• Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen

latinopia.com

Latino arts, history and culture

  • Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen
You are here: Home / Literature / INTERVIEWS / LUIS J. RODRÍGUEZ – IN HIS OWN WORDS

LUIS J. RODRÍGUEZ – IN HIS OWN WORDS

March 6, 2010 by

Luis J. Rodríguez is an accomplished poet and novelist whose first work, Always Running, has been recognized as a literary tour de force, a searing account of his experiences growing up as a gang member in Los Angeles. LATINOPIA interviewed Luis Rodríguez and here, in his own words, are his thoughts on his formation as a writer and how he came to write Always Running.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Author Luis J. Rodríguez

LUIS J. RODRÍGUEZ

IN HIS OWN WORDS:

Some of the early literary works where Chicanos appeared that I picked up as a kid. Steinbeck, for example, Cannery Row, The Pearl. He had Mexican characters, he had Chicano characters. Tortilla Flats. I thought that the depictions weren’t necessarily so terrible–to me. I was just so happy to even see that there were Mexicans and Chicanos in the world, in literature.

I am not as critical of Steinbeck as I probably should be, it was just so great to see any characters. That was the hunger that I had as a young person not seeing any Chicanos or even any Latinos in books. I ate all that stuff up.

My mother would tell us stories. Some of the stories she made up some were Walt Disney stories. Some of the stories were stories from Mexico. She was also good at declamación, she would repeat from memory poems and declamaciónes. That was what my mother gave to us as we were kids.

I’m the only one in my family that picked up on books and even when I was a very troubled teenager I would still go to the library. Even as a gang member or as a heroin addict, I still would go to the library. I would be the cholo in the library, reading books. Books interested me and got me to learn English at a deeper level…books were my guide in the world.

When I first started writing Always Running I was a teenager and I was sitting in jail. I was in juvenile hall but I also wound up in county jail at 16 years old which you are not supposed to be but I happened to be there. And I started to write these little vignettes. They weren’t poems and they weren’t stories, I had no idea really of how to write a poem or a story. But they were vignettes about the barrio, for some reason I felt compelled to tell these stories of the neighborhood.

It was my sense of being invisible. That I wanted the stories of my homies, of my friends, of people that I knew, the lives that got lost and nobody would remember them. I wanted them to be told. That was my first writings. Was I trying to write a book? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I knew that I was going to write a book. I just had to put them out, to express them.

For twenty years I kept adding to these vignettes until finally I got to the point where my son got into a gang. He was fifteen years old and I realized I have a book that I can give him, my own story. From these vignettes I pulled together twenty years of vignettes that in eight months I put together and eventually Curbstone Press published it: Always Running.

That was my gift to my son but it really turned out to be a story for all of us who were living that life. It turned out that up to that point no Chicano actual gang participant had written a book of their own life like that. Several generations of gang families, and mothers who had lost two or three sons, but no one was writing these stories. And I am the first one, without even knowing it, that was going to be the one to tell these stories, this account that I wanted my son to get, but also other kids, Chicano kids, but all kids. It’s a coming of age story but from the hard cruel urban reality that urban kids sometimes go through.

______________________________________________________________________________

BOOKS BY LUIS RODRIGUEZ:

ALWAYS RUNNING 1993 Curbstone Press , Willimantic, CT

HEARTS AND HANDS, CREATING

COMMUNITY IN VIOLENT TIMES 2001 Seven Stories Press, N.Y.

THE REPUBLIC OF EAST L.A. 2002 Rayo, Harper Collins Publishers, N.Y., N.Y.

MY NATURE IS HUNGER 2005 Curbstone Press, Willimantic, CT

MUSIC OF THE MILL 2005 Rayo, Harper Collins Publishers, N.Y., N.Y.

VISIT LUIS J. RODRIGUEZ BOOKSTORE WEBSITE: www.tiachucha.com

_____________________________________________________________________________

Filed Under: INTERVIEWS, Literature

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT 2.27.21 “DIANE MOLINA – THE ART OF THE BORDERLANDS””

February 27, 2021 By Tia Tenopia

Diana Molina: The Art of the Borderlands Diana Molina’s 2020 book, Icons & Symbols of the Borderlands, is a rich compilation of more than 100 contemporary art images and photographs of the U.S.-Mexico border. She notes that the artists, all members of the Juntos Art Association, “explore the region’s animal and plant ecosystem, food and […]

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT 2.20.21 “LESSONS FROM THE GREAT DEPRESSION”

February 20, 2021 By Tia Tenopia

Lessons of the Great Depression: A Latino Perspective By Ricardo Romo, PhD A New York Times front page article on Sunday [Feb. 7, 2021] titled “As Jobs Dry Up, Renters Pack in and Fall Behind” got my attention. When talking about today’s job losses, poverty, homelessness, and hunger, many commentators often cite statistics from the […]

POLITICAL SALSA Y MÁS with SALOMON BALDENEGRO 02.14.21

February 14, 2021 By Tia Tenopia

Trumpism: A Death Cult… “The (Republican) party is his. It doesn’t belong to anybody else.” QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) Whom are you not allowed to criticize? Following the dynamics of the Trump Impeachment – not only the Impeachment itself but also the events that led to it – is at the same time […]

PENSAMIENTOS WITH ALFREDO SANTOS 02.07.21

February 6, 2021 By Tia Tenopia

Bienvenidos otra vez a La Voz Newspaper. Primeramente, we would like to call to your attention a number of our stories in this issue. First is the article on page 4 about what the University of California is doing to help farm workers. A lot of people say that farm workers are essential workers, but […]

More Posts from this Category

New On Latinopia

LATINOPIA WORD RANDY JURADO ERTLL “HOPE IN TIMES OF DARKNESS”

By Tia Tenopia on February 9, 2014

Randy Jurado Ertll is a Salvadoran American author and political activist. He and his family fled the civil war in El Salvador by coming to the United States. He grew up in violence-torn South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s but managed to avoid gang life through the intervention of the A Better Chance Scholarship […]

Category: LATINOPIA WORD, Literature

LATINOPIA MUSIC LOS FABULOCOS “UNA PURA Y DOS CON SAL”

By Tia Tenopia on January 4, 2015

Delta Groove Music recording artist Los FabuLocos is a Southern California band whose unique sound, “Cali-Mex,”is a fusion of blues, Americana and Chicano soul music. Band members include Jesús Cuevas, accordion and vocals; Rubén Guaderama, guitar,bajo sexto, tres and vocals; James Barrios, bass and vocals; Mike Molina, drums and Kid Ramos, guitar( not in this […]

Category: LATINOPIA MUSIC, Music

LATINOPIA ART SONIA ROMERO 2

By Tia Tenopia on October 20, 2013

Sonia Romero is a graphic artist,muralist and print maker. In this second profile on Sonia and her work, Latinopia explores Sonia’s public murals, in particular the “Urban Oasis” mural at the MacArthur Park Metro Station in Los Angeles, California.

Category: Art, LATINOPIA ART

© 2021 latinopia.com · Pin It - Genesis - WordPress · Admin