Guest cymbal players, music, dance, theater, writing. We provide classes, performances, festivals. We have workshops as well as bookstores, which is a very important part of the whole litter is the art that we do. Host what is your role . Guest i am one of the cofounders, also president of the board and is also run by nasa, mostly young people, but had it been my wife who is operations director. We have time volunteers here it is a very strong community. Host do you run your prester here as well . Guest just, we have depressed emotions around for 25 years. Now we have the books we sell here. We also publish the book so the prices very much integral to what happens here. Host Luis Rodriguez, how did you get to be chairman of the board of the Cultural Center . Where did you begin your life . Guest you know, starting from the beginning, i started in mexico, even though i was born in el paso. A family was from chihuahua. I have to mention that my mothers roots are of the native people there. She was born in chihuahua city in the frontera der in the border. My dad was a mix of now was speaking spanish and African Community there. And somehow they ended up there on the border and i was born there with my brother and one of my sis her. Host why were you born . Guest my dad and mom saturday said they wanted to come here. One of the things that was very easy, i know a lot of people make a big deal about crossing over in becoming u. S. Citizens, but it was a brave thing to do because they had meant to hear. They were born in the United States would be used as citizens. My dads goals i want to be u. S. Citizen and so that is what happened. I was like two years old and we ended up moving to los angeles. Host where in los angeles . Guest is a great community. It is very poor, all black and brown. Actually to the mostly africanamerican side. Gabriel and it was another unincorporated area. No sidewalks, shacks, very poor with chickens and goats and surounded by white neighborhoods and there were two neighborhoods. When you walked into the schools people looked at you like you are from the hills. They hated us. And when we started becoming chollows there was no way to escape we were not wanted. Host what is that . Guest they are mexican gang members coming from the 30s and 40s. They started the first gangs in la with flats and neighbored started around that time and by the time the 50s and 60s they were chollows and had a style of dressing, hats, khaki pants they got from the county jail or Juvenile Hall. We looked different and acted different and had a way of talking that was a hybrid of spanish, english and then new slang. Host what is chicano . Guest they are the sons and daughters of the mexicans that came over especially after the mexican revolution which people dont realize how impactfull and genocidal that was. It led to people being uprooted and that led to some of us responding into a culture that was ganglike and a subculture of the chicano people. We were rebelling against everybody. Not just the United States culture, but parents and traditions. And we called ourselves chollos. It was a word they would give into the indians. Lowlife, the worst people. It is like saying we are the lowlife and indians and we are making something to be proud of. Host when you look back at being raised in south la what comes to mind . What to you remember . Guest poverty. It is one of those things you dont know you dont have. By dad got a job san fernando valley. And we were the only white ones at the time. Now it is all mexicans. It wasnt the richest neighborhood but for me it was rich. I had a taste the world could be different. All of the white kids chased me home, i got beat up a lot, i wasnt incorporated into the culture. We lost house, car and dad went bankrupt and lost his job. I was seven when i started to steal because i was like i dont have things others do and i want some of this stuff. I would go in and steal all of the toys i could get and put them in my metal roy rogers lunch box because i wanted to have something. So once you see the contrast you see the difference and why are the white skin kids looking like they have it better. And you realize it has to do with being doctor. Host from your book, drug selling becomes lucrative. A 10yearold could make 80 100 as a lookout for dealers. It is cutthroat, profit motivated and expedient. Guest most people dont realize gangs are the microcosims but they dont have education and moving up. Recreate that world. If the world is bankers, corporations who get money and exploit people, we found a way to do it. Drugs were not always part of the gangs. But during the 80s90s drugs were the one way you could have an economy. You had homies and loyalty and they were perfect for the drug trade. When the drugs came in, the gangs were ready and that is how they got so big particular in la, detroit, and all of the industrial cities that were leaving hundreds of jobs and the neighborhoods were left hanging. And the gang members saw this is the way we can survive. Like a capitalist enterprise. You have to thing about the demand and filling the supply and gang members incorporate all of this. Host from your book always running i will read this quote. I froze as the head stomping came dangerously my way. But i was intrigued. I wanted this power. I wanted to be able to bring a whole school to its knees and make the teachers squirm. I wanted what the mystics had. I wanted the power to hurt somebody. Guest at 11, i came across the first gang kids. I was broken down, being bullied. No friends. Two years earlier i was beaten up and my jaw was fractured. When it healed, it caused it to go crooked and i looked funny with my jaw sticking out and girls made fun of me. And i had no friends. And then this gang called the mystics. They broke in through the gate. They had chains and sticks and bats. One had a homemade handgun scaring everybody but i was not scared. Teachers were scared. I want that look. I was intrigued and attracted that sense they didnt care about anybody and everybody was scared of