From the award-winning author of Always Running comes a brilliant collection of short stories about life in East Los Angeles. Whether hilariously capturing the voice of a philosophizing limo driver whose dream is to make the most of his rap-metal garage band in "My Ride, My Revolution," or the monologue-styled rant of a tes-ti-fy-ing! tent revivalist named Ysela in "Oiga," Rodriguez squeezes humor from the lives of people who are not ready to sacrifice their dreams due to circumstance. In these stories, Luis J. Rodriguez gives eloquent voice to the neighborhood where he spent many years as a resident, a father, an organizer, and, finally, a writer: a neighborhood that offers more to the world than its appearance allows.

The Republic of East LA: Stories

Literature & Fiction

Luis J. Rodríguez

United States

Rayo

Always Running: Gang Days in L.A.

Biographies & Memoirs

Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd

No Always Running Read a customer review or write one .

Always Running : Gang Days in L.A.

Historical

A los doce anos, Luis Rodriguez ya era un veterano de la guerra entre las pandillas de East Los Angeles. Atraido por una cultura pandillera aparentemente insuperable, fue testigo de un sinfin de balaceras, golpizas y arrestos y, mas tarde, con un miedo cada vez mayor, presencio como las drogas, los asesinatos, los suicidios y una delincuencia callejera carente de sentido cobraban la vida de amigos y familiares. Poco tiempo despues, Rodriguez encontro la manera de dejar atras la vida del barrio a traves de la educacion y el poder de las palabras. Asi pudo liberarse de anos de violencia y desesperacion. Una vez alcanzado el exito como poeta chicano varias veces galardonado, Luis llege a pensar que las calles ya no lo perseguirian, pero entonces su hijo ingreso en una pandilla. Rodriguez lucho por su hijo mediante el relato de su historia personal. La Vida Loca es una vivida croonica que se adentra en las motivaciones de la vida de las pandillas y nos advierte de la muerte y la destruccion que, tarde o temprano, se lleva la vida de sus participantes. A ratos desgarradoramente triste y cruel, La Vida Loca es a la larga una historia verdadera, llena de inspiracion, esperanza y sabiduria, y una leccion duramente aprendida para las nuevas generaciones.

La Vida Loca: El Testimonio de un Pandillero en Los Angeles (Spanish Edition)

Parenting & Relationships

Simon & Schuster Libros en Español

The anthology collects the poetry of San Diego students, along with poems by famous guest poets, read at the Border Voices Poetry Fair held March 24, 2006 at San Diego State University.

Border Voices 13

Sharon Olds

Dana Giola

Ken Waldman

Example Product Manufacturer

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

There has never been a more clear and compelling account of a gang member's life than Always Running, Luis J. Rodriguez's eloquent, impassioned, frighteningly vivid chronicle of his youth in Los Angeles in the late 60s and early 70s. Growing up in Watts and East L.A., Rodriguez joined his first gang at age 11 and was drawn into "la vida loca" - the crazy life. Gangs were "how we wove something out of the threads of nothing, " he remembers. By age 18, he was a veteran of gang warfare, police killings, drug overdoses, and suicides that had claimed 25 of his friends and had driven him and so many others to despair. In part, Rodriguez survived the violence and desperation of his youth by writing down his experiences. They were only woven into this astonishing book years later, when his son, Ramiro, joined a gang in Chicago where they now live. Always Running is packed with episode after episode of high drama, but within this honest and powerful depiction of social devastation, there is a f

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

Community & Culture

Paw Prints

In his interview, Luis Rodríguez explains that the demonization and false glorification of gang life has done much disservice to the termination of gang activity, activity which he defines as "90% boredom." What's the key to reducing gang violence and improving inner-city lives? To the dissolution of jail time as a right of passage? Part of the solution lies in providing better education, in teachers able to tap into and help direct the overlooked creativity of inner-city communities. A great responsibility lies, as well, in a national understanding and support for communities bound by poverty, and in encouraging people to work together to help people work for themselves.

East Side Stories: Gang Life in East L.A.

Arts & Photography

Ruben Martinez

Joseph Rodriguez

Photography & Video

powerHouse Books

Set in the Pilsen barrio of Chicago, this children's picture book gives a heartwarming message of hope. The heroine, América, is a primary school student who is unhappy in school until a poet visits the class and inspires the students to express themselves creatively-in Spanish or English. América Is Her Name emphasizes the power of individual creativity in overcoming a difficult environment and establishing self-worth and identity through the young girl América's desire and determination to be a writer. This story deals realistically with the problems in urban neighborhoods and has an upbeat theme: you can succeed in spite of the odds against you. Carlos Vázquez's inspired four-color illustrations give a vivid sense of the barrio, as well as the beauty and strength of the young girl América.

América Is Her Name

Children's Books

Curbstone Books

Una niña de nueve años, América Soliz, vive con su familia en el Barrio Pilsen de Chicago. Echa de menos su hogar en México y se siente descontenta en la escuela, donde experimenta el prejuicio contra los inmigrantes mexicanos. América se siente en la fila de atrás del salón de clase y se la pasa soñando con su aldea en Oaxaca hasta que un día un poeta, el Sr. Aponte, visita la clase. "Todos llevamos le poesía por dentro," le dice el Sr. Aponte a la clase e inspira a América a escribir. "Escriban en español o en inglés," exhorta él. América escribe cuentos y poemas, aun cuando su padre dice que es una manera poco práctica de utilizar el tiempo. Tanto el tío como la madre de América disfrutan los cuentos de la chica, y ésta descubre para sí lo que el Sr. Aponte ha dicho en clase. "Cuando se usan las palabras para compartir los sentimientos con otra persona se es poeta y los poetas pertenecen a todo el mundo." A través de la escritura, América se siente "en casa" en el Barrio Pilsen.

La llaman América (Children's Literature Series)

Award-winning Latino author Luis J. Rodríguez stuns with My Nature is Hunger. The collection features 26 new poems that reflect Rodríguez’s increasingly global view, his hard-won spirituality, and his movement toward reconciliation with his family and his past, as well as selections from his previous books, Poems Across the Pavement, The Concrete River, and Trochemoche.

My Nature is Hunger: New and Selected Poems, 1989 2004

Poetry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Luis J. Rodríguez. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Luis J. Rodríguez