in southern california.. we provide classes, we provide performances, we provide values, wec have workshops as well as a bookstore which is a very important part ofng. the whole literacy/arts work that we do. >> host: what's your role? >> guest: well, i'm one of the cofounders.ar i'm also president of the board, and it's actually run by a wonderful staff. mostly young people, but headed by my wife, trini, who's operations director, and we have tons of volunteers. it's a very strong community place. 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 mother's 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 dad's 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 african-american 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 don't 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 gang-like 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 chollo's. 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 don't know you don't 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 wasn't 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 wasn't 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 don't 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 10-year-old could make $80-$100 as a lookout for dealers. it is cut-throat, profit motivated and expedient. >> guest: most people don't realize gangs are the microcosims but they don't have education and moving up. re-create 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 '80s-'90s 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 didn't 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 hick's 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 isn't 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 didn't 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. doesn't 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, wouldn't 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 home's -- mom's 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 wasn't using drugs and when i graduated -- i didn't 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 didn't do it. at 17 i was arrested for attempted murder which i did shoot somebody but the witnesses didn't 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 don't 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 don't 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 don't care if this kills me. it was a risk and that is when i left the gang life. i decided i'm 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 don't usually leave a gang because it is your neighborhood. i didn't get jumped out. i wanted to come back and change it and thought let's make this a revolutionary group. i thought we are all in the same hole and i tried to talk to my hommies and say let's 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 didn't want peace. there was a section of the police that didn't want it. i think there is probably a group of the white suburbs that didn't 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 didn't 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 didn't think it was a bad thing. i wasn't 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 don't 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 didn't 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 15-16 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 didn't know that was going to be my destiny. >> host: from your book "it calls you back" the follow-up 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 didn't 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 didn't 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 follow-up 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 didn't 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 away. i had hoe no writing skills and went to east la school and learned. i started working for the east side sun, getting paid hardly anything. they would let me write articles, take photos and do the photograph development but i had to answer the phone, sweep the floors and take out the trash. that is when i started by writing world. i have been doing it every since. work in newspapers, working in radio -- i did a lot of fr freelancing and writing poetry. and then i never stopped working with youth and community organizing but now is added i am going to be a writer. >> host: family? >> guest: my family started early. by the time i was 20, i married. and my first son was born just before i was 21. that was a transformitive thing. you see a tattoo and the boy is covered and he is holding his baby. that could have been me. i said i would be the best bad i could be. i had the madness in the form of rage and addiction. so i raged a lot against my first wife for reasons i would not know. i didn't hit her but just verbal and emotional raging. i would rage against my kids and i didn't know i had ptsd and was responding to the violence i saw as a teenager. i would have nightmares and anger. and then i started drinking a lot. i let go of the drugs but i drank. i was being called back to the madness in this form. i had two kids by the time i was 25 years old. because of my rage and issues i abandoned them when they were babies. and that is sad when you make a promise and two and a half years later i abandon them. i had a hard time with my wife. we had a terrible break-up as you know. i almost killed her and my babies. that is how crazy i got. i ended up being more neglect neglectful. i got married with other women, living with other people. moving to chicago. my oldest son was troubled at 13 and he was sent to me. and that started the whole process of trying to write because my son was so troubled and resentful that he joined the gun of shooting, drugs and violence. and i realized what happened to this promise? i had to transform myself again. took me a while. i had to stop the drinking. my then my son was in deep trouble and in prison and i made that turn to stop everything. i was 27 years of -- seven years of drugs and 20 years of drinking. >> host: where is your son today >> guest: he got into more trouble. we started a youth group that helped many of his friends. but i could not help him. he had his friends living with us. i was with my third wife by then. she tried to be the step mother she could be and he was very hard with her. he had another son who was born. and my daughter came to us but she was troubled, too. and my youngest son was born. and i had all of this hard time with him. he ended up in prison. at 17 he did his first term and at 21 he shot a truck driver and two police officers. he was facing 40 years to life. in the state of illinois you get 20 years per officer and he had two. it was rough. it was painful seeing my son going through this. i remember visiting him in the prison there, the county jail actually, it was sad because he told me can you help me? and he knew he had done wrong. but it became a homicidal thing. he wanted to have the cops kill him. he wasn't shooting at them he was shooting around them. and he ended up getting arrested. they beat him up for 11 years. he said can you help me and i felt helpless. and i told him i cannot help you now, son. you are going to do your time. there is no way out of this. took a while to figure out how week help him. he fought for less time and that was a year and a half struggle. he ended up doing 28 years. lesser than 48 years to life. but it is still a lot of time. it was sad to convince them. the judge was willing to hear it. we had a study about our family life and got letters from people that wanted to support him. up to 30 people showing up that would be there for him. and the judge took that into account but said the least i can give him is 28 years. my son was like 28 years, 40 years is the same. and they give me 15 minutes to convince him. it was the hardest thing i had to do; sitting there convincing him to take 28 years. in the long run, a life sentence -- there is no way around that. just so you know, the lucky thing about it is he got out in half the time with good time was declared unconstitutional doing the whole time. he did 13.5 years of that sentence and got released. my son in prison decided to get out of the gangs and prison and got into his native mexican roots and did ceremonies in the jail and went to sweat lodges and more involved in spirituality. he has been free from everything and he is now in chicago working with little kids and gang members and changing their life around. so you are holding the baby, seeing him go through hell and then see him go through changes and i guess he saw sobriety and family intact and said i am going my way now. i am very proud of him. he is a strong young man and went through a lot. and he still has his beauty. and he is not different than other people. he did terrible things and i will not condone the things he did. but he had the part of him that was capable of being a great leader. >> host: luis rodriguez, you say he is gang-free. how prevalent is the gang situation in la or the country today and how significant is it? >> guest: when i was in gangs, it wasn't ever community. la and chicago were the two leading ones because they were industrial cities. i saw a map from 1970-present gangs started spreading mostly from la and chicago. bloods and crips became national. and then you had anothers that were spreading. and in chicago you had gangster disciples and you had the sin e single-largest latino gang in the country. and they were being squeezed out because there was more policing, more gang injunction. most of these gangs are la or chicago based but other cities. and now they are international. we have taken the culture through music and movies but we have deported the gang kids. you see the la based gangs all oversight -- all over south america and in europe and spain and there is a culture in japan, in thailand believe it or not. even in armania. it is now bigger and organized and has to do with cartels and other elements. we have not stopped gangs with more laws against drugs and prison. we have made things worse than better. >> host: are gangs are dealing with drugs? is that the central character? >> guest: over the last 30 years drugs were central. it didn't used to be. but because the economy changed, drugs came into the neighborhoods. guns, there was a number of -- 1980-2000 millions of guns showed up in neighborhoods. you have the worst violence. i heard a statistic in la from 1980-2000 that 15,000 young people were killed from the gang wars around la county. i am convinced me helped contribute to this. it wasn't just dumb kids hanging around. we helped create them. we put them in the prison and they were educated on gang crime. if you don't relab and restoring and justice and healing you don't fix people. you create what we have today. >> host: how long have you been sober and do you think drugs should be legalized? >> guest: i have been sober for 20 years. very hard for people to know how hard it is to be sober. my wife would say i was the most out of it when i was sobering up. it is hard to live with someone sobering up. but you get better at it and gather yourself. seeing the terrible things drugs do. i don't like drugs and i don't like people on drugs. but i will tell you drug wars are not helping and the drug laws are not helping. all of the billions of dollars we put to get rid of drugs made drugs more accessible. more people are on drugs than before. i would go against all of the drug laws and billions wasted on putting people away. the california prison system would be cut just by giving people caught up in drugs help and treatment. it would be less costly to give them the rehab and recovery. if you are going to be on drugs, get help. drugs, after a while, you cannot control what you do. it really controls you. help people get back that control. you can get over the drugs but you need help. you need community. all of the things we can do that don't cost. you don't need money to create community. you need people that love you. it is hard to get the political will and the people to say we are not going to be scared. we are going to go in that direction. we have more people in prison and more. in new york they are relooking at the drug laws and in california after they have done all of this devastatindevastati. we have hold them for years and heres this isn't working. now they are thinking it didn't work. but there is a long way to go and a lot of people that think this is what we have to do: keep people and drugs behind bars, keep the dea and the armies that are now in the communities. we have to stop that. >> host: one more question and we will talk calls. you can get through via social media. booktv@cs[apan.ne booktv@cspan.net, booktv on twitter is the handle. you write about a lot of personal things. is it tough in >> guest: the hardest thing and most people won't -- why whei d it, i don't know. i took a risk and revealed personal life and it hurts families. i will be the first to admit it and asked my family to forgive me for that. i did it not to hurt anyone but to heal. there are so many families going through there work at home, the physical and sexual abuse, the abuse women go through and it doesn't get brought up especially in this community where people silence things. i took a risk to help others. and now i realize it is worth it. but my family didn't like it. i have a lot of families that didn't like it. i have enemy gang members that will never like what i wrote about. but it is needed. 