I chose Question 2 because I feel the gang aspect was very intriguing to Luis. He started his first gang because he wanted acceptance and to have a certain belonging. While young, kids realize the easy way out of being introduced to gangs. You will have your members backing you up no matter what dumb thing you do. I also feel there is a certain manhood that children adopt when joining a gang. The gang aspect especially appeals to those who have little or no money because it is easy to steal with a gang. If everyone in the gang is stealing things, wouldn't that compel a kid to join because of all the "freebie" they can receive. Society, at the time, was very apprehensive to accept other races as one of their own. It was hard for people to conform to America's standards because of monetary reasons. White people were reluctant to trust other races, which seemed to drive away Latinos and Blacks. Luis stole what he couldn't buy. Gangs also were an easy access to drugs and alcohol. Luis talked about the many times he would just get stoned and drunk. A lot of these things, such as substance abuse, led to the gang fighting.
If you noticed, as Luis got older, he realized what his mistakes were in life. He didn't want to go with all his 'homies' to shoot up a rival gangs house or the biker gangs house. He wanted no part because his qualms weren't with those groups of people. He broke away because he knew in the end, all the trouble he caused was for nothing.
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Unfortunately I think the same conditions that compelled Rodriguez to join the gang in the past are still with us today. We still have very poor people living among us in a country that pushes opulence and continually shows us pictures of great wealth - that portrays what one has as a indicator of one's worth. Every so often we hear stories of police corruption and people who are accidently killed because of police brutality. We are currently a very anti-immigrant society and very "English Only" - schools still track and struggle about what to do with ELL students - I think Rodriguez's message is that we need to change the conditions that spawned the gangs and it still speaks to us today. Arnold
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