Back to search

Turning kids away from 'La Vida Loca'

Oct. 25, 2009

Poet Luis Rodriguez lectures at CSUMB Nov. 4

Luis Rodriguez spent a good part of his teenage life as a member of an East Los Angeles gang, and has spent a good part of his adult life trying to keep other adolescents from following that same path.

The results have been mixed. Rodriguez's son, Ramiro, is serving time in an Illinois prison for a gang-related shooting.

"I couldn't save him," Rodriguez told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. "But some of these kids still can be reached. We have to keep at it. We have to keep trying."

The best-selling author will speak at California State University, Monterey Bay at 7 p.m. Nov. 4 in the University Center. The next night, he'll take his message to El Sausal Middle School in Salinas.

Rodriguez is far removed from his violent, drug-clouded adolescence, which he described in his acclaimed autobiography, "Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A." Since the publication of the book in 1993, he has worked to reverse the corrosive effect of gangs on communities throughout the United States.

The book is a graphic testament to the brutality of "la vida loca" - the crazy life of gangs - and is rife with violence and drugs. According to the American Library Association, it's one of the nation's 100 most censored books. It also earned a Carl Sandburg Literary Award and was designated a New York Times Notable Book.

"Always Running" is a cautionary tale, and in the end it's a story of how a few patient adults can help change the life of a young man who seems destined for prison - or worse.

He also also written several collections of poetry, children's books, a novel and a non-fiction book, "Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times."

"We can stop gang violence in this country, but not the way we are doing it," Rodriguez recently told the Advocate News in Fort Bragg. "We cannot arrest our way out of this. We need what I call a whole community approach."

He believes communities should fight gangs with art, education and respect, not just by suppression efforts.

Says Rodriguez: "Art is the heart's explosion on the world. There is probably no more powerful force for change in this uncertain and crisis-ridden world than young people and their art. It is the consciousness of the world breaking away from the strangle grip of an archaic social order."

In reviewing "Hearts and Hands," the Los Angeles Times Book Review said, "Rodriguez is a relentless truth-teller, an authentic visionary, a man of profound compassion . . . he acknowledges the lessons we can learn from the social sciences, he scrutinizes what succeeds and what fails in the realm of public policy, but he never allows us to forget the rescue of young people is also 'a spirital quest.' "

The CSUMB lecture is free and the public is invited. Driving directions and a campus map are available at csumb.edu/map. To request disability accommodations, call 582-3672. For more information, contact Deborah Burke of CSUMB's Service Learning Institute at 582-3631.