500,000 readers out there. i get kids telling me the book changed their life. i was getting 200-300 letters a year when it first happened. people telling me -- all positive letters. i found a book i can relate to. i go to the schools and kids say it was the only book they read that resinates with them. it was worth taking the risk and putting myself center stage for a purpose. not for ego or fame because you don't get much of that but you get can this be a line that can connect to others that can't find the voice or the possibility of getting published. i had the moment where the publishing world and my story fell through. i got well known for it. and people paid attention. and that is important. sacrifice with a purpose. i asked my family forgive me. i love you all but i have to tell the truth of my life. >> host: we will get into your political candidate stance later. but the first call is from john in richmond, virginia. you are on booktv on c-span 2. thanks for holding. >> caller: mr. rodriguez, growing up here in richmond there were not many hispanic folks like there are now. especially throughout the south. and the experience between black and brown in the south is positive. i visited places like new york into the northeast they are usually positive. what is the bases of the conflict between black and brown in la? you would think it would be natural allies but there is a conflict with me being from the south i don't understand. can you explain and i will hang up and listen. >> host: john, why do you think there should be an alliance or do you think there should be an alliance between black and brown? i guess john hung up. >> guest: it is a great question. it is an issue. and one people think about los angeles and why is it so hard. but black and brown definitely got along where i grow up. if you go now, you will see black and brown kids interacting. i think, this is just from what i get from my experience, most is manufactured in the prison system for the competition, manufactured in the community. i think people pushed the division. i am not saying there are not people that don't like each other because someone might be brown or black. for example, in mexican families, they deny their african heritage. there is probably more african heritage in mexicans than there is spanish. people don't know this. twice as many african slaves that ended up in mexico than spanish. we have afro-mexican communities we don't talk about much but we honor them with traditional music from port cities with a lot of slaves of spanish and indigenous people. we honor that. so i think it is an issue of being consciousness that african is in us and we had a history similar. most mexicans are native with native roots and the history of being crushed and loosing your language and names and the temples left abandoned. so i think there is a lot more commonality but i think it is manufactured and a lot comes in the prison. when the majority of the prisons were black and brown. can you imagine if they organized non-violently how powerful it would be? it was better to pin them against each other saying you should not ignite. they didn't want me to talk to the crypts and i said why? i don't have issues with them? i had to stand up to a whole group of people that were saying you are mexican and you have to fight black guys and i said i have no issue with them. it could have caused my life but it was worth it to say tell me why i need to fight people because of their color. it is a big battle we have to pay attention to. >> host: we have an e-mail from michael who is reading "always running" i am enjoying and admiring your work but i cringe at your description of anglos saying they would rather spit on a mexican than give them the time of day. he said he was raised in southern california and had good relationships with mexican-americans. question, do you believe that anglos as a race feel superior to mexican? >> guest: it isn't just all white people. but there are white people that feel that way. especially when you have the class neighborhoods. the professional parts we were surrounded by with white suburban neighborhoods that didn't have white or brown people. they had a police force call the sheriffs department that worked to crush the people. does that mean all white people are racist? no. but at the time there were groups that were running a lot of school boards and we did wno know about it. i never had issues with white people. they beat me up when i was in school, but i didn't see it as all white people. there were white, mean and ugly kids and mean and ugly black kids. most people were not that way. most african-americans were beautiful and friendly and so were the whites and mexicans. but i think there is people that carry that fear and use it. when you are white you use white against each other. my best friend when i left the gang is an italian, jewish guy who is my campaign manager now. i have known him for 40 years. i have five grand kids and three are half white -- four of them. how will i hate white people? it isn't a hate toward white people. but it is important to understand the history of the racism and understanding the impact and some people arerace racist and don't even know. i think it is education, knowledge, awareness and the key is that we all have to work together to make this place work for everybody. >> host: from your book "it calls you back" i wanted to die in a palazzo of flurry in the streets but i wasn't dying. i got close but every time i somehow escapeed deaths grasp just to keep going. that is just a little bit from his book "it calls you back". the next call is from ugo. >> caller: thank you for sharing your story with us. i am from brooklyn, new york, from the inner city and i know what that kind of environment can bring. you mention your mentor and i think it is important that you reveal the fact he was a big impact on you. my question to you is you hear so often, and i grew up around guys making excuses and blaming other people -- their parent's ..k about the people that tried to help them and give advice and tried to provide assistance. did you believe that no matter what these gang members there has been at least one person, probably more, that tried to help them and they chose not to listen? >> guest: i will have to say that depends on people. i didn't personal listen to people trying to help me. i know now looking back there were people that wanted to help me. so i do think what happens when you get caught up in that world view are in that chain be. nobody seems to get it. you are a young person, get ideas in that world and i was one of those and nobody could get me. i was in my world and this is not good because it took a very strong person to shake me up, stand by me, teach me things, to read a little bit more, i told this guy to drop dead i don't know how many times. particularly powerful human being to say i won't let you go. a lot of kids don't open up but they are closed off because they learned not to trust adults. i didn't trust adults because from my viewpoint, i tested all of them. i tested them, would do what you expect me to do. here i was saying they can be trusted. the good thing about it is he did come back. what you were implying, set up our own prison, our own trap, didn't know we were contributing to it. when you get addicted to drugs, what they need for drugs. a beautiful sunrise, and everything is close in. i think we ourselves get caught up in those traps. on the other hand we take it on personally and we can see what is out there, the world is really there, beautiful as angels and mentors and people who do care for you. >> this week from john martin, what age did you hear of caesar chavez and what did you think and feel? >> what people know about them, in the streets you didn't know about anything. he started around 65 and started earlier but at 65, the great boycott, i was still in bad shape. i picked up knowledge about him later when i became involved. and they were the ones telling me our leaders, the child that existed, and very indian looking and a struggle. and that is what is important. so they took a little longer because i really didn't know about martin luther king or all these people. i read the books and that helps me because nobody in my neighborhood knew what was going. that was all we cared about, all that mattered. >> host: next call from dave in albuquerque, new mexico. >> caller: i have a couple questions. number one, i heard that if a gang member had a tear drop tattoo under the corner of their high, that meant they killed some one. i was wondering if that is true and my second question is tell me about tattoos in general for gang members. >> host: why are you interested in this? >> caller: i have seen a lot of tattoos and wondering what they meant. >> guest: that gangs are the most tattooed groups of kids, tattoos always happen to prisoners, marginalize kids, sailors, and people so they took it to another level. even 40 years ago before anybody had tattoos i remember the tattoos i had i was only one having them and i remember when i started seeing other people, white people, yuppies, actors getting tattoos, people hated those so i will say this. the tattoo piercing, i remember in juvenile hall it used to represent the year you did enjoy the hall and somebody says it represents the number of komi's that died and sometimes you have a whole string of them. then it changed. so many people are killed, doesn't necessarily mean that. it all depends what is going on. i question sometimes when somebody says i got five tattoos, i killed five people. i questioned them. it doesn't matter. the point is it started off, the time in which you were away from your community, your body, your family, the first year, it became more about the pain you were going through, most tattoos are caused by trauma inside or outside. most were suppressing what you couldn't say in words, you didn't have a voice for it, you put the longer body and some were extensively tested because they were really going through some trauma. when i had my tattoos, what is wrong with you? i remember i made the mistake of going to the beach with my family, and what you doing? what is wrong with you? you are doing tattoos, i couldn't stop. i had tattoos so long last one was described as it hasn't stopped, keep doing them -- now everybody is doing them so now is cool. >> how many do you have? >> 13. i have some really big ones. >> host: who is this on your arm and i have been at miring? get the camera in on it. >> guest: she is 45 years old and she is my india. to go back to my mother's indian roots, that is what she represents, a little bit blurry now over the years but in those days people imagined the black and gray style of shading, it was done that yet gangsters and got picked up the cash to artist and a few famous people tell you i did this and my good friend that i have to mention came out of an enemy neighborhood, has been doing this, one of the great cat to stylists in the world. he is on tattoo nation and all these -- we were enemies and use tissue that each other, he shot at me one time and now we are friends and we talked and he is famous for having brought the chicago style tattoo so this is a style that i had, pretty old, 35, 40. >> host: next call from helen in palo alto, fla.. you are on booktv. you still with us? >> a year in the life of california without -- can you hear me? how are you? >> host: if you could start again we missed the first portion of your question. >> caller: my first question is, at first i wanted to preface it by saying i saw so much great drama and theater and films about the -- i see your face on youth. >> host: don't look at the tv. >> what is the influence of the churches in exasperatingly the problems in any minority? and how they protest against birth control and planned parenthood and the government infiltrating ghettos with drugs, drugs are money. don't think it is only an addiction but wherever there is drugs there is money to take care of it and to put money in pockets of people in power. >> host: i think we got the point. we are talking about the church's role, the role of the church's may be. >> guest: gains are marginalized, ostracize peripheral world that gets created when there's a lot of emptys and believe it or not, there were churches with big nice buildings. a lot of people, some ministers and they were empty for some kids. you know what i am saying. my mother wanted me to be catholic, she took me to catechism. i have a picture 10 years old year before i joined the game with my first communion praying with the rosary like a pious little kid, how are you a gang member a year later? they were in my community, gangs and so on the we use a lot of catholic iconography in the gains. we would have practice and the crazy life, we used the church iconography to showcase what we are. a picture of guadeloupe and only my mother -- so he knows what is right or wrong and he is in the chain -- can't stop won't stop. now you can't help it. she did say i do think that they can play a very positive role. i saw in the last 30 or 40 years a lot of churches helping gained members, not just putting them down. i walked in as a total right away, you couldn't do that. now people are saying -- the other thing that is important, i do think this money, it is not just that, we participate in the industry. we ourselves wound up in it but there's a big industry related to the drug field and the recovery. that is why it doesn't go away. when you have big money no one is going to want to get rid of that. it is too big. and alcohol industries can be so big. they have enough to keep an industry going. that is part of the story. >> host: chester barons e-mail's theed in, where does the purchasing power for drugs come from? i can't conceive of enormous profits being made by gains. >> good question. in chicago i did talks of industrial cities, strong swiss crime, at one point where the highest murder rates were in the country. drugs in your neighborhood, it does