SCC Hagan Center Diversity Series Speaker: Luis Rodriguez
Spokane Community College’s Hagan Center welcomes speaker Luis Rodriguez, author of It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing, winner of a 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award, and Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., winner of a Carl Sandburg Literary Award. Rodriguez was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, where he and his family faced poverty and dicrimination. He was a gang member and drug user by age 12 — experiences he reflects on in both memoirs. By the time Rodriguez was 18, he had lost 25 friends to gang violence, drug overdoses and suicide. In addition to his memoirs, he has written books of poetry and children’s books, including América Is Her Name, and is the founder of Tía Chucha Press, which aims to publish emerging socially conscious poets. In 2014, he was appointed poet laureate of Los Angeles by Mayor Eric Garcetti.