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Luis J. Rodriguez had a turbulent home life growing up. His family moved around a lot

creating instability in his youth due in part to his father’s inability to hold down a steady job.

Even though Luis’ father was an educated man in Mexico and was in fact a teacher he could only

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find manual labor work here in the Sates. His father had several children from previous

marriages. Rodriguez grew up in poverty and squalor and was a victim of violent acts perpetrated

by those within his community and at the hands of his own brother, Rano. Due to the

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circumstances of his upbringing he became involved in gangs and led a life of crime. He was

ultimately able to turn his life around and found salvation through his writing. He wrote Always

Running: La Vida Loca as a cautionary tale to his fifteen year old son so he would not to follow

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in his footsteps. Unfortunately he was unable to reach him in time and his son is now serving a

life sentence in prison for the slaying a police officer.

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 “Cry, child, for those without tears have a grief which never ends” –Mexican saying

(Rodriquez 2048).
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“…I remember my brother as the most dangerous person alive. He seemed to be wracked

with a scream which never let out. His face was dark with meanness…” (Rodriguez 2053).

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“Our first exposure in America stays with me like a foul odor. It seemed a strange world,

most of it spiteful to us, spitting and stepping on us…” (Rodriguez 2052).

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 In Always Running: La Vida Loca Louis J. Rodríguez illustrates how a youth

filled with, violence, hopelessness and instability negatively shaped his early worldview. When a

person is raised in an oppressive environment one will do anything to rebel against that

upbringing. In order to survive that environment one can never show weakness or frailty or else

they can and will become easy prey. Holding in one’s grief, fears and insecurities can lead

someone to mask those perceived weaknesses through anger and acts of violence. This cycle of

instability is passed on from one generation to the next unless someone has the courage to stand

up and make a change.