Many aspects of a person's life affect their identity. Whether it is their self, their family or friends, or their community, it all affects a person’s identity. Luis Rodriguez’s memoir Always Running, tells of his life in East LA, growing up with gangs and drugs, and how he is affected by everyone that is around him. It’s all about his “Vida Loca” and how it affected him. There are three aspects of Luis's identity that most affected him throughout the book: his family, friends, and community. From the beginning, his family has always had an impact on his identity as they wanted the best for him. The author states, “My dad's solution was to keep me home after school.”(48) This demonstrates their love for him, as well as their hope to help him improve. His parents' methods of keeping him out of trouble show they cared about him. They wanted him not to continue on the path they saw him in. It shows that they loved him and wanted to shape him into a better person. His family as a whole had a deep impact on his identity and how he identified himself. …show more content…
Still, his friends had a great impact on his identity as his friends were the people he was usually around. In Chapter 5, Luis Rodriguez states, “ I was a Lomas Loco now.”(110) This both shows how Luis saw himself as well as the impact of his friends on him. Luis saw himself as part of the Lomas Gang that he had joined because of his friends. It further shows the bad impact of his friends, making him part of a gang, part of gang activity and violence. Although they made Luis join a gang, it further strengthened the friendship between him and his friends, and not everything they did was bad, which showed it both affected Luis’s identity in a good and a bad
His attitude towards school, and his attitude at home was not much different than the attitude that was portrayed at school. He had a hard time focusing at school, because he had learned horse-riding and sword fighting at such an early age disengaging him from his academics. He despised his grandmother very much. "My grandmother by adoption had been known for her mean disposition from the time she was a young girl. It was said that she drove both of my adoptive parents to an early death.
The chapter “A Fathers Influence” is constructed with several techniques including selection of detail, choice of language, characterization, structure and writers point of view to reveal Blackburn’s values of social acceptance, parenting, family love, and a father’s influence. Consequently revealing her attitude that a child’s upbringing and there parents influence alter the characterization of a child significantly.
The author Wes Moore dad was a hard worker and he had dreams & goals set for the future. The other Wes’s parents didn’t have as much drive and ambition. The other Wes’s dad walked out on him and his mother was left to work jobs just to provide for the family. Author Wes’s parents ambitions rubbed off onto him and his mother’s love for education drove her to push Wes academically. The two mothers had different expectations and ambitions for their sons. The other Wes states “‘We will do what others expect of us, Wes said. If they expect us to graduate we will graduate. If they expect us to get a job, we will get a job. If they expect us to go to jail, we will go to jail.” (Moore 126). The expectation the families had on both Wes’s shaped who they were and that influenced the decisions they made, that caused their lives to end up so
Some kids have no other choice but to join the gangs at an early age. Lack of parent supervision has been shown to be linked with both boys and girls joining a gang. Even though most have men to prove they are the violent ones, not every gang member is shown to be violent. While the rest of Luis’s gang members treat women with disrespect, Luis seems to respect everyone no matter what gender they are. Being told his own mom the pain she had to go through influenced his ways of viewing and treating
If only he was given the opportunity when he first came here from Mexico, he wouldn’t have had to live the violent life he lived. Luis and his Family weren’t excepted nor given any hope. Sadly, Luis’ story is the story of many. Racism is real, it exists and it is affecting young people causing them to turn to a life of gang and violence in order to gain acceptance. It all starts at a young age and something that will determine the direction of one’s life. Luis’ life was a prime example of what society and statistic said he would be as if he would never amount to anything but against all odds the fire that has always lived in him, that desire to be someone and rise above out of the pits of hell is exactly what he has done. Giving others hope. “There are choices you have to make not just once, but every time they come up” (132). Unfortunately, there will always be obstacles, weather its racism, violence, drugs, gangs in life battling against you but it’s a choice you have to continue to make, it’s all up to the individual to persevere and raise above to get out of that life and become someone before that life takes
In the book Always Running written by Luis J. Rodriguez we meet the author at a young age, We accompany him as he grows into the Veteran gang lifestyle. Throughout the autobiography, Luis, a young Chicano who survived ¨La Vida Loca¨ in South San Gabriel gives voice to an unheard cry and illuminates the cycle of poverty and violence of gang wars. His families instability and the discrimination they received due to their ethnicity gives him a desire to hurt others and seek understanding in a deviant way. Rodriguez speaks on many of the issues we still see in our Latino communities today, The lack of resources; financially and emotionally. He narrates his own internal and external battles to gain respect, belonging, and protection.