take money to get it, people will do anything to do that and it creates subcultures, prostitution for example, stealing burglary rings. i end up getting drug money by doing burglaries. when they are stealing, don't want to give too much information you don't steal the big tvs, the things that are most easy and available, cameras, guns, jewelry and cash. you never get what they are worth. and the $10 bag or whatever is they need to. peripheral crime related to drugs is what is important. people steal cars, there are car shops that chopin down, get a little money for that, steal back $300 and get $20 worth. that is the crime level that is spread out because if not you meet a demand and get the money you have to steal. there are people who steal from their own grandmother's. it is so important they won't feed their kids. i know with people with kids, aeronautics, kids don't get fed because it is going into the fix. there is peripheral stuff happening. >> host: next call for luis j. rodriguez, peter in roseville, calif.. you are on booktv. go-ahead. >> caller: can you hear me? >> host: please go ahead. >> caller: can you hear me? hello? >> host: we are going to put peter on hold if we could. let's remind our viewers that once you hear as you will be able to just start talking. we are going to move on to jason in the san fernando valley, san fernando, calif.. >> caller: i am 50 years old, i grew up in l.a. county which if you don't know is one of many ground zeros for illegal and legal immigrant gang bangers. i'm 50 years old, single mother, very poor on a corner, and listen to this guy, self victimhood to glorify gang bangers and anyway relating to boy scouts in any way is disgusting to. i here blame, blame, blame. you sound like a professional victim to me and to say pds the growing up where you did you should have more respect for people who really do. quit blaming. the fingers pointing back at you. this is disgusting. >> host: that was jason. >> guest: not much more you can say. he has to look at himself more than anything. if he looks at me and says i am my own problems and he doesn't even look at the world he is in. i have to be honest with you, i take responsibility for what i have done. i myself as i mentioned with my son have left -- even drinking -- because i don't really think that is the life that brings hope to the world. i am not in here to say feel sorry for me. i am not sorry for myself. what i'd do is bring identity, hope and change. we have to do it with positive and peace and strength, that is where it comes from but you can never forget where you came from. you can never forget the roots of it, what shaped and formulated that. if it was a simple matter that my ego is so big that i can look at it and say i have never done wrong, i am a fraudulent human being but even fraudulent human beings can do amazing things. even from the heart of violence comes the peace warriors. i worked with gang members in all salvador, i worked with racists, not these, skinhead kids who changed their lives and are now contributing to me. anybody can change and that is my work. i don't know what he is seeing. he is looking with certain kind of glasses. he can't see the good of i am saying. i am not going to change that opinion but i will put out there that you can't write off anybody. the heart of violence you do get the peace. from the first addictive world of poverty you get great commuters, thinkers, peacemakers. i want to mention a young man who grew up in the streets, was from the projects, went to prison. he is one of the leading peace makers in that community. he is helping rival gangs, he is procuring, prices got banks that you can think of and he has done amazing work. it is not understood, just making clear, the message is about hope. it is not about being a victim. the last one to say the community is the victim. i am somebody who says no matter what i have been through or what i have done i can still have a dignified life. >> host: we are asked tia chucha's bookstore in southern california, northern san fernando valley. luis j. rodriguez and his wife tree are the founders tia chucha's. we have a question from the audience. >> i don't think it is on. president, congratulations on the successes. i was wondering if you could describe your literature event on may 17th. >> guest: one of the things we do is have literature and books. it is at the heart of what we do, music, dance theater, books are important even at a time when people say books are changing but in our communities there was no bookstore. talk about the northeast valley which 500,000 people size of the city, mexican, central america, african-american communities, white communities, the majority of latino, there was no cultural center, no movie houses, bookstores, 50 years ago we started this space and now we have this beautiful art work, we have murals, i don't want to say we did it but influence created a whole mural movement, we have a different group here, a resident group that comes to us and the economist works with us and a young boy that works with young kids, non gang kids. the work is we are going to take this further, this festival on may 17th, the celebration festival, only outdoor illiteracy festival in the value that i know, and it is open to the public. the community we are talking about and we invite everybody to show up, music, dance, theater. and local artisans come they're so it is going to be a celebration of words in all its form. >> host: from your book "always running: la vida loca: gang days in l.a." we learn a little bit about who tia chucha was, the one everyone called crazy. sheet once ran out naked to canada post and with a letter that didn't belong to us. she had this annoying habit of boarding city buses and singing at the top of her voice. one bus driver refused to go on until she got off. to me she was the whistle of the wind's freedom, and musicmaker who often wrote a song lyrics, told stories and recited dirty jokes. she would come unexpected and often invited and burst into our house with a guitar crosser back and the bag full of presents including homemade cologne and perfumes that smelled something like rotting fish at the tuna cannery. i admire tia chucha, the most creative influence on my childhood. >> she was the relative that didn't fall into the boxes, she was creative, inventive, used to do poetry, create her own songs, turn her back, would visit different family members and she was a hard person to deal with, she would do these crazy things, stand up for a week or two before moving on but for me it worked up and imagination because my family like all families, it was in turmoil, we had this image of the quiet, let people see only the good things. she came out and said no filter, it is an amazing quality, i admired that. part of me wish i could be like that. we are honoring the spirit of those people. just being, letting go. that get stuck in a very traps all of us do. >> host: tony in new jersey you are on booktv with luis j. rodriguez. >> caller: how are you today? i thank c-span for taking my call. the lack of mentoring your father worked a lot and my parents both worked a lot and the connection to that and your recovery and i was also interested in what you said about the money and the recovery and the mentorsship and the recovery, altruistic movement turning into profitable situation. >> guest: that is important because a lot of people think you are an alcoholic. a lifetime in prison trapped, and you have to address it your whole life but it is a liberating wait to get through it. it is putting the part back in your hands. what happens with drugs, even gangs and violence you turn it over to others, turn life over and your bodies are where you need it, turn your life over to all these other things. michael point is we have to learn to own our life. back to what i said about being a victim, all of us are victims but what makes it different is you start owning your life. start taking back your life through violence, neglect, abandonment, betrayal, all the things we go through and start taking it back and say i own this office and you start noting what happens to your body. i am a very addicted person. i know i have addictive qualities but at the same time i am powering myself to say i won't be that person. if i drink i am a mutant and i don't want to be that person. i drink i will hurt people and i don't want to be that person. it is a big struggle, a lifelong thing. one of the things that helps me is i get up and give thanks every morning. i am grateful for everything, i give thanks that i made it another morning sober, another morning with my family, another morning i can do something beautiful in this world. even though inside of me there is rage there is a mutant quality, part of me that wants to open everything up, gets held back because i am open now to all the blessings that come into my life and i have to look at that and see that is where i am going to work. i made a decision i'm going towards the way of my mentor and teacher is growing up, i am going towards the way my family, white and my kids, others that are decent that helps me wake-up that if i just went in my selfish way i wouldn't be who i am. i go to my future and all these great examples around me that i need to do this, now i have something to be grateful for. that helps in my recovery. >> host: in your book "it calls you back" you see got support from your wife tree. >> guest: i was so messed up by codify told her she would leave me. and of course i didn't realize -- at did realize i was already hurting her by not being home, by drinking all night long, by not sharing anything with her. i was not sure how to get well. i went to recovery program and it spoke to me. i went to another one in chicago and it just spoke to me and at the time it was right and going to meetings where i decided to try not to go to the bars. it was hard. when i finally did tell her it was added point where i had gone enough to say i am going to this, going to recovery. i remember i cried, it was hard for me to tell her and i really thought what she would do was make sense to me, i am going to leave you. she didn't. was very beautiful. she cried with me, and -- i think is important that at least i learned that i should never underestimate anybody and never take anybody for granted. 3d i took for granted for so long and she actually stood up to help with our young sons. she became the best mother possible for these kids so people do step up and at phillies something else, when we had -- who was going to run it? she had no skills. i would never be able -- who could do it? she stepped up and learned the hard way by doing it and she made this place. she made this place so don't ever take anybody for granted. >> host: teeny rodriguez is sitting with us, with dark hair and glasses. if you could display quickly so we could see. >> there have been publications about lack of diversity in the publishing industry. why do you think we should have these books? >> is important because honoring who we are, we are not one kind of people one kind of culture. it is really a misnomer. there are irish people would tell you i am no anglo. so what happens is diversity of our culture keeps us alive. it is what was rich in the united states, we have so many people starting with native peoples and anglos and irish and they came over and the jewish community and everybody but also the african-americans that were brought here by force and also the asians and cultures, the world's city, you don't come and meet everybody in the world here, we have the largest mexican community, the largest vietnamese community. we are the world and the diversity needs to be affected in our schools. why go to school and all you see is the european end of the culture? not saying we shouldn't learn that. it is much richer than that. we have more to offer and more to learn. i didn't learn about the aztec line until i was older and didn't even know it was part of our culture. i learned to paint murals because my mentors, nobody ever taught me this. i never learned that. so let's take it to our kids, 75% of kids at these schools are either mexican or central american. do they know their culture? not to take anything from anybody but make people know where they come from. >> host: here at tia chucha's, there are many spanish-language books, but luis j. rodriguez is the author of a couple children's books. here's one, america is surname is the cover. it and "it doesn't have to be this way". his this written in english or spanish or both? >> guest: it is in in english. i tried to do spanish but my wife is a formally trained spanish speaker helped with the translation and we had a friend, a great spanish speakers dealt with it so spanish would be perfect. i have no formal training in spanish. i read and write it and speak it but don't have training in it. >> host: luis j. rodriguez is also an author of "always running: la vida loca: gang days in l.a." came out in 1993 and the essentially put him on the map. that was a best seller. "hearts and hands: creating community in violent times" 2001 is another book. as follow-up to "always running: la vida loca: gang days in l.a.," "it calls you back" was a finalist, national book critics circle award and hour-and-a-half into our program, another hour-and-a-half to go. hear from the tia chucha bookstore. and you have been very patient. please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: my question is if you don't feel a drug like marijuana is lesser of all evils would be better illegalized across the nation, it is billions of dollars. and, the process of all these gangs and communities to this money to fund activities. >> i support legalization of drug laws, and