Luis J. Rodríguez was born in 1954, in El Paso Texas to Mexican Immigrant Parents
He was a poet, journalist, memoirist, and author of children’s books, short stories, and novels
His documentation of urban and Mexican immigrant life has made him one of the most prominent Chicano literary voices in the United States
Rodríguez grew up in Los Angeles, where in his teen years he joined a gang, lived on the streets, and became addicted to heroin
In his twenties, after turning his back on gang violence and drugs, Rodríguez began his career as a journalist and then award-winning poet, writing such books as the memoir Always Running, 1993
Rodríguez maintains an arts center, bookstore, and poetry press in L.A., where he continues writing and working to mediate gang violence