Winner of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, hailed as a New York Times notable book, and read by hundreds of thousands, Always Running is the searing true story of one man's life in a Chicano gang--and his heroic struggle to free himself from its grip.

By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East Los Angeles gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests and then watched with increasing fear as gang life claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation.

Achieving success as an award-winning poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more--until his young son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running, a vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants.

At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-earned lesson for the next generation.

Hundreds of thousands of readers came to know Luis J. Rodriguez through his fearless classic, Always Running, which chronicled his early life as a young Chicano gang member surviving the dangerous streets of East Los Angeles. The long-awaited follow-up, It Calls You Back is the equally harrowing story of Rodriguez starting over, at age eighteen, after leaving gang life--the only life he really knew.

The book opens with Rodriguez's final stint in jail as a teenager and follows his struggle to kick heroin, renounce his former life, and search for meaningful work. He describes with heartbreaking honesty his challenges as a father, and his difficulty leaving his rages and addictions completely behind. Even as he breaks with la vida loca and begins to discover success as a writer and an activist, Rodriguez finds that his past--the crimes, the drugs, the things he'd seen and done--has a way of calling him back.

When his oldest son is sent to prison for attempted murder, Rodriguez is forced to confront his shortcomings as a father, and to acknowledge how and why his own history is repeating itself, right before his eyes.

Deeply insightful and beautifully written, It Calls You Back is an odyssey through love, addiction, revolutions, and healing.

Poco tiempo después, Rodríguez encontro la manera de dejar atrás la vida del barrio a través de la educación y el poder de las palabras. Así pudo liberarse de años de violencia y desesperación. Una vez alcanzado el éxito como poeta chicano varias veces galardonado, Luis llegé a pensar que las calles ya no lo perseguirían, pero entonces su hijo ingresó en una pandilla. Rodríguez luchó por su hijo mediante el relato de su historia personal. La Vida Loca es una vívida croónica que se adentra en las motivaciones de la vida de las pandillas y nos advierte de la muerte y la destrucción que, tarde o temprano, se lleva la vida de sus participantes.

A ratos desgarradoramente triste y cruel, La Vida Loca es a la larga una historia verdadera, llena de inspiración, esperanza y sabiduría, y una lección duramente aprendida para las nuevas generaciones.

From the award-winning author of Always Running comes a brilliant collection of short stories about life in East Los Angeles. Whether hilariously capturing the voice of a philosophizing limo driver whose dream is to make the most of his rap-metal garage band in My Ride, My Revolution, or the monologue-styled rant of a tes-ti-fy-ing! tent revivalist named Ysela in Oiga, Rodriguez squeezes humor from the lives of people who are not ready to sacrifice their dreams due to circumstance.

In these stories, Luis J. Rodriguez gives eloquent voice to the neighborhood where he spent many years as a resident, a father, an organizer, and, finally, a writer: a neighborhood that offers more to the world than its appearance allows.

Foreword by Martín Espada

This chapbook collection offers new poems from the prolific career of a community leader, activist, and healer. Luis J. Rodríguez's work asks profound questions of us as readers and fellow humans, such as, If society cooperates, can we nurture the full / and healthy development of everyone? In his introductory remarks, Martín Espada describes the poet as a man engaged in people and places: Luis Rodríguez is a poet of many tongues, befitting a city of many tongues. He speaks English, Spanish, 'Hip Hop, ' 'the Blues, ' and 'cool jazz.' He speaks in 'mad solos.' He speaks in 'People's Sonnets.' He speaks in the language of protest. He speaks in the language of praise.

The Concrete River is a collection of poems by poet laureate of Los Angeles Luis Rodríguez. They illuminate the gritty idiosyncrasies of immigrant life in urban barrios spanning Los Angeles to Chicago to Harlem. Rodríguez lends powerful voices to those struggling to keep the gas on, to find work, and to keep love. Populated by a vibrant cast of characters, ranging from the drugged, to the eccentric, to the heartbroken, Rodríguez's poems protest capitalism, violence, and exploitation while reveling in the potential of compassion.

In a stunning literary achievement -- with a power and scope reminiscent of John Steinbeck -- Luis J. Rodriguez captures the soul of a community in this epic novel about love, family, workers' rights, industrial strife, and cultural dislocation

As the World War II cultural and industrial boom birthed a new California, a mighty steel industry rose with the potential to make modest dreams real for the workers willing to risk their lives in the mill's ferocious heat.

For the Salcidos, the Nazareth mill became an engine for survival. Luis J. Rodriguez chronicles the simultaneous evolutions of this American family and the enormous enterprise that drove them -- from optimistic and cohesive units questing for stability and prosperity to disintegrating entities whose dreams have long since lost their luster.

Spanning six decades, the novel conveys the drama, resilience, and humor of working-class life during a little-known era in American history.