colorado, washington, taking big steps. we are living in between times and states are saying it is okay to have medical marijuana. and we still have people being arrested. funny how the good point michelle alexander that made about this for people are paying the price, still having kids arrested for having we then doing a lot of time. we are in the in between world where some people live being attacked and imprisoned and hurt by the laws and it is allowed to happen. we are going to make sure everybody can do it and put the resources and money into treatment. i am not supportive of drugs, and the laws that have made drugs more available and more accessible, and kept a foot on the neck of the poorest communities. >> host: if you are on the line please stay on the line we're going to show you some of the luis j. rodriguez's favorite books, what he is reading now, and some of his influences, booktv and c-span2 continues with in-depth. ♪ [music playing] ♪ ♪ ♪ >> host: here's a quick beek at upcoming book fairs and festivals around the country. south carolina book festival takes place may 16th through eighteenth at the columbia metropolitan convention center. congressman james cliburn is there to discuss his book lessons on experiences. on may 17th the gaithersburg book festival in gaithersburg, maryland and you can watch the the events on the festival on booktv on c-span2. may 29th through 31st booktv will talk to lawyers and publishing a thick kids at the annual trade show. book expo america in new york city. we will be live from the chicago tribune live fast on june 7th and eighth, we check back with more information on booktv coverage. let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area and we will add them to our list. e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> here's a look at the best-selling nonfiction books according to the wall street journal. at the top of the list is michael lewis's book on high-frequency trading, flash boys. booktv host of your call in program with mr. lewis last month. that can be viewed any time at booktv.org. the doctor's diet followed by sarah young's jesus calling. paul stanley, a co-founder and front man of the band kiss comes in fourth with his memoir face the music:a life exposed. the fifth book on the wall street journal bestseller list is strengthfinder 2.0 and the women of duck commander, number 7, mallory factor provides a history of the conservative movement in big tent. booktv covered mr. factor's talk in april, impossible to watch any time at booktv.org. next is gabriel bernstein at self-help book miracles now followed in ninth by political commentator bill o'reilly and historian martin do god's account of the death of jesus of nazareth in killing genius -- killing jesus. wrapping up, thrive, editor-in-chief of the wall huffington post media group area huffington. the data the best non selling fiction books according to the wall street journal. >> host: back in tia chucha's bookstore in the northern san pandora--san fernando valley with best-selling author, community activist, put, political candidates, luis j. rodriguez. one of the books you listed, that you talked about in your other books is harry thomas's down those mean streets. >> it was written in the 60s. and he was an addict and a gain and was in and out of trouble, more intensive what i was going through but i related to a, it was so poetic the points we wrote, the love story, the girls, what we were going to come everything i was doing relating to girls pouring out word. no sense of guidance, what to do, very dumb kid trying to -- it was not planned out for me. thomas was giving you -- he is in new york city. how does he relate to me? led malcolm x's autobiography, these books spoke to me. thomas became a good friend and teacher. rest in peace, a great teacher, friend, has always been good with helping others. we did a poetry reading at a bookstore in brooklyn. it was so moving i was in tears, i was reading poetry and he was reading his work and he was my hero faugh, he was so gracious. >> host: luis j. rodriguez, what is the significance of poetry to you? >> i didn't know i was doing poetry. really not full grown things. i was 18 years old and still on drugs, trying to get out of it. i end up in berkeley before a poetry reading and i heard people, people called the godfather of poetry, david henderson who was the lead african-american performance poet and the puerto ricans pilot from new york, reading together. it was my first poetry reading, so powerful that it will me up, i have a poem about this where they got me by the throat, wake up, you are a poet. it woke me up, also made me think i could do this, gave me imagination so since then i have been doing poetry. i went to school to learn poetry, i went to other readings, went to workshops, to port in poetry sessions, in 1980 started going to prison even though i went when i was younger, got out -- didn't do any state prison time or big time but did 25, went back and i have been doing it ever since and for 35 years going to prisons all over the country, mexico, central america, england, working with people pulling writing workshops and greetings and a lot of that was me finding the voice poetry can bring out, the language on love that you can play with a little bit, the emotional power poetry has that sometimes is not always in that kind of writing. >> host: when you do a writing workshop what is your main message? >> everybody has opportunities, everybody is a poet. everybody is a poet so you try to do something to bring it out. we do metaphoric things like you are in a forest and describe the forest but tell me about this road and they don't know what they're doing but they are riding and get descriptive than the road becomes nice, beautiful thing or a scary thing or something or maybe they forget the road and go somewhere else. all of that is metaphorical, and i usually have exercises that allow people to tap into their psyche and the spirit, the sold through language, story, images and it comes out they are all poets. >> host: from "hearts and hands: creating community in violent times," four ways to live an autonomous mature existence, be an authoritative confidence strong presence, be a compassionate, caring, lover of people, be a special kind of artist, be a warrior, fighting for what is right and one's community. be a special kind of artist. >> we are all artists. people say artists are special kind of people and of course the thing is no, we are all special kind of artist. you got to find your art and expand the idea of art. is not just painting or expanded. there is art in teaching. kids tell me i love working with congress. who is not working with cars? there is art in everything. find your artist's language of passion because your passion is your guide, your compass, where you want to be. maybe this song or dance or a combination. some people have two or three passions with some people never find them. they have them but are afraid, that passionless. i think everybody has it. that is the idea. be that specific special artist you were meant to be. >> host: and number 4, the warrior fighting for what is right and when's community, politically, how have you done that? >> guest: personal transformation. i always make it and also a social transformation. i had to go back to that young man who said i was the victim. i am not just changing my life. that is part of it. you recognize all the things but also got to do something and help others and in the last 40 years i helped a lot of kids get out of gangs, get off drugs, off of alcoholism and change their life. i don't just do it because i emigrate decent person but because i bring out their art, poetry, poetry, stories, and politically i am active because i want people to know social justice is a threat in me. if we are in a world that has violence, no jobs, people lose their homes, parents are working two or three jobs where there is poverty where there shouldn't be, change that world. it is enough to say that is the ultimate victim. can't do anything about it. that is what we see in drugs but when you say wait a minute, it is what it is but i can help change it. that is powerful and it takes conscious awareness. that is what i try to do, get people to see great personal transformation, personal change and hope and help change the world, the world you came out of, make it better than when you are in it. >> host: vice-presidential nominee justice party 2012 and candidate for governor of california's green party. >> guest: i am glad i got involved in politics. it is hard because it is kind of a protest of the current so-called democratic process. i don't think it is very democratic. two parties get to speak, it takes big money to be heard and most people tell you that is not democracy and it isn't. i am running because i want to unveil the democratic nature but also as green party i have a program, a platform, working for a better environment, clean, green, he efficient, working for the end of poverty, the economy that works for everybody and social justice. those of the two killers of a decent society and i will push those so i'm going to try to make this collect oral process as governor, any position meaningful. is not enough to say it doesn't work, how do we make it meaningful and make it real for everybody? >> host: 585-3881 in the mountain and pacific time zones and put up our e-mail, twitter and facebook addresses if you can't get through on the phone lines. left with our guest, luis j. rodriguez. chuck in idaho. you are on booktv. good afternoon. good morning. >> my question to luis j. rodriguez, he said earlier in his statement law-enforcement, games and stuff, i am retired law enforcement and work the lot of gangs and actually that is the position with the d a for many years. we saw a lot of law enforcement officers try to talk young gang members out of that in asking why in regards to california, they are not allowed to use drugs but sell it to other hispanics. lot of problems with gangs and drugs. i agree with luis j. rodriguez's statement that the war on drugs never work. and i worked there for four years. and maybe he should. and they try to talk kids out of being gang members. and their health too. si >> guest: i know that to be true. i worked with a number of law enforcement over the years. i let them off the hook just like i let my dad off the hook, when i was growing up, it was an occupied force. i knew that it would be used against us. police in one form or another, all on arms, brown, killed by police. one actually died trying to escape police. and over the years i have seen in men >> in law enforcement especially where it was one of the worst -- not making this up. it was written, one of the worst police departments, known for the hammer, known for ramparts corruption, these are things that are real. even the justice department, 18-20 got arrested for violence and beatings in county jail. there is even sheriff's deputy that were arrested for doing drive-bys. doing drive-bys to keep gained warfare going. not every police officer is doing that. they're decent police officers, and it was a police officer, i know a guy who was one of the nicest guys in the world. and he created schools. he heard me speak. he became a police officer. i just want people to forget, what they're dealing with. i am trusting a police officer will have long history. that is what is going to work together. that will help the kid. let's not arrest everybody and think that is the answer. let's see what else we can do to get the help they need, a helping hand. i challenge all police officers, work for kids, give them a helping hand. not just put them away. that will be my challenge for them. >> host: from your book "hearts and hands: creating community in violent times" you write in one predominately mexican school in chicago, and poetry workshops, zero tolerance resulted in removal of a third of the student body. it will have 1-third of the students who entered the school of question, they got rid of the problems to get rid of most of the students. to save the institution. what sense does that make. >> host: going back to the police thing. and don't be soft on crime. zero tolerance. put the mall away. i am witness to it and been fighting it for 40 years. we should have zero tolerance. people begin to see it but it was the way they were dealing with it instead of dealing with trouble yesterday. that is a good way of putting it. all trouble is real. everybody is troubled. even the guy looking at me saying, and here is the thing. all trouble can be positive. of trouble can be creative. and look who he's helping people. gay and positive trouble, i am still a troublemaker but in a different way. and politics are running for office or the book so there's a way to do this and we can't have zero tolerance. got to tolerate the trouble but got to take it somewhere. the demand for, be the teacher, hang in with these kids, don't give up on them. they will give you hell and tech -- they will test you but guess what? wake up the next day you are there. that is important. >> host: if you have a question from the audience -- >> my name is michael ray, i was part of the published work russian waters rising dreams, my peace is mother's garden that was included so first off, i wanted to say thank you for that. that was amazing to get a voice to give people of the community. that said, how does our education and functional literacy, trans formative spaces in relation to the governor's position running for. i trans formative. i used with the most troubled kids, done it in prison in el salvador. i did it in the worst violence city in the world. board where i lived. i did it in southern england with caribbean