If young people had love, hope, true education, the arts, full and meaningful lives they won’t join gangs. My life since living the gang and drugs ha…

- 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 ch…

- 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 be…

- 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, te…

- Luis J. Rodriguez

We need more leaders among our gente - more teachers, politicians, businesspeople, organizers, and such. Turn the energy that many young people are p…

- 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…

- 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)…

- 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

The more you know, the more you owe.

- Luis J. Rodriguez