them. Host what is las lomas . Guest it is white people coming from the dust bowl and by the 40s it was mexicans. Today they call it hillbillies but the point was it was the poorest area in the valley and when i understand at the time it was the poorest neighborhood in la county. It was very small, but had an intense of migrant communities. There were hicks camp, hardene and there were neighborhoods that we were part of and lomas was one of them. Some of the migrant families, even though most were gone because by the 60s and 70s it was all mexican. And one or two white Families Group with us and they spoke spani spanish, too. And we recruited them to the gang. Host and that became the name of the gang. Guest yes. Host gangs start from children who demand respect, a sense of belonging, protection. The same thing the ymca and Little League and boy scouts do. Guest i think it is important for people to know the roots of a gang isnt bad. You have places to take kids if you have resources. You inititate them into a world. You have community that takes care of you and watches out. Families that take you places; camping. The gang fills in the gaps. There is a lot of empty in your life and community and the gangs fill it in. The idea of having respect and dignity comes to the fact we are at war with the world around us. The suburban people, the police who were like an occupied army because they didnt like us, and neighbored just like us were our biggest enemy. It got distorted. We were mutated human beings and that environment was creating this angry, raging, misshapen person who could have been something beautiful, nice and wonderful in another environment, but in this environment they were a drug ad dicted and hateful purpose. Host you wrote gangs flourish when there is a lack of community and unemployment. Guest people look at gangs like they alaliens but they mak sense. They came up because of no recreation, no jobs, and no decent homes. You get gangs with that. The irish immigrants were the first gangs coming from poverty and famine. You put anybody in these situation you will have a gang member. Doesnt matter the race or if you were rich. If you end up in that situation, the root springs out a gang member. Host how long were you a gang member and what kind of activities did you participate in . Guest i started at 11. I got jumped into a small gang and evolved into the big lomas gang. The trouble i got into was behavioral. I was very smart in school and good grades but i behaved badly. The gang gave me a sense of power. I dressed a certain way, walked the halls a certain way, wouldnt listen to teachers. Got kicked out of three schools. I was kicked out at 15 and lived on the streets in la and ended up in the garage at my homes moms house. I was in the gang until 18. I started using drugs at 12 from huffing any spray to pills to marijuana anything i could get ahold of but heroin. We would snort it and put it into the weed and by the time i was 15 i was using it interveneiously. And i kept using it for a year and a half. I let it go when i went back to high school. But after high school i was depressed badly. I got active and we did walkouts and brought in the Chicano Resource Center and studies. I was alive and wasnt using drugs and when i graduated i didnt graduate with cap and gown because i missed a year and a half but they gave it to me in the office. And i got depressed because i felt that was my moment and i started using heroin again. By the time i was 18 i badly hooked. The turning point was i was arrested for various things at 13. Including a murder roll when i was 16 but i didnt do it. At 17 i was arrested for attempted murder which i did shoot somebody but the witnesses didnt show up. At 18, i got arrested for beating up a Police Officer but i was trying to stop them from beating up a mexican girl in the parking lot. They jumped on me. Eight Police Officers. They could have gotten me eight years per officer. And i am sitting there realizing i am going to spend my time in prison, i am hooked on heroin, and i have no friends because they were killed 25 of them. I had no more family because they through ew me out. The only person that kept coming was my mentor. He was there no matter what. He was disappointed i would pick up and fall down again but we kept coming. I made a decision, kind of like i am going to go your way. You know what i mean . I realized i dont have anything on my own. He was a chicano actor, radical thinker and i wanted to be a revolutionary like him. I was telling people i dont want to be in the prison gang and no more heroin. Withdraws in the county jail were the first time and i said i am done with this. I dont care if this kills me. It was a risk and that is when i left the gang life. I decided im not going to be this anymore. It took me another year to get better at it. But it was an important decision to make on my own. Not that my mentor, or family or anybody else made it. I made it on my own against the gang structure and chains i put myself in and that spider web i was caught in. I had to make the decision to break the chain and web. It worked. It may not work for others. I was lucky that things came in in such a way that they corresponded with my desires. I have to thank my mentor. He had another real name but i have to thank him for standing by and guiding me because i needed one person to see who i was. Host Luis Rodriguez, when you leave a gang do you sneak out . Guest you dont usually leave a gang because it is your neighborhood. I didnt get jumped out. I wanted to come back and change it and thought lets make this a revolutionary group. I thought we are all in the same hole and i tried to talk to my hommies and say lets stop the warfare and it worked for a while. We had a peace for a while and worked it down and so many people had died. One person called the war the most violent war of alley gangs. Two small neighborhoods but we were going at it. I believe there were people that didnt want peace. There was a section of the police that didnt want it. I think there is