prisoners. everywhere i go where i bring the art, poetry, songs, we had to do it here at tia chucha so i believe in art as one of the cumins things. less money on law enforcement, prison, you would do more to help the communities that all of that. that is one thing. but that policy, i call that a neighborhood arts policy. every neighborhood should be alive with the arts. artists are already out there. one thing we learn at tia chucha, we don't have to create the artists, they are already there. we just need a place where they can gather, learn, teach, express. once we had that people came out of the woodwork and every neighborhood has its. i have been to the worst neighborhoods in this country. people have to go to camden, new jersey, south side chicago, and fresno, the artists always there. and it is so powerful, you can be a part of that. words can be a part of it and we get that message everywhere. if i could be governor i would make sure there's a park in a vinnie neighborhood with access to the arts. >> host: from california, high, and. simon? i think -- >> caller: from california. >> host: please go ahead with your question or comment for author luis j. rodriguez. >> caller: my wife is the mexico--mexican nationals, between mexican americans and mexicans. in her view the world, when mexican-americans, a person from mexico like they are americans and when they are around americans they become mexicans. and like, i have had mexican-americans, you are not mexican even though your wife, your mother is from mexico, your wife, you are white. i wondered if you had any ideas about that and subjected to that during his life and one short comment. when i was in school in the 60s we studied the aztecs and mines and spanish missing systems, that was a school that was different from the rest of california. >> host: luis j. rodriguez, any comment for that color? >> guest: it is true. there is a border that comes along. one of the first big divisions in native people, when it used to be long relationships, when i got involved with the native american community i came as an aggravated person because the country wouldn't accept me, you are from south of the border. doesn't matter, the border came over, didn't stop us being who we were. now native americans are very accepting. i do ceremonies in navajo land, dakota land i did a presentation on native american cosmology in new mexico which was very accepting the but accept a chicano as well as them, and they're very open, and beautiful about it. we have been divided, same thing happened, i agree with him on one level. when i was growing up i spoke spanish but i was born in texas. i spoke spanish, related to spanish-speaking kids and i remember they would tell me don't hang around with them. who knows if they are -- it didn't matter. the point was -- >> host: what are t.j.? >> guest: tijuana. they speak spanish, they are your own people, your own mother speaks spanish so the division, a lot of the chicano gangs were anti mexican. it was really weird. ..anti-mexican. that happens across the border because i would go across the border and they will say you are not spanish. they would use a word that means wa washed out. so we were discriminated by americans, over the border and then battling each other. you can see how we get real with each other. whatever he is pointing out is symptomatic of how people react. people shouldn't be putting each other down. this is what we have to overcome. the barriers and the things that are eating at us. ... >> guest: they had beautiful gardening. that's what i didn't learn. i didn't learn that they had beautiful religions, you know what i'm saying? all i learned was that they were heart stealers, and they were empires. i know for a fact now it was not really true. but point is, didn't matter. that's what they teach you. i'm going to clarify that. i did learn something about aztecs and my januaries, but i didn't -- mayans, but i didn't learn the truth about who they were. >> >> host: luis rodriguez, we seem to have an ongoing conversation about immigration. >> guest: i'm not saying immigrants aren't important, but everything shouldn't be focused on us. i do think it's an anti-native thing. in other words, they're looking add the brown-skinned people. i have a white mexican, white, blond-haired guy who has a funny story how when years ago, he's an older man, when he was in texas, he was mexican. he didn't even speak english, but he had blond hair x. remember how they had the buses where all the mexicans and blacks were in the back? the bus driver said all mexicans and blacks went to the back. he went to the back. the bus driver says, where are you going? you're white. he says, to, i'm mexican. and threw everybody for a loop. i think what we're looking at is trying to deny a -- indianize the coming back of the native in this country. the cosmology's different. day of the dead is a much more native, vibrant thing than even halloween, you know what i'm saying? so there's a contrast that we're bringing here. even if some of us don't remember what tribes we're from or even names -- [inaudible] i think it's an, it's against that part of the world, that part of america. the other thing i'm going to point out is that the migration is global. poor people are are going to the northern country. it's not just the u.s. and in europe for years i was surprised how many black and brown people are there. mostly from the mideast, northern africa. you know, africans in europe are undocumented. i had african-americans say how come all undocumenteds are mexicans and brown people? i said, go to europe, they're africans. he didn't even pay attention. there's poor people that are going to countries that are richer. we should look at the global ramifications of why that happened. so look at immigration in this country. my thing is people don't want to -- [inaudible] after nafta happened, even more came out here. the big agriculture, corn industry was competing with small little cornfields. the mexicans couldn't catch up. they lost their own cornfield. corn was born in mexico, and now they can't even grow corn. so a lot of people came up here to live, to survive. they didn't come here because they think america's the greatest country in the world. maybe some. they always had this creme i'm going back, they couldn't go back. their kids live here, now they're in this country. so my thing is we have to honor and respect all of us. the reason we're here, whatever brought us here whether slave ships, whether it's the famine many ireland, whether it's what happened in china, whether it's all the poverty in latin america, we're here for a reason. we're here, and we should work together to make this place the microcosm of what's possible or what's good, what's imagine incentive and i how we can live better as human beings. >> host: from "always running," you write: coughing us up, us immigrants, as if we were fellow stuck in the collective throat of this country. my father was mostly out of work, my mother found work cleaning homes or in the garment industry. she knew the corner markets were ripping her off, but she could only speak with her hands and in a choppy english. the next call for luis rodriguez comes from monica in fresno, california. monica, you're on booktv. please go ahead. >> caller: thank you, peter. hello. [speaking spanish] mr. luis. whether you are what carlos santana refers to, a weapon of mass compulsion. i thank you for that. we need artists, we need thank ors, we need doers. my question or problem that i'm just dealing with over here in fresno, california, is i see a lot of community buildings that have been shut down. i see a lot of different resources that are not being pooled and used. i also do see a lot of things going down for gente. but i guess my question would be is how can we prevent a culture, and you did mention it earlier before i actually got on to ask the question, but i'll go ahead and say it because i have no other question to ask, how can we prevent the culture of violence for our youngsters coming up? we have, we have the media that we could use, instead, it's glorifying, you see young vatos glorifying barrio life as, you know, money, and it looks glamorous. but the truth is it leads to, it leads to nowhere unless, unless somebody like you wakes them up. and what i want to foe is what can we do -- what i want to know is what can we do to prevent this issue that we have, the cycle that is never ending? we, you know, the whole issue of zero tolerance and all we do need to deal with that. how do we get these kids not to be on the zero tolerance list? thank you very much, keep up the good work. >> guest: thank you. >> host: monica, i should say. okay. monica in fresno. >> guest: well, you know, i think a lot of it is education. but i'd like to expand the idea of education. obviously, schools are important. people should be able to have colleges, universities, they should have expansive amount of education. but i think education also comes from family, from the streets, from community. i felt that i'm educated when i'm talking to the kids on the corner, when i'm trying to help people. i have to see myself as somebody that gives consciousness, awareness and connectedness wherever i go. so i think that's what's needed. a lot of the kids were disconnected. they're alienated from the world. and anybody that wants to just kill others and kill themselves in the process are totally disconnected from what's there my indigenous roots shows that we're all tied, we're all one. there's a word among my mother's tribe -- [speaking in native tongue] that means we are one. almost everybody has that. the mayans have -- [inaudible] which means i'm the other you, you are the other me. these are beautiful concepts that we have to get back to. and now it takes teachings because we have a fractured economy. we have a world, a culture that's fractured. we have a world that isn't congruent in the sense that people can make a lot of money over here and a lot more people have to be poor just so that can happen. fresno's a good example of a community that's hard scrabble, that has no jobs. it's one of the poorest five communities in the whole country in the midst of the richest country in the world. and the richest state, the central valley. there are riches, agriculture. do you see what i'm saying? i think we have to teach people from the incongruency comes from and how they themselves can begin to forge and make a new world. i'm thinking about a world that aligns all the resources, i'm thinking of a world that makes sure everybody's taken care of, that every community's healthy. we don't just take care of a few, but our attitude is the best way to take care of a few is to make sure that everybody's got healthy, thriving communities. that means my community will be thriving and healthy as well. >> host: how often do you write and where do you write? >> guest: well, my goal has been two hours a day, every morning. it doesn't always get there, but i find if i don't write regularly, i'm really lost. that is my passion, that is my centering. i find that i am more whole when i'm writing. this is when you know you're in your art. i'm whole. i may be not so whole at other times, other places. sometimes i'm not always there with the family, but when i'm writing, i'm there. i'm in tune. it's a tune we all need to get to. it's like tuning a guitar string, you know? you kind of have to be on tune. life does that. every once in a while get yourself tuned. when itune up for my life, my day, my writing, again, i don't always get to it, sometimes i only can write for a few minutes, but i find that's a good goal; start early in the morning. what's happening now i get up early, i read or whatever, but if i get in front of my computer, i'm writing. it could be a poem no purpose, it could be an article for a huffington post piece, part of my next book, just an essay, all kinds of reasons i need to write. >> host: what is the book that you're working on currently? >> guest: well, i have three books if mind. poetry is no money making. i just love it. it's begin me a lot of notoriety. i love the poetry. i have a book that i hope when it comes out, could be powerful. i always have fiction. i've got one short story collection, one fofl that's not as well known. i love it. i want to do short stories about chicago. chicago is my second home. i love chicago. i lived there for 15 years. i'm an l.a. guy, but i've got chicago in my blood. so it's kind of like i want to do these stories. and i also want to, hopefully, consider a book of essays on some of these talks that i've been sharing here, to put it in writing similar to what we did with "hearts and hands" which, again, has more of that end to it. it's more my thinking, what have i learned, what did i get to do something similar with another kind of book. >> host: you mentioned chicago, our next call comes from a gentleman names ramiro. please go ahead. >> caller: hello, mr. rodriguez, this is your son. >> guest: my son. did you hear all the terrible things i said about you? [laughter] >> caller: i just wanted to say how very proud i am of you. i also think that you've been talking about the movement. i think it's very important not just for people if california, but for chicago and nationally because of where you come from and how, you know, like me -- [inaudible] the struggles that i've been through and a lot of other young people all over country. you know, you're our mentor, somebody we look up to, you're somebody that we can strive to become not exactly like you, but to become in that position where you're in where we can make a difference also in ore people's lives. you've changed my life so much, and i just want to thank you so much