Analysis Of Always Running By Max Rodriguez

In order to determine why Rodriguez joined a gang so early in his life, we have to scrutinize his childhood up to that point. In Always Running Rodriguez provides us with a very thorough description of his childhood from the time on at which children move into a wider social context an thus learn how to treat people outside their family and build up relationships with those.

Nevertheless, one of the first information we are given are about his family. His three years older brother Rano appears to have a crucial role in Luis' early childhood development; however, in an extremely adverse way.

As a consequence of his lacking ability to speak English, Rano has been placed in classes for special needs children. This, plus the fact that he has been

“Spics” and “Greasers” were common insults at that time. According to the book, Rano has been heavily injured by a group of five teenagers that relentlessly beat him and moreover forced Luis to watch.

At the beginning of elementary school, the teacher placed Luis in the back of the class and let him play with blocks because she did not know what to do with a non-English speaking child. As mentioned in the book, Luis accordingly became more withdrawn and socially isolated; so bad that he did not even tell somebody that he had to go to the bathroom and the others in class were mocking him because he peed himself. Furthermore, children would get punished for speaking anything but English, a giant obstacle for Mexican-American children who were not yet able to speak coherent English such as Luis.

In conclusion, Luis was not able to establish any confidence or self-esteem whatsoever. He was not able to develop a healthy sense of empathy. Moreover, he was not able to exhibit any meaningful activities because he was excluded from class. According to Erikson, he is very likely to have developed a profound sense of inferiority. As to substantiate that conclusion, Rodriguez describes himself as a bouncing ball during that time which fittingly illustrates the extent in which Luis is being pushed around by others and how serious his lack of initiative

He and his peers adopted the identity the Tribe set an example of. A life that was committed to the gang; no authorities other than the Tribe's were acknowledged and the “Sangra” are considered the archenemy.

Nonetheless, his self-consciousness still persisted and was notably revealed when it came to social intercourse with others outside his close group of friends, especially females, in the Tribe. Rodriguez tells about one incident were a group of Tribe members went to the beach. While others did very easy at approaching the girls in the group, Luis was too shy to talk the girl he liked. When the guys started to tease the girls by throwing them into the waves, Luis did not participate and just watched; even though he was respected as a member of the gang, he still had inner inhibitions that discouraged him from participating in the social activities.

Moreover, on this day, Luis made his first encounter with the law enforcement when police officers lured them into an ambush and did not refrain from harassing the group:

“ 'Don't fucking move,' he said, coming up to my face, eyeball to eyeball. 'Did I give you permission to move? Don't do anything unless I say you fuckin' greaser asshole!'