probably a group of the white suburbs that didnt want it because as long as we were in the gangs we could be looked at as an enemy. I was shut out by the hommies and they shot at me because they didnt want the peace. I had to decide if i stay here and get killed or leave. But my mentor said it is time to leave. You stay here and you will get killed. I didnt think it was a bad thing. I wasnt thinking. But he made a good point. You want to live. And he showed me the globe and i told him i am not leaving here and saying it is my life. He showed me the global and i could not find it, of course. You see california. La dot there. You can die for this area but die for nothing. Why dont you die for Something Big . That impacted me. I am going to do Something Big. I left the neighborhood. It took me 20 years to come back. I didnt leave it like an enemy. I had love for the neighborhoods. And most of the guys did. One of the guys who was against me was a Police Informant i found out. When i was running, i came back to the neighborhoods and the family. Unfortunately, more people had died. One of my friends lost his of his sons. But the older guys who went through it, saw it, some became heroin addicts but after looking at my transformation they thought they could do it and some are clean. It is a rough neighborhood but it has changed a lot. It has been built up with mansions. But the neighborhood gang is bigger and spread into the flatlands. I think i left like that. Not by leaving the gang. But by saying i am going to for something else. Host when did you start writing . Guest i started writing in jail at 1516 in Juvenile Hall. When i was on the murder role i was 16 and sat next to charles mansion. It was boring. I started jotting poems and the first version of the poem i wrote appeared in jail. I love to read and one of my saving graces was i loved books. When no body loved books in the neighborhood or my family. I was the only one. I used to carry books and when i was homeless i used to go to the library and spend hours reading. So i had a dream maybe i could write down. I was downtown in the library and looking at the books and there were no rodriguez names or mexican names and i had an image of a book there with my name on it. I didnt know that was going to be my destiny. Host from your book it calls you back the followup to your previous book. Although i had hard working mexican immigrants youth, my child and youth was punctured by intense street life. At seven i began stealing from the market. My mother stayed at home and when she worked it was in the workshops doing work including piecing. She would work into the we hours rattling the whole place each time her foot pushed the pedal, eyes almost close,ingherlifetoscrapsofcloth. I called this machine the monster. Guest my dad works in dog food factories and constructions and selling things on the weekend. My mom cleaned homes and worked into the Garment Industry and that is how they survived. They worked very hard and i have to respect them for that. My mom told me, when i was nin , i picked cotton in texas, when i was nine we had to go work like mowing lawn and making dollars. I learned about work. But the problem is when parents work so hard someone falls through crack. All night long my mom would be working. I was the one that fell through the cracks. My dad didnt have time to be a father. He was up at 4 30 not home until 9 00 at night. He was too tired. Mother the same thing. She was working constantly and taking care of us kids. It was like who is going to fault me. The most dysfunctional or angry or whatever i was i was going to fall. They were not terrible parents. Just trying to survive in a world that didnt have the means to. Host welcome to in depth this week we are talking are Luis Rodriguez. And we will be talking facebook calls. We are at tiachucha bookstore and Culture Center in sylmar, california. Close to northridge . Guest it is like the northeast wend of it. Host host we want to get you involved as well. You can contact us at the numbers or you can contact us via social media as well. Make a comment on our Facebook Page facebook booktv or our twitter page. Luis rodriguez is the author of three books. Always running is the one that put him on the map gang days in la and hearts and hands a and it calls you back is the followup and that was a National Book critic circle Award Finalist when it came out in 2011. Luis rodriguez, give us a sense of your life from age 18 from today . What was the path you took . Guest at 18, leaving the gang, the only thing open to me was work, industry. La is the largest Manufacturing Center in the country. Meat packing, steel mills, auto plants we had the harbor, shipyards, Garment Industry. If you didnt want to be in crime you had to work. I was game. And because my mom helped me with the work ethic i was happy. I learned a lot of skills in working. Welding, pipe fitting, mechanics, construction working, carpenter i learned a lot of skills. I got politically active as well. I wanted to change the world. The justice struggles of the 60s became a big part of who i was. I learned from Martin Luther king and Martin Malcolm x. I took it seriously. I was selling books from my home and i had a pantry full of books and that is what helped me. It helped me being involved in something else. I went into it. Study, meetings, and organizing people. I ended up in east la with city terrorist and South Pasadena as well. And in the poorest part of the pasadena places. Now it is very nice but it was a very poor area. I organized people. We had people coming to house meetings. A lot of youth work. And lot of gang intervention work with gangs in the housing projects and gangs in South Central and pasadena. That is what kept me from getting in trouble. And that is what helped me and the trojectory stayed with me. When i got out of industries because by the 80s it was gone. I quit by the late 70s. The end of 1979. By 1980, i wanted to be a writer. I was getting laid off, industries were leaving. I worked at a big plant and began to step awa