Firstly, one’s identity is largely influenced by the dynamics of one’s relationship with their father throughout their childhood. These dynamics are often established through the various experiences that one shares with a father while growing up. In The Glass Castle and The Kite Runner, Jeannette and Amir have very different relationships with their fathers as children. However the experiences they share with these men undou...
In the book Luis thinks that by joining gangs he will be empowering others.The author exposes the readers to gang violence, rape, drugs, and trouble with the police.
The author clearly shows how his childhood effected his adulthood, making in a living example of what he is writing about allowing the audience to more easily trust what he is writing about. Instead of using factually evidence from other dysfunctional family incidences, the author decides to make it more personal, by using his own life and comparing family ideas of the past to the present.
Despite all the trouble that his parents put him through, he still had love for them both. His mother never came back for him and his siblings but he did not despite her regardless of her abandonment. He grew up on his own but still respected his parents and always wanted to keep in touch with them even if it never happened. He did not want to grow up in the same environment as them. He wanted a happy home but it never seemed to be granted to
...parents were much more successful in the working world encouraged him to complete many daily activities such as choir and piano lessons. His parents engaged him in conversations that promoted reasoning and negotiation and they showed interest in his daily life. Harold’s mother joked around with the children, simply asking them questions about television, but never engaged them in conversations that drew them out. She wasn’t aware of Harold’s education habits and was oblivious to his dropping grades because of his missing assignments. Instead of telling one of the children to seek help for a bullying problem she told them to simply beat up the child that was bothering them until they stopped. Alex’s parents on the other hand were very involved in his schooling and in turn he scored very well in his classes. Like Lareau suspected, growing up
The movie begins with the family and parenting styles concept of child development by introducing the audience to the main character James and his parents. James lives in a two-parent household with his authoritative parents who are providing him with warmth, love, and encouragement (Levine & Munsch, pp. 521-522). This concept of parenting styles is shown as the movie begins and James is seen spending time with his parents. Then suddenly, James’ world changes and he is abandoned as a result of his parents being killed. This causes James to become orphaned and forced to live with his authoritarian aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge are very controlling towards James and expect him to obey their rules without allowing him to express his feelings. This authoritarian behavior is seen throughout the movie. Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge are also uninvolved, neglectful, and abusive, using verbal and physical punishment on James when they feel it’s necessary, which is also seen throughout the movie (Levine & Munsch, p. 522). These behaviors cause James to develop lower self-esteem, show less intellectual curiosity, and feel lonely and afraid, which are typical outcomes of an authoritarian parenting approach (Levine & Munsch, pp. 521-523). Although James’ aunts’ authoritative parenting style has an effect on his emotional and social behaviors, it is his parents authoritative parenting that plays a...
The story provides many sources for the boy's animosity. Beginning with his home and overall environment, and reaching all the way to the adults that surround him. However, it is clear that all of these causes of the boy's isolation have something in common, he has control over none of these factors. While many of these circumstances no one can expect to have control over, it is the culmination of all these elements that lead to the boy’s undeniable feeling of lack of control.
In a typical family, there are parents that expected to hear things when their teenager is rebelling against them: slamming the door, shouting at each other, and protests on what they could do or what they should not do. Their little baby is growing up, testing their wings of adulthood; they are not the small child that wanted their mommy to read a book to them or to kiss their hurts away and most probably, they are thinking that anything that their parents told them are certainly could not be right. The poem talks about a conflict between the author and her son when he was in his adolescence. In the first stanza, a misunderstanding about a math problem turns into a family argument that shows the classic rift between the generation of the parent and the teenager. Despite the misunderstandings between the parent and child, there is a loving bond between them. The imagery, contrasting tones, connotative diction, and symbolism in the poem reflect these two sides of the relationship.
Throughout the story, the boy went through a variety of changes that will pose as different themes of the story including alienation, transformation, and the meaning of religion. The themes of this story are important to show the growth of the young boy into a man. Without alienation, he wouldn't have understand the complexity of his feelings and learned to accept faults. With transformation, he would have continued his boyish games and wouldn't be able to grow as a person and adolescence. And finally, without understanding the religious aspects of his life, he would go on pretending he is somebody that he's not. He wouldn't understand that there is inconsistency between the real and ideal life (Brooks et al.).