Luis J. Rodriguez Quotes & Sayings

We need more leaders among our gente - more teachers, politicians, businesspeople, organizers, and such. Turn the energy that many young people are putting into "war" and "death" and put it into life and true justice. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Friendship is greater than the colonial and dominating race ideologies of hundreds of years." -"Some of My Best Friends — Luis J. Rodriguez

I moved into the garage at my mom's house, she wouldn't let me into the house, and the garage didn't have any running water. It did have electricity though, but it didn't have any running water, no bathroom. But, you know, it was great for me because I had my books there. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Cry, child, for those without tears have a grief which never ends. — Luis J. Rodriguez

I'm not really anti-gang - I was a gang member and so was my son. I'm pro-youth, pro-community, pro-family, pro-arts, and pro-peace. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Art is the heart's explosion on the world. Music. Dance. Poetry. Art on cars, on walls, on our skins. There is probably no more powerful force for change in this uncertain and crisis-ridden world than young people and their art. It is the consciousness of the world breaking away from the strangle grip of an archaic social order. — Luis J. Rodriguez

go ahead and kill us,we're already dead... — Luis J. Rodriguez

Piece by Piece Piece by piece They tear at you: Peeling away layers of being, Lying about who you are, Speaking for your dreams. In the squalor of their eyes You are an outlaw. Dressing you in a jacket of lies - tailor-made in steel - You fit their perfect picture. Take it off! Make your own mantle. Question the interrogators. Eyeball the death in their gaze. Say you won't succumb. Say you won't believe them When they rename you. Say you won't accept their codes, Their colors, their putrid morals. Here you have a way. Here you can sing victory. Here you are not a conquered race Perpetual victim - the sullen face in a thunderstorm. Hands/minds, they are carving out A sanctuary. Use these weapons Against them. Use your given gifts - they are not stone. — Luis J. Rodriguez

The judge gave me a break. He was like: wow, we've never heard of this. So he gave me time served in the county jail, I didn't even get a felony. I have yet to get a felony, which is so crazy. I think Lindsey Lohan has more felonies than me. — Luis J. Rodriguez

I'm sorry young man but the classes you chose are filled up. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Eventually I went back to high school. I went to a coaching center in my neighborhood. I had to leave the homeless situation because it was so bad and I knew that I was falling deeper and deeper. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Vive La Vida LOCA (Live the crazy life) — Luis J. Rodriguez

It never stopped, this running. We were constant prey, and the hunters soon became big blurs: the police, the gangs, the junkies, the dudes on Gaarvey Boulevard who took our money, all smudged into one. Sometimes they were teachers who jumped on us Mexicans as if we were born with a hiduous stain. we were always afraid. Always Running. — Luis J. Rodriguez

You dont have solo rights to anything anymore,not even your crazy life — Luis J. Rodriguez

It is the violent peotry of the times written in the blood of the youth — Luis J. Rodriguez

Gangs exist when there are lots of empties in a person, in family, in community. It points out how we need to do more to bring real art, passions, teachings, caring, and resources into the emptiness of young peoples' lives. — Luis J. Rodriguez

In order to stay out of trouble I worked in industry. You can't even do that nowadays; there were all those factories. — Luis J. Rodriguez

When you win, we win; but when you go down, you go down alone. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Nobody supported me; my family thought I had gone crazy. They thought, you crazy gangster, you crazy drug addict, now you want to be a writer? That's it! They totally gave up on me after that. — Luis J. Rodriguez

I'm not against knowing the history of white people in the U.S. - that's not the point. The point is that there's so much greater history. We don't know about Native Americans. Very basically, we don't know that much about African American history, except that they were enslaved. You only get bits and pieces. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Gangs have always existed - they are primarily a community a young men trying to find intensity, meaning, a path to the outer world (outside of home) that most tribal groupings addressed with rituals, rites of passage, initiation ceremonies. We've lost this knowledge as a culture. — Luis J. Rodriguez

If young people had love, hope, true education, the arts, full and meaningful lives they won't join gangs. My life since leaving the gang and drugs has been directed to making positive what it means to be Chicano, human, man, woman, and on how to draw out the imagination and creativity that all people have. — Luis J. Rodriguez

To go against gangs or drugs is meaningless unless this is mostly done by filling in the empties, the vacuums, and stop the neglect and harm we do as detached, mean, irresponsible adults and communities. The answer is in our hands. — Luis J. Rodriguez

I had to find meaning in it. So I go through this, I see all these homies die; I see all this terrible devastation, people sitting in prison. I've been saved from prison, from death, and from heroine addiction. What am I going to do with that? — Luis J. Rodriguez

They say of the poet and the madmn we all have a little — Luis J. Rodriguez

My task is to make you hear,to make you feel ,and ,above all,to make you see,that is all,and it is everything — Luis J. Rodriguez

I worked in a steel mill, I worked in a foundry, I worked in a paper mill, I worked in a chemical refinery, construction, I did all that. It was great work, it was good. I learned welding, mechanic, carpentry, but it saved me from going back to prison because that's helpful. It's really sad because those jobs are gone. — Luis J. Rodriguez

We [people] all need each other. Gangs do try to fill that void - but they can't do what healthy, balanced, and coherent families and communities can do. Let's strengthen our core relationships from the start - and all the way through a young person's life. This is the best way to avoid the growth of deadly and crime-involved gangs. — Luis J. Rodriguez

I was kind of a weird homie; I was a weird kid. Nobody in my family loved books. I'm the only one. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Oh,you'll get over it ... eventually-la payasa de lomas — Luis J. Rodriguez

One summer I was homeless in L.A., when I was about fifteen, and I used to go to the library to get books. I would have books in abandoned cars, in the seats, cubby holes on the L.A. River, just to have books wherever I could keep them, I just loved to have books. And that really helped me. I didn't realize it was going to be my destiny; I didn't know I was going to be a writer. — Luis J. Rodriguez

I was arrested and put in murder's row. They were trying to get me for some murders I didn't do. They had me in a cell next to Charles Manson; he was going to trial at the time. And it was all a row of black and brown guys and one white guy: Charles Manson. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Wich is the ultimate struggle, the one fight really worth fighting. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Men need to be strong, but not bullies. They need to know how to not get emotionally lost in situations, but not be cold and emotionless. They need to know the full variety of emotions as well as thinking and acting. Not just the most limited ways of doing things. — Luis J. Rodriguez

I've always been prepared to write about the hard things. Only for healing, teaching, and enlightening purposes not to hurt or disparage anyone. — Luis J. Rodriguez

You 'will never belive it. — Luis J. Rodriguez

Nobody had books at home. My dad was a very educated person, so he would have books at home. All Spanish books. That helped. Most of my homies had no books at home. — Luis J. Rodriguez

It doesn't work that way — Luis J. Rodriguez

There are choices you have to make not just once, but everytime they come up. — Luis J. Rodriguez