This epic depiction of thirty years of Chicano gang life in Los Angeles focuses on a teen named Santana who, with his friends Mundo and the Caucasian-but-acting-Hispanic J.D., form their own gang and are soon arrested for a break-in. Santana gets into trouble again and goes straight from reform school to prison, spending eighteen year there, and becoming leader of a powerful gang, both inside and outside the prison, while there. When he is finally released, he tries to make sense of the violence in his life, in a world much changed from when last he was in it.
Written by Gary Dickerson <slug@mail.utexas.edu>
Montoya Santana:
Whatever I did to you or to mama... to make you hate me, I'm sorry. Pedro Santana:
Your mother was a beautiful woman. She made me feel proud. She was 19 years old. Raped... by sailors. After it happened, we never talked about it. Then we got married and we tried to forget. When you were born, I tried to love you. But every time I looked at you, I wondered who your real father was. I wondered which sailor's blood you carried inside of you. See more »