for everything that you've done. even though i wasn't the easiest son, you never gave up on me, and that's what's helped me to be, you know, a positive mentor in chicago. so, you know, you mentioned 15 years here, you understand some of the intricacies, the politics, and right now there's a term for chicago, it's called chiraq, which honestly i know a lot of people don't like calling it that. chicago's beautiful. there's culture, there's diversity, there's the families, but because of all the violence that's happening regionally, like this past weekend we had 40 shootings, six of them were kids. you know, we have a lot of killings, and this is happening almost every day. so since, you know, you have some roots here, how do -- what are some of the answers or some of the solutions that you feel that we need to do here not just as individuals, but as a community, politically, you know? this is not just, you know, we all know this is happening for a reason. >> host: ramiro, before we get your father to answer, if you could, two questions. what do you think about a lot of your life and some of the negative aspects of your life being played out many your dad's books -- in your dad's books, and tell us about yourself today. >> caller: oh, okay. [laughter] well, you know what? he talked about me a little bit earlier, you know, the things that happened in our lives have to come out. because if we don't face those thing, they become -- they fester. they become part of us. that becomes our anger, that becomes explosive. he pretty much forced me to face the things that i never really wanted to face in my life, which has helped me. yeah, you know, look, i spent years in prison, i was in gangs, i did a lot of -- [inaudible] but you know what? at the same time, i'm here surviving, you know what i'm saying? i'm a part of the community. i'm bringing positivity to my community. i'm a mentor to young people. you know what i'm saying? i'm bringing a positive light to the darkness that has existed in my own life, you know? and that comes from facing these issues, this negativity that you're talking about. it's all negativity. from your perspective maybe it was negative because that's what you guys are looking at, but from us that lived in that kind of world, that's all i we knew. that's what our world was. they haven't heard -- [inaudible] you know, fighting, whatever, but this is what we were, this is what we love, this is who we are, this is what we represented. of course, it's -- i also know this is not the past for me. that's why i've changed my life through guidance from my far. i'm a positive person. i don't drink or do drugs. i stay here embedded into my community, but if a positive way. i don't -- [inaudible] the guys and girls from my hood. i work in a restaurant right now in my neighborhood. but you know what? i come at 'em in a different way. i come at 'em trying to get them jobs, trying to help them through school. sometimes if i've got a little wit of money out of my been bit of money out of my pocket, i'm struggling myself, but they know i'm here. i'm still here. but i'm doing it in a different way. that same energy and passion t life is now what i'm giving to saving these kids' livesot/ in my community. >> host: thank you, sir, for calling in too. >> guest: well, it's great to hear from my son. we went through a lot. being a father is a hard thing in our culture because i don't think we remember what it's like. we don't know, we forget. and i have to give him credit because he, he says, well, i didn't give up on him, but he didn't give up on me either. you know, we were really having a rough time, and even when he was in prison, i remember one time he called and was jumping on me for being such a terrible job and then i told him, well, okay, son, but you weren't such a good son either. i told him, you know what? why don't we just stop this nonsense. i anytime i was a terrible dad. let's just stop it. let's just love each other now. let's just change. that's not easy. and when you tell people to change, you can't make that like a panacea like a magic wand. but you know, the struggle to change itself is beautiful. even though the hard days -- and i see my son, i'm very proud of him, because i see what he's gone through. i know the terrible things he's faced, the abuse he had from other guys. he had more neglect from me even though when i used to hit him when i shouldn't have hit him, he had abuse from other guys. his poor mom, too, and i want to give her credit, because she stood by. another troubled young person. and she stepped up. so it's good to hear him. i think one of the things that helps a lot is we went on a trip last year. he got off parole, so he could finally come to california. and the this crazy -- [inaudible] that he wanted. i helped him with it, and and we drove all the way from chicago to california. and, you know, it was one of the most beautiful trips. we came with a friend, a puerto rican poet, and we had a great time. and i never argued with him once. we just had a great time talking, sharing s and my son has become wise in his age. he's become a wounded healer. and that's partly what i'm saying. it's important to point out we're all victims, but it's also important to point out that in our wounds we can make the change. and he's become one of these people. and we were able to do poetry. now he's a poet, my son. so anyway, i want to just thank him. he is sincere and honest in that. i think the issue when he was in the gang, he was rough, he was mean, he was angry, he was violent, but he is honest and at peace, and that's important. because i had to go through that. and i've seen other people do it. but to see my son, it's powerful. it's really what we're talking about. and i don't want to apologize for the tears because i think it's part of what we forget. i never cried for a hong time. i was told not to cry. a man shouldn't cry. but man tears are important. they're tears of your feminine aspect, they're tears of being fully human, of being whole. it's important. anyway. thank you, mariro, or thank you -- ramiro, thank you for everything. >> host: you're watching booktv on c-span2, our monthly "in depth" program. this month social security best -- it's best-selling and award-winning author luis rodriguez. we are live from tia chuchas in northern california, in san fernando valley, and we have a studio audience, and we have a question here from a studio audience member. [speaking spanish] >> i'm a community organizer raised in a beautiful migrant community with people full of hopes and dreams and culture but also full of traumas and going through violence. and so when i grew up, there was no space, there was no place to go to find artists and myself, to find the organizer in myself. so when tia chuchas opened its doors 13 years ago, i find that space and many other people. so tia chuchas has been the space where minds meet for a change, where the arts transform our community into something positive. it's been, it's been a hard thing to do, and i know there's been a lot of investment and sacrifice from you and your family. but it's something that has changed our community into now a beautiful space. so my question is, what can people in this community and other communities do to support, to maintain the doors open of tia chuchas bookstore and those that don't have the privilege of having a space like this, what can they coto get it started? >> well, one thing i would hope that we could be an example for anybody. we have a beautiful book and a film called "rushing waters, rising dreams: how the arts are transforming a community." that's available, and anybody that wants it, just contact us so that you can get a copy and/or get book. because it really, it illustrates the possibility within every neighborhood. pa coy ma, as you know, is as rough as any place can be and didn't seem to have a lot going for it, but as we've found, there's richness in poverty. the richness comes from people's spirit, from their creativity, their hopes and dreams and hard work. we've got to get people to understand that it's already existing there. it's not, it's not a world that we have to go outside of ourselves so much for. we have it within us. so i would say that that's the key to tapping into what's already there. and to get this in every community, that people look and say where's by community? where's the festivals? where are the muralists? where are the public art pieces? where are the songs? where are dances? i think every community has it. it would make a much more vibrant country and much more thriving if everybody could tap into that art. it would help in many ways get rid of some of the diction issues -- addiction issue, some of the people in violence. i'm pretty much convinced my great friend, michael mead, great storyteller, says, you know, if you don't turn the beauty in young people, you know, out, it will turn into violence. they all have beauty, just bring it out so it doesn't become a violet thing. so thank you, marching' that, for your work and those beautiful thoughts. >> host: next call comes from marta in lily, pennsylvania. marta, please go ahead with your question or comment. >> guest: my comment is i was watching booktv there and enjoying your talk and admiring what you've accomplished and what you expect to accomplish and how hard you're working to make the world a better place, and you got that phone call that was abusive, and i kind of got a little angry. i just wanted you to know that i do admire what you are doing, and i know there's a lot of people in this world who are praying that you will succeed in what you're trying to do in this world, because the world needs people like grow. thank you. >> guest: well, i appreciate that very much. i think, yeah, i think most people in this country are good hearted. i think most people in this country want the same thing. i don't believe that most people here are vindictive and mean, but we do have a fearful population, we do have people that are so disconnected they look at others -- i would say, again, going back to that young man who says he's from pacima, so disconnected from the world around him. get him to come to neighborhood, get him to come to tia chuchas. come to our open mic, and you can see all of the different people, some of the battered women who have a women's circle or women who just have issues or are just trying to relate. they are a women's circle writing. have him see that. have him see what's possible in spite of the pain, in spite of the traumas, in spite of all the injustices. because, again, you can't deny they don't exist. you can't say they're not there. but you have to turn all that into something that's powerful, that's meaningful, that's vital and help change all of that reality. >> host: luis rodriguez, an e-mail from oliver rosales. what are your thoughts on home boy industries, father greg boyle and replicating entrepreneurial activity among former gang members beyond l.a. oliver is e-mailing from bakersfield. first of all, what's home boy industries? >> guest: it's quite an amazing gang intervention/prevention program probably one of the best in the whole city of l.a. which as you know, after -- chicago and l.a. are known as the gang capital. father greg boyle is a good friend of mine. i respect him tremendously. because he didn't just talk the talk, he walked the walk. he went into the neighborhoods, he talked to people. he saw these kids that didn't see a bunch of crazy, nutty, violent kids. he saw them as human beings caught in worlds that they had no understanding about and didn't know how to get out of. he gave them opportunities to gain skills, to get tattoo removals. the tattoos are extensive on their faces and hands, they can't get jobs. kids that are so addicted that they can't even think twice anymore. they will hurt their own families, who don't even feed their kids. he's helping them. i know, because i've worked there. i've helped mentor. i've seen the kids. these are hard core. and i've seen the changes. so i believe in his structure, the it's maybely jobs, entrepreneur -- mainly jobs. i think there's a lot of room in the economy for entrepreneurship spirit, setting up small businesses, helping people get going. i believe that there's a good way for that no happen. people say, well, i'm against business. i said i'm against the big corporate-controlled business. i'm against all of these big, giant financial institutions controlling everything. i'm saying giving it back to the people. there's artisans and great things, little shops, cultural spaces. people can create their own flavor, their own world. i totally believe in that. so i think father greg boyle and home boy industries are a great example. i support them, and i'm glad that it was brought up. >> host: when it comes to home boy industry, do they make things? is it an industrial -- >> guest: yeah. they have seven industries. they have a t-shirt making industry, they have a restaurant, they have a bakery, they have a café. they have a number of -- they make things, they sell things, they create their own art, their t-shirts are their own art to bring out to people. i have to mention my other good friend -- [inaudible] l. [speaking spanish] in santa cruz does the same thing, works with the hardened gang kids. he's got t-shirt shops, mechanics, there's all kinds of ways to get people involved. when i was young working in industry helped me. the fact the industry changed into something else, they helped me to use my hand, use my mentality to be a part of something. so i'm convinced that's a very powerful way to go. i think there's a lot of otherring things as well as that, but i think it's powerful to give people a sense that their own hands can