Always Running

Luis’ parents, while both immigrants from Mexico, vary wildly in terms of personality and outlook. Where Luis’ mother is forever yelling and threatening, his father does not “curse or raise his voice. He just stated the way things were (13).” Alfonso is an “educated man” who, Luis complains, defers too easily to American authority, taking low-skilled jobs, struggling with his accent, and cowing to his supervisors. Still, Alfonso believes in America and its promise, and having been ill-treated and falsely accused of crimes in Mexico, has no desire to return. Luis’ mother, conversely, longs for “her red earth” (14) and fails to adapt to American life. Maria “always seemed to be sick” with diabetes and other ailments and is physically abusive to her children, but, Luis says, “held up the family when everything else came apart” (23). When describing his parents, Luis assigns to his father the role of a “philosopher” with “cuts of wisdom…that swept through me” (47). His mother, conversely, is described as “heat” and “the penetrating emotion that came at you through her eyes” (47). They are united, however, in their love for Luis. 

Luis’ older brother, called “Rano” or “frog” by their father. As a child, Rano is violent and domineering towards Luis, constantly hitting him and luring him into dangerous situations. Luis remembers thinking of his brother as “the most dangerous person alive” and that “His face was dark with meanness” (20). Despite Rano having total control over Luis in their home, Luis quickly sees that his brother has little power outside in the streets, where he is beaten up by older boys. He takes out his anger on Luis and the world at large and is placed in special education classes at school. Yet, Rano mellows as he ages. By the time he is sixteen, he is a far cry from his previous life as “a foul-faced boy in Watts” (48). Under the guidance of sympathetic teachers, he learns to play the guitar and begins excelling in school, becoming a “barrio success story” (48). Rano’s final act of separation from his childhood, and by extension Luis, is to anglicize his name. “Soon he stopped being Rano or even Jose. One day he became Joe” (48).

Chente Ramirez is a community center leader who becomes a driving force in Luis’ life, steering him through his eventual dissolution from Las Lomas and into stable adulthood. Luis is immediately impressed by Chente, a former gang member who is “calm, but also street smart” (113). Unlike many other adults in Luis’ life, Chente is nonjudgmental and does not moralize, but yet has the ability to “get you to think” (114). Chente encourages Luis to examine the choices he is making and look beyond the insular, dangerous world of the barrio. He introduces Luis to social activism, philosophy, and art, hiring him out to paint murals and inviting him to political action discussion groups. Chente is there to pick up the pieces when Luis fails, too, visiting him in jail even when Luis’ own mother refuses to come. When Luis is ready to leave the gang, it is Chente who finds him a safe place to stay. Above all, Chente provides Luis with a new perspective and sense of responsibility for his own actions. “There are choices you have to make not once,” Chente tells Luis, “but every time they come up” (132). 

Viviana is one of Luis’ girlfriends, the Sangra Juliet to his Lomas Romeo. Luis meets the beautiful Viviana, sister to several high-ranking Sangra members, at a local fair. Viviana is scornful of gang warfare and does not care about Luis’ affiliations. Two years later, they meet again by chance and begin a relationship. His relationship with her marks a watershed moment, as he deliberately goes behind enemy lines in order to see her. She is more important to him than his gang—“Viviana was worth the risk” (167). She is also his first heartbreak, ending the relationship abruptly and taking up with other men.