The award-winning and bestselling classic memoir about a young Chicano gang member surviving the dangerous streets of East Los Angeles, now featuring a new cover. <P>Winner of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, hailed as a <em>New York Times</em> notable book, and read by hundreds of thousands, <em>Always Running</em> is the searing true story of one man's life in a Chicano gang—and his heroic struggle to free himself from its grip. <P> By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East Los Angeles gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests and then watched with increasing fear as gang life claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation. <P> Achieving success as an award-winning poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more—until his young son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in <em>Always Running,</em> a vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants. <P> At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, <em>Always Running</em> is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-earned lesson for the next generation.