create a business, maybe allow them to make a living when the rest of the industry cannot incorporate them. >> host: where is the home girl café. >> guest: it's right next to the home boy industries which is on the edge of chinatown in downtown l.a. now there are corporate gangs from all over, and wonderful, amazing food. i would definitely recommend it. go to homegirl café. now they have one, i think, in down up toty hall, and i heard they have one at the airport now. >> host: next call for luis rodriguez comes from rosemary in modesto, california. rosemary, please go ahead. >> caller: hi. hi, luis. i was a high school english teacher for 45 years, and you mentioned that kids often told you always running was the only book they ever read. i used to buy that book for by students, and rather than being the only book they ever read, it kind of, like, started them on reading. and after they read "always running," i could convince them to read almost any book that i had in my library because i'd given them a book that they could relate to, it had a great writing style, so thank you very much for that. you started a whole generation of readers from the publication of that book. and then -- >> guest: that's very good. >> caller: i noticed that one of your -- >> host: thank you a, rosemary. >> caller: one of your favorite authors was william stafford who is the poet laureate of oregon, and i'm a native oregonian, and i wondered how you learned about william stafford. >> guest: yes. well, first of all, just speaking on the book, one of the beautiful things that you're saying that i think is important is this doesn't have to be the only book people read, obviously. and i think all literature is important. when i say people need to read books that relates to them, doesn't mean they shouldn't read shakespeare or walt whitman or emily dickenson. sometimes you can't relate to hem, to another world, another time. i think when my book or a book like mine is people realize, wow, i can get in my story, i can resonate, but i can also learn from others. it does open up the world literature. i love reading books, all kinds of books. i read novels, short stories, poetry. i read all cultures. i'm very fond of native american writers as well as african-american writers and, of course, people like john fonte and, you know, james fair row and all these -- far row and all these great, you know, white writer. there's so many of them out there. so i would say open up the world to literature through this book. mentioned the second thing is -- >> host: you know what? i got busy, i let you do all the listening. it's my fault, roast marcy. thanks for calling in. we've talked quite a bit about always running and it calls you back, two of luis roll reese's -- rodriguez's best books. it calls you back goes on to talk about his life post post-gang and some of the issues that he faced there. the it was a finalist for the national book critics circle award. here's the cover. we want to show this to you. "it calls you back" is the booktv book club selection for may of 2014. if you pick up a copy and start reading, go to booktv.org, you'll be able to post your thoughts and ideas about this book. we'll put up some discussion questions as we go, but for may 2014, luis j. rodriguez's "it calls you back" is our book club selection, and so you can begin reading that right now, and we'll start posting items on our web site tomorrow. you can go to booktv.org, you'll see a little tab up there that says book club. we'll be posting this interview as well and some reviews, etc., some information about luis rodriguez. so go ahead and pick up a copy, and you can start reading that along with the rest of us. the next call comes from julie in paris, california. julie, please go ahead with your question or comment for luis rodriguez. >> caller: hello, mr. rodriguez. my name is julie, and i live out here in paris, california, in riverside county. i was raised and born in boyle heights. when my husband and i moved out here, we've noticed that here in riverside county is one of the largest hispanic growing areas here in california. but yet it's very hard to have people to rebelling ther the to vote. and i think that comes a lot from the parents. if they've never registered to vote, their children are never going to register to vote. my question to you is how do we get the people near liveside county -- riverside county to start to know that they do have a voice out here not only from the parents that are in their 50s and 60s, but now our early leaders that are going to be our leaders that are 20s and early 30s? what is your suggestion for us to do out here in -- [inaudible] >> guest: well, let me just say i think this may be a hard thing to put out. i think most people don't vote for good reason. they don't have much to vote for. and, again, if it's a two-party, limited situation, if it's just corporations, if it's just certain people speaking, you're not going to vote. i do think people should vote, and i do think it's important that they get out there and not -- and take advantage of the voting process. but they should also be thinking about people who run who represent their interest, who are really going to speak for them, who are not going to make deals, who are not going to take corporate money and, therefore, back off. i am a candidate that's dedicated to the community. i will not make any deals. i don't want no corporate donations. this puts me behind the 8 ball. i'm okay with that because i'm also pointing out this is what we need to do to have a little democracy. so what i would say is if people in california get to see my name on a ballot, vote for that other choice, vote for that voice because we need that. i can't do the big ads. i don't got $17, $20 million that the president governor of the state of california has. i can't do that, and i'm not going to do that. we need to do it grassroots. but i think the key thing is find meaningful candidates who represent them, who really see the issues and are not going to back off. they should be articulate, they should be knowledgeable, have real solutions. and that's what i think we're at, real answers to the issues we're facing. then i think people would vote. i think more latinos would be out there if they could see people that really represented them. that, to me, would be the way to do it. let's train young people. let's get people actively involved in the electoral process. otherwise i think you're going to see more people not voting. we have the lowest turnout of volume in the world practically in this country. so i would say keep training and developing and voting for people who represent those interests. >> host: the republic of east l.a. is also by luis j. rodriguez. what is in this book? >> guest: those are stories about boyle heights, east l.a., it's a community that is deepest in my heart because i moved into -- [inaudible] these communities in largest mexican community in the u.s. i mean, more than a million people are in east h.a.. some of the poorest neighborhoods, some of the nicest neighborhoods. so m of those neighborhoods are clean and beautiful, some of them are housing projects. there's about six housing projects. it's a rough place, but it's also a place of beauty. and i wanted to reflect both of it. to me, it isn't only that you show one end of it, you point out there's rough things, there's trauma, there's pain, there's ugly things, but there are also people who in spite of that have dignity, work hard, create, fight for social justice. you can have a fuller sense of who you are. so that's the republic of east l.a. a world in the united states that's not mexico, that's not quite full-on american. it's another world with its own culture similar to what you find in places like, you know, new orleans and other cultures. beautiful american cultures, but they're different. they have nuances that don't quite fit into -- >> host: who designed that? that's a great cover. >> guest: that's part of the culture that is very big in l.a. low riding came out of the mexican culture. now it's used in hip-hop. there is unity there. in japan there's a whole low rider culture where they actually buy low riders from l. a., ship them over there. now they have low rider stories and a magazine. so even people in other worlds can appreciate what we bring to the table. >> host: 202 is the area code, about 20 minutes left with our guest, luis j. rodriguez. 585-3880 in the east and central time zones, 585-3881 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. because we are out here on the pacific coast, we are in sylmar california, we have a question here from another audience member. >> host: my name is ann job, and i live here in sylmar. and i'm thinking back to the beginning of this conversation when you were talking about how difficult it was for you as a child growing up brown in a really diverse community. and i grew up in a small town in georgia, and i'm white. finish and diversity was white and black where i grew up. and it's just heartbreaking to hear what you were going through, because i'm sure i was putting and my friends were putting other kids through that same, through that same difficulty that they did not deserve. so i believe in redemption. i believe totally in redemption, and i think about how close we got to losing you, how many times we might have lost you. and happily, you're here. but it's not just having lost you. think of all the people that a you've touched, that you've changed that we would have lost had you not been redeemed. and one of the comments that was made in a phone call was that said the world needs more people like you. and i would say more of us need to be like you. because we have the responsibility, too, to touch people's hives, to say -- lives, to say i don't care how often you disappoint me, i'm not going anywhere. i am going to be there. you will always be able to come to me. and we all need to be later luis rodriguez. a little luis rodriguez. >> well, that's very beautiful. you know, i -- that's why i think we've got to be more tolerant of people in trouble, more helpful, more resourceful to them. i was a juvenile -- in juvenile hall, people don't know this, the largest juvenile lock-up in north america is right five minutes from this place. and i go there pretty regularly to speak to kids, up to a thousand kids, you know? numbers always change. all poor, working class, vast majority mexicans and a good, large number of african-americans. i went there to a poetry festival recently. a writers' program does poetry the with the kids, and they had a beautiful reading. i did the keynote for them. so i'm there listening, and there was one kid, 14 years old, baby face, read ago poem. and his mother and grandmother were in the audience, they were proud of him. i thought it was a great poem, what a wonderful kid. i felt bad that he was there, i didn't know what he was there for. i never asked him. but somebody came up to me and just to make the point, that kid was facing 135 years in prison. and that really hurts me to hear that, because people don't know that this is happening in our country. they don't know because they just let the laws happen, they walk away. they think this is tough on crime. this can kid needs to be -- i don't care what he's done. he's redeemable too. even poetry could be his redeeming place. but we're throwing him away. that's what we do. so my whole thing don't throw away nobody. no matter how bad or rotten you think they are. nobody's really rotten. the idea is that we have all the capacity to do amazing things. we can do amazingly bad things, we can do amazingly bad things. a lot of it is is that turn, stories, things that happen that turn people one way or the other. i've been fortunate to have made the turn, but i'm also positively convinced that might be can make this -- anybody can make this turn. racist skinheads, people know about hem. they're in the prison system, you know? you think these are the worst people possibly, especially people of color. i have a good thing who i have to talk about kenneth hartman who's serving a life without possibility of parole here in lancaster prison. and he wrote a beautiful book about his life growing up in the foster care system, in the juvenile hall, in prison. he was arrested for murder when he was 17 years old for murdering a home he is man. he was a racist skinhead person. and you would think how could he be my friend? well, when i met him a few years ago when i was doing writing workshops in land lancaster pri. i went there for almost eight hours a day with these prisoners, level four. many lifers. i met kenneth hart match. and what a wonderful human being. after 35 years in prison, he's become a wonderful human being. he's no longer a racist skinhead. he's no longer -- he actually helped create the first -- [inaudible] of the state of california. people from different races respect him now. and he's become my friend. and i wish that he could be left free, because he would help this world. and yet the way the world, he'll never be let out. we won't ever consider it. i think this is where we've gone wrong. we've lost our sense of humanity. we become so scared of things that we lose our own hue -- iew manty. can't you relate to somebody that's hurting? can't you relate to somebody that's trying to do something? now, i know that's -- [inaudible] it's like the worst thing you could do. and even then that is a human being there. somebody worth working with, talking to and dealing with. so that they never, ever do it again. and actually somebody like him can come and talk to these other white kids. it's like i helped somebody get out of prison after 28 years. he was never going to get out. we wrote