazed that throughout the book, he never excuses himself or tries to romanticize his life. Instead, through a realist but still very readable style, Rodriguez shows that young men can change, that people without resources can make BIG differences in their communities, and that we only really see one side of the ongoing battle between the authority system and the street folk through most media. Rodriguez' story is esp. powerful b/c it's true. He lived through all this, and yet he was able not only to survive, but he inspired so many other young people from his neighborhood, and made countless positive changes in his local high school. Rodriguez sets an incredible example for young readers, giving lost kids hope, showing the public how much more can be done to fix all the injustice, and all the while giving voice to a remarkable and memorable story. I've taught this book in college writing courses, and the students (many of whom had not read a novel b/4 this) responded as enthusiastically as any students I've seen with any material. it's worth reading, and it's worth teaching. It was definitely worth writing, and I thank Luis Rodriguez for taking the time to do so!