“Oh, you’ll get over it....eventually." This quote has impacted me and I can relate to it. This quote is mentioned in the book, “Always Running, La Vida Loca: Gangs in L.A.," written by Luis Rodriguez. Always Running is a book about a Mexican boy, Luis Rodriguez, who grew up in East LA with his family. His parents were generating a low income and were immigrants. Due to the racial crimes and beating Luis took, he started getting involved in gang violence. Over the years Luis dropped out of school and was consuming drugs and pretty much gave up on life. All he would do was just be with his low life friends, get high and commit crimes. He later started to get involved in the community and steadily started to leave his old life behind. His gang life style was very common among the teenagers of his East L.A community. Growing up he saw the world he lived in was violent and he would not survive if he was not tough. His willingness to obtain this toughness led him to interact and affiliate himself with gang members around his neighborhood. The experiences he saw and lived with the gang were surreal to him at first, but later became normal and almost routine like, the gang brought him many problems but he dealt with them and learned that he was going to die if he did not change his lifestyle. Now this story really touched me because I have family members that are and were gang members. “There are choices you have to make not just once but every time they come up." The bad thing is they made the wrong choices. They joined for the same reason Luis did, and their parents were not there when they needed them. All of them are drug addicts like Luis was. Some of them changed their life and some still lived the same life style. “My mother and father were never in gangs but theirs cousins were. I went from victim to perpetrator to witness to revolutionary.” When I read this quote it reminded me of my dad’s cousin who is my god-father.