letters on his behalf. he came out and we told him, you've got to help people. we didn't just get you out because it's the nice thing to do. you've got to help people. he's in the communities, but of after five years lean. clean. and that's possible. >> reuben sandoval posts on our facebook page that he is a community college english composition professor, and he's used your books for many years. after reading so many students become inspired to examine their past with the intention of improving their future, going on to say that he emphasizes the fact that writing is easy when we tell the absolute truth. >> guest: wow, that's very powerful: i do think all these arts can be easy if attached to something that is inside of you. it has to echo from something deep. i did not know how to write, but i wrote. it was easy for me to write. getting the skills was something i needed to do. but the writing, the motivation to just tell a story was what's really the most important thing. this is why when i do any expressive writing workshop, i don't everyone size great -- emphasize great spill spelling skills. poetry is always truthful, and all these poems have to be truthful even if you change facts. even, you know, people say is that all true? it's all true. i didn't make up one thing in "always running." what i did do is change a few facts. i'm trying to protect people. i'm trying to -- so the facts don't have to be entirely right to be truthful. same with fiction books that are supposedly all paid up, but you get -- all made up, but you get a lot of truth in them. write, do art to be truthful to yourself, truthful to the world. >> host: luisj.edrodriguez is hs personal web site. next call comes frompqe0du;v ann california. andrea, please go ahead. >> caller: hi. i'm luis j. rodriguez's daughter -- [laughter] and i'm calling to just, yes. i'm just calling to let everyone foe that the family's sporting everything -- supporting everything that my dad's doing. but also i work as an educator in los angeles, and it's a parents' cooperative. and what we've seen more than anything is that there's not many examples of how to have a cooperative society. and so i think my dad is able to bring that vision to california. so i just wanted to tell him that we support him, and we love him. >> well, it's so important to have your family loving you and respecting you. it's been a long, hard road. and both ramiro and and -- [inaudible] have seen me that way. i wasn't really this bern that they could be proud of -- person that they could be proud of. i'm glad we got to this point. it took a long, hard struggle to get closer, but we have, and i have to give her credit. she was resentful, too, but she's accepted me, and i learned to accept her. and to me, that's important. what i'm trying to do, i think she's making a good point. one of the qualities i'm trying to bring in there is cooperation. i think we do much more better, much more meaningful work if we cooperate total together. let's just say somebody does a terrible crime. we have what's called restorative justice which actually has roots in native cosmologies and thinking and traditions where, okay, if you do a crime, you need to come back to the victims of that crime, you need to come back from the community you took from. help restore it, help bring it back to balance. that's what we do. we don't put them away. we don't just punish them. we don't just say you're no good and rotten and you're never going to be a part of our community ever again. we say come back to the community, come back to help fix what was broken. then you become stronger. one of the reasons why i never went back to crime, because i started helping other people stop getting involved with crime, helping them heal, helping them understand themselves and in the process i healed. when i mentioned youth, i became their student. you know the other thing i learned, and my own healing was connected to the healing of others. so, therefore, i don't have an interest now to hurt people, to commit crime, to do illegal things. i just have to interest. i -- no interest. i want to do possible, probable, amazing things with what we already have. and i think that's important. so i'm, thank you, andrea, mi i hija. thank you for being there always, she just had our fifth grandson, jack carlos. i'm really just, again, honored that my family could finally come together in spite of all the differences and pains. we're one big family together. >> host: how many kids all together? >> guest: five -- well, i'm getting mixed up. four kids, five grandkids and as of february, i have a great grandson now. >> host: luis rodriguez was born in el paso, texas, and our next call comes from grace in el paso, texas. grace, you're on booktv. >> caller: thank you. thank you so much. i just wanted to congratulate mr. rodriguez on his wonderful book, and we need, like the lady said before, we need more people like him and ask to be more like himself. try to help youth. but my question is, my ex-husband is in your baa linda -- yorba linda being looked after after he fell to drugs, unfortunately, and i just want to ask him how can i help him? he calls me from time to time, and i am telling him how proud i am and trying to be supportive, but what more can i do? what else can i do to help him so that he won't do it again? so that he can become -- because he's a wonderful man, it's just that, unfortunately, he's been on his own, and i moved to el paso. i came back to el paso again to raise my children, and i just want to do more. what can i do to help? >> guest: well, i think i'm always kind of -- my wife will say be you love him, just love him. you don't have to condone anything that people do. you don't have to accept the mutant part of them, the addictions, but you've still got to love them. you've got possible -- got to be able to say i love you and i don't want you this way. holding the ground for them doesn't mean you have to save them, doesn't mean you have to put that on you. that's too much. the work has to be done by the person that's trying to change. change is internal. i had to make my change. i couldn't put it on my wife, my kids. i had to do it. but what was really beautiful, they stood by me. they were responsive with love. they helped keep a loving environment. they'd give me the motivation, the whatever it is i needed to keep at this. so i'd love him, let him know you love him. don't mean you've got to take anything that's wrong. he needs to know that with changes within him and if he wants to be part of that love, then he should do proper changes so he can be back in the embrace of your love. so thank you for that. >> host: luis rodriguez, we have another questioner here at tia chucha's here. who is this that we're about to work? >> guest: this is the beautiful trini. i always say that because she's still beautiful. we've been together for almost 30 years, married for 24 year, and she runs everything. i say she runs -- she runs it with the staff. it isn't like she's a big lord over everything. but she has helped create this atmosphere, in this environment in which the staff still cooperate together, work together to share in this community building. so my beautiful wife, trini. >> host: please go ahead. >> thank you. yes, and it is good to be reminded to always say i love you, and i do love you, luis. i want to say that one of the things that's really inspiring is to see the things that have hurt us, the things that have been difficult are also the things that, again, as he's mentioned r the things that we should challenge ourselves to look at deeply because that's where the possibility lies of changing. and i know that all of us have things that, in our lives tar difficult. that are difficult. for myself i know that just being a woman in this society has had a number of limitations that we've been put under. my experience growing up was i had a loving family. i had a family that worked very hard and was, you know, aspired to fit in and do things the right way. i was a straight a student, but i have to say that all those things can be trappings if they don't, if they don't come from a place of strength and confidence and of real revealing of yourself. and so the unfortunate thing in my life was i decided to go to school, and it wasn't my understanding of my parents that a girl should go to school, and i was disowned because of the way i left the house. and that followed me for quite a long time. but i think that it's important for us to remember that even though those things can be put on us, we have to move away from them and realize who we are. there's been a lot of messings, luis, my husband, but also the staff that we have to that continue to go beyond our limitations and really realize where we come from. it's -- so anyway, i just want to say thank you and thank you to c-span opinion allowing in the to happen -- for allowing this to happen. it's always important for us as women to remember that we are not less, we are more than we think we can be, and we just have to keep moving towards that. and it's an inspiration to watch people who do that like my husband. >> host: trini rodriguez before you leave, where were you raised? >> i was raised here in california primarily. i did grow up, part of my life i started in mexico. i was born here, but when i was one and a half, i lived for a year and a half in mexico and became very chose to my grandparents. it's something that has taught me a lot about, you know, the importance of elders, the importance of unconditional love, that it's good to have because when things do get difficult, you have to remember that you were valued at one time completely and fully. and if we tap into that, something that can carry us a long way. >> host: are you a writer at all, or do you work luis rodriguez, with his writing at all? >> i am a writer. i don't always think of myself as a writer. but, thankfully, i tapped back into that writing reservoir, and it's a beautiful thing. it's a beautiful thing. i write with a women's group here, called in the words of women, and it's something that has touched a lot of women, including myself. >> host: you have two kids together, correct? >> guest: yes. >> host: and what are their names? >> reuben joaquin and also luis jacinto rodriguez. >> host: and how old are they and where are they right now? >> well, one of them, reuben, is going to school at ucla right now, an english major. and also i have another son, we call him chito, and he is, 19, and he just decided that uc riverside was not for him at the moment, but he's, continues to write. he's writing a few plays right now, or rather, what is it -- i forget what they're called. myway, he's writing two different -- anyway, he's writing two different pieces right now. and he's quite a writer as well. >> host: luis rodriguez. >> guest: yes. wow, i mean, you know, it's kind of strange to go out on national tv and then have all this family stuff come up. but i think it's important. it's important. we come from a lot of hurt. there's a lot of rough things, and in my book dealing with my father, the things he did to my family, my own damage that i did to others, and trini suffered a lot. but i think what's, again, important we all can come together. we all can make it work. and it takes courage, it takes character, it takes dignity. these are will that we all have within our hands. i really think it's important what she's pointed out about women. what trini represents is a lot of women who got lost. she didn't do defiant things. he went by, but inside she was dying inside. there's a lot of women who do that. my daughter calls it being compliant instead of defiant. and they're both unhealthy. it's not a fullness, and i think she's speaking to that. and i think it's important for women to be given that understanderring and a sense that they do -- understanding that they do have a sense of power. and when they're not being heard, that they can fight in a way with their words, expressiveness, their organizational capacity, whatever they have to make that way for themselves. so i'm honored that my wife is also part of this great movement. i say it's a movement because it's a movement for our humanity. it's a movement for economy, and institutional and governance that aligns to that, not to who's got the money, who's got the power and who's going to take more of this everett than the rest of us. i think we all have an obligation to take care of each other and take care of the earth, take care of creation as well as us as self-creators as much as possible. >> host: and a lot of the family stuff and other issues that we have discussed, luis rodriguez writes about in his books. we want to close with this from "hearts and hands: creating community in violent times," "indifference is a greater force to overcome than evil intent. once again "it calls you back," national book critics' circle award winner is booktv's book club selection for the month of may. go ahead and pick it up. you can pick it up at ti achucha.com, and start reading, and join us at booktv.org book club, and we'll be posting discussion questions, etc. you can share your thoughts there as well. luis j. rodriguez, thanks for being with us on booktv. >> guest: it was my honor. >> host: thank you for hosting us. >> the services it provided to regular individuals and small businesses. there was a very, very clear distinction. the bankers were on the same side as fdr, the population was on the same side as fdr, and things became stable for many decades, several decades after that. you contrast that to what happened in the wake of the 2008 crisis which has been a much more expensive crisis for the general economy, for the

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