The life of Luis J. Rodriguez as told through the book Always running: Gang Days in L.A.

Essay by steelersJunior High, 8th gradeA+, February 2003

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In the book Always Running La Vida Loco: Gang Days in LA by Luis J. Rodriguez, the author is the main character. He shows through his writings a remarkable amount of personal character development. From the beginning of his story Luis describes the many changes he goes through as his life unfolds. Luis uses many examples to describe his life experiences and the way he acted when obstacles stood in his way. Luis experienced many highs and lows throughout his life. He also had many wants and desires of things that were just out of his reach. These desires would haunt Luis and cause his character to negatively develop. In the beginning of his story, he was afraid of the world he lived in, but by the end of his story he wanted to put the world in his pocket.

In the beginning of the story, Luis has a very unstable life because his parents were constantly moving.

There was not a stable place he could call home throughout his childhood. "For months we had been pushed from one house to another", Luis writes. This was his statement that shows his instability of early life. As he said pushed from one house to another, shows an underlying anger for moving. He was not in one neighborhood long enough to make friends. He had no one to turn to except for his parents and brother. His parents separated which also created this unstable life style.

Luis found himself in a white neighborhood with one move. "Look spic, you can't sit there", was a statement he heard by one white American woman in the Neighborhood Park. Also, not in being welcome in his new school helped to grow anger toward white America. Not being accepted in the country of his birth...