Luis Rodriguez has been involved with gangs since he was eleven years old. He was attracted to the power he saw when he witnessed a gang burst into his elementary school chasing a guy and noticed everyone run and hide. At that point in life he was not in the best neighborhood and was not structured to know not to join gangs. By the time he was a teenager he was committing full on crimes and let his gang revolve his life. Like father like son Ramiro his first-born boy during his adolescence stage joined a gang. Although society usually views gang affiliation in a negative way Rodriguez was positively impacted in some ways that are worth thinking about. Gangs in an overall perspective helped Rodriguez reach where he is today. Gangs were almost
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During his time in jail he figures out that he does not want that lifestyle anymore, he does not want to gang bang like he did at eleven years old he sees that he has grown out of that stage in his life. Although he does elude towards exiting the gang his gang like mentality will always remain with him. His whole purpose of joining the gang was to gain power because he felt it was cool at such a young age but when he matured he noticed it was not the good type of power he saw it was negative and the fact that he was a part of it changed his whole perspective on life, he went from doing drive-byes to doing community service. The gang life for Rodriguez is actually a really good thing that happened considering the fact he got out, without the idea that he was in a gang and struggled through the bad he would not know how to help others avoid gang life. His life was fully changed by gangs and he accepted the challenge of trying to help others avoid what he went through. Rodriguez had experienced it just about all so he can definitely feel most people empathy of how it feels to be raised by the streets but not let it take over you. Without gangs he would most like not have written either of his books as an author. The purpose of the books to help keep …show more content…
His street knowledge from gangs often helped him in simple issues such as what to do in dangerous moments were his and other people’s lives were in danger. Rodriguez also would commit more time towards community service to try to give back to the environment, since he made it out the gangs and violence he felt he it was only his duty to try to go and pull others out with him. He knew what it took to leave and wanted to show others that there is more to life than just gangs, that you’re better off without them and cannot live life to the fullest potential in such affiliations. Without the effect of gangs in Rodriguez’s life I doubt he would have found his passion and for surely would not have found the way to structure pulling his family together. Like as said in chapter 19 “I had left gangs and drugs twenty years before. But Ramiro was living this now. I had hindsight” (Rodriguez 249). He could only help his son because of the fact he had dealt with situation before and succeeded. Not only was he trying to help just his son though, he wrote a book to describe what gangs did to his life for others to see not an anti-gang author but an example to
During his time in jail he figures out that he does not want that lifestyle anymore, he does not want to gang bang like he did at eleven years old he sees that he has grown out of that stage in his life. Although he does elude towards exiting the gang his gang like mentality will always remain with him. His whole purpose of joining the gang was to gain power because he felt it was cool at such a young age but when he matured he noticed it was not the good type of power he saw it was negative and the fact that he was a part of it changed his whole perspective on life, he went from doing drive-byes to doing community service. The gang life for Rodriguez is actually a really good thing that happened considering the fact he got out, without the idea that he was in a gang and struggled through the bad he would not know how to help others avoid gang life. His life was fully changed by gangs and he accepted the challenge of trying to help others avoid what he went through. Rodriguez had experienced it just about all so he can definitely feel most people empathy of how it feels to be raised by the streets but not let it take over you. Without gangs he would most like not have written either of his books as an author. The purpose of the books to help keep …show more content…
His street knowledge from gangs often helped him in simple issues such as what to do in dangerous moments were his and other people’s lives were in danger. Rodriguez also would commit more time towards community service to try to give back to the environment, since he made it out the gangs and violence he felt he it was only his duty to try to go and pull others out with him. He knew what it took to leave and wanted to show others that there is more to life than just gangs, that you’re better off without them and cannot live life to the fullest potential in such affiliations. Without the effect of gangs in Rodriguez’s life I doubt he would have found his passion and for surely would not have found the way to structure pulling his family together. Like as said in chapter 19 “I had left gangs and drugs twenty years before. But Ramiro was living this now. I had hindsight” (Rodriguez 249). He could only help his son because of the fact he had dealt with situation before and succeeded. Not only was he trying to help just his son though, he wrote a book to describe what gangs did to his life for others to see not an anti-gang author but an example to