SCC Hagan Center Diversity Series Speaker: Luis Rodriguez Spokane Community College’s Hagan Center welcomes speaker Luis Rodriguez, author of It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing, winner of a 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award, and Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., winner of a Carl Sandburg Literary Award. Rodriguez was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, where he and his family faced poverty and dicrimination. He was a gang member and drug user by age 12 experiences he reflects on in both memoirs. By the time Rodriguez was 18, he had lost 25 friends to gang violence, drug overdoses and suicide. In addition to his memoirs, he has written books of poetry and children’s books, including América Is Her Name, and is the founder of Tía Chucha Press, which aims to publish emerging socially conscious poets. In 2014, he was appointed poet laureate of Los Angeles by Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Daudi Abe
Daudi Abe is a Seattle-based professor, writer, and historian who has taught and written about culture, race, gender, education, communication, hip-hop, and sports for over 20 years. He is the author of the book
6 ‘N the Morning: West Coast Hip-Hop Music 1987-1992 & the Transformation of Mainstream Culture and
From Memphis and Mogadishu: The History of African Americans in Martin Luther King County,
Washington, 1858-2014 at www.BlackPast.org. His work has appeared in
The Stranger and
The Seattle Times, and he has appeared on national media such as MSNBC and
The Tavis Smiley Show. Abe holds an MA in human development and a PhD in education from the University of Washington. His forthcoming book is