Former Gang Member Impacting Youth at REACH Ashland Youth Center

REACH Ashland Youth Center and Alameda County Library invite you to meet Luis J. Rodriguez, nationally recognized author and poet. The former East L.A. gang member will read from his  memoir, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. at REACH Ashland Youth Center. REACH youth book club members will be present at the event on Thursday, September 12, 2013 from 6-8 PM.  The free event is open to all community members.

“I am very interested to hear from Luis about how he managed to get out of gang life and what made him change. I want to learn from his experience.” Daniel Rodriguez, age 20, REACH youth book club member. 

Luis J. Rodriguez has emerged as one of the leading Chicano writers with fifteen published books in memoir, fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature and poetry. His literary work has earned him many awards: Poetry Center Book Award, Pen Josephine Miles Literary Award, and a Patterson Poetry Book Prize. The 
New York Times has described Rodriguez’s coming of age story as, “Vivid, raw, fierce, and fearless. Here's truth no television set burning night and day, could ever begin to offer.” Rodriguez’s books have been the subject of controversy when included on school reading lists, due to his frank depiction of gang life in East L.A.

His new book, It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions and Healing is the long awaited follow-up to Always Running. It is the winner of a National Book Critics Award and has received rave reviews.