Always Running Name:_Eli_Juergens________________
Luis Rodriguez

***Answer in Bullet Point Responses***

Chps 1-4
1.Discuss the author’s family history- trials and tribulations his parents experienced. Especially as recent immigrants in Southern California.

• Luis’s Parents met while his father was away attending a study program in Bloomington, India. While away, his fathers “enemies” had figured out a way to remove him from his job as principal at a high school in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. His father was charged with stealing money from the schools funds, when in fact his father devoted everything he could to his career. Eventually his father was found innocent, but by that time he had lost his position as principal.

• The Rodriguez family left Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, to move to Los Angeles when Luis was only 2 years old. Luis’s father was mostly out of work, but his mother was able to find work cleaning houses. His mother was unable to speak English, so it became frustrating to her when Americans would chastise her without being able to conjure a response, so she mostly just listened.

• Luis’s Parents struggled to make ends meet. Louis describes his first Christmas ever with a fake aluminum tree and filled with gifts that came from a church group which gave out gifts for the poor.

2.Discuss recurring theme of isolation and segregation. How was the author isolated in school and within his own family? How was the Mexican-American community isolated and segregated from the surrounding white community?

• Luis described his first day of school as “saying a lot about my scholastic life”. His teacher did not know what to do with him, she complained about him not speaking any English, about there not being enough room, and about her not being able to teach under these conditions. He was then transferred to another class where he was told to play with blocks until they figured out what to do with him. His school situation, and anyone who didn’t speak any English, was atrocious. Kids would be sent to the office if they even peeped a word that was not English. This inflicted a fear upon Luis so much that he wouldn’t even attempt to ask to use the restroom, he would just do it in his pants.

• “We kept jumping hurdles, kept breaking from the constraints, kept evading the border guards of every new trek. It was a metaphor to fill our lives – that river, that first crossing, the mother of all crossings. The L.A. river, for example, became a new barrier, keeping the Mexicans in their neighborhoods over on the vast east side of the city for years, except for forays downtown. Schools provided other restrictions: Don’t speak Spanish, don’t be Mexican – you don’t belong. Railroad tracks divided us from communities where white people lived, such as South Gate and Lynwood across from Watts. We were invisible people in a city which thrived on glitter, big screens and big names, but this glamour contained none of our names, none of our faces. The refrain “this is not your country” echoed for a lifetime.”

3. Discuss examples of institutionalized racism.

• Institutionalized Racism describes any kind of system of inequality based on race.

• The U.S. property appraisal system, created in the 1930s, originally tied property value and eligibility for government loans to race. Thus, white-majority neighborhoods received the government's highest property value ratings, and white people were eligible for government loans. Between 1934 and 1962, less than 2 percent of government-subsidized housing went to non-white people.

• Although with approximately two thirds of crack cocaine users being white or Hispanic, a large percentage of people convicted of possession of crack cocaine in federal courts in 1994 were black. In 1994 84.5% of the defendants convicted of crack cocaine possession were black while 10.3% were white and 5.2% were Hispanic. While possession for powder cocaine was more racially mixed with 58% of the offenders being white, 26.7% black, and 15% Hispanic. Within the federal judicial system a person convicted of possession with intent to distribute of powder cocaine carries a five year sentence for quantities of 500 grams or more while a person convicted of possession with intent to distribute of crack cocaine faces a five year sentence. With the combination of severe and unbalanced drug possession laws along with the rates of conviction in terms of race, the judicial system has created a huge racial disparity.

Chps 5-10 and Epilogue
4.What resources become available to youth in efforts to decrease gang violence? Is it effective?

• A combination of prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies has been implemented in communities across the United States to address the problem of gangs. It is imperative that any program, whether prevention, intervention, suppression, or any combination of these, be based in sound theory and work closely with the juvenile justice system. Specifically, policies and programs must be based on appropriate targeting of both institutions and youth, as well as their relation to each other at a specific time and place.

• OJJDP (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Program) has long supported a combination of activities, including research, evaluation, training and technical assistance, and demonstration programs, aimed at combating youth gangs. Since the 1980s, OJJDP has developed, funded, and evaluated community-based anti-gang programs that coordinate prevention, intervention, enforcement, and reentry strategies

5. Discuss the various characters and events that influence the author’s transformation? What is involved in this transformation? What theories and ideas is he exposed to? What organizations at school and in the community does he get involved in?

• Rodriguez’s rescue from this consciously self-destructive lifestyle came through art and politics. His interest in writing first appeared when he attended some classes at the local YMCA. His writing and artistic ability received just enough nurturing so that he began to find more power in his writings than he ever did with his involvement in gang activities. He wanted power to challenge and ultimately change the harsh social conditions which produce gangs. Seeing both sides of the coin, he was able to logically realize what was actually going to make a difference and what was not. Thus, Rodriguez replaced his role of a alienated gang member with an equally radical commitment to political action. This transition was the turning point in his life.

6.Discuss the constant themes of power, empowerment and powerlessness, both as an individual and as a community.

• The main theme of Always Running is to stand up to what you believe in and fighting for what you believe is right. During his youth, Rodriguez was being pushed around by the school system and legal system because of his age and his race. He did not know English, he grew up in poverty, and he had a lot of confrontations, which pushed him to join a gang. Being in a gang, Rogriguez and his friends were looking for trouble, when in reality, they needed a direction. They were always on the move, hence “always running”.

• The theme of power is falsely represented to Luis and his peers by gangs, forcing them to believe they belong when they are really tyrants. Luis finally finds his power in his writings.