Always Running: Luis J. Rodríguez’s memoir of gang days in LA is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago

By Josephine Metcalf, Senior Lecturer in American Studies, University of Hull
Ben V. Olguín, Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, University of California, Santa Barbara

In the same year the poet and activist Luis J. Rodríguez prepares to celebrate his 70th birthday (on July 9), his bestselling memoir Always Running celebrates its 30th anniversary.

In Always Running, Rodríguez reflects on his involvement with Mexican-American gangs in east Los Angeles (LA) during the 1960s and 1970s. Released in 1993, the memoir is memorable for its violent tales of barrio life balanced with an articulate, politicised vision of the structural conditions shaping these underclass realities.

As the authors of a groundbreaking new…

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