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Rad Dad: Fathering Books
A Review of Always Running by Luis Rodriguez

Not long ago, I went on and on lamenting the absence of diverse, exciting, radical books on fatherhood; I went so far as to predict that Brad Pitt's new book How to Father in While Famous and Still Look Good will hit the shelves by this father's day, and at that point I'd be the first to line up and purchase it for 30 bucks with like one percent going to some multinational aide agency. Feel-good fathering at its best. But joking aside, something bothered me about my quick conclusions as to the state of books on fathering. I knew there were books I was missing, that I overlooked, that I, for whatever reason, didn't have access to. I made it my mission to discover what was out there so that I could offer positive, constructive suggestions instead of simply critique and lambast the efforts of others.

And boy was I right; in fact, like some freaky twist in a Paul Auster novel (which if you haven't read Leviathan, you should. Now!), the first three books I discovered were all on my shelves already, all of which I had read years earlier. This discovery made wonder why I overlooked them in the first place, why they slipped my mind. How could I forget something that I had underlined phrases and dog-eared pages in? But regardless of my own personal mystery surrounding the books and their impact on me, I am happy to report that each book exceeded my expectations; they dealt with the complexity and the difficult of fathering, and the writers brought me to tears in their tenderness and their love toward their children or their own fathers.

What I propose to do over the next three issues of rad dad is review books about fathering. I want to ask other readers to also send me reviews of books, poems, movies, plays, anything that offers models of radical parenting or characters that challenge the patriarchally dictated role of Father.

For this column, I will review one of the three books (look for the other two in coming columns), and I'll review a new book someone just sent me. But I am so limited by my tastes and my experiences. Help me; help all of us. If you know of something, send me a review ranging from a paragraph to a manifesto.

Review of Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. by Luis Rodriguez:

My father went to jail when I was less than a year old. He remained there most of my childhood years. I have had my own history with the police though for what I like to think of as more politically based decisions. Most of the men, in fact, on my father's side, all of whom live in one of the poorest areas in the U.S., Las Vegas, New Mexico, have been or are serving prison time. And now my son. He just came out of juvie, albeit for something ridiculous in its severity, but nevertheless, he's now in the system; they have him down as a number that will be waiting for him should he return. It makes me wonder how trouble follows families.

Because this wasn't supposed to happen. My mother told me the stories of why she left my father, why she moved thousands of miles away in fact so that I didn't have to grow up around "all that." And for the most part it has worked—although we were extremely poor, moving when the rent became too late too many times or waiting for the weekends to buy groceries because stores used to not be able to check if you were writing a hot one back in the day. But despite all the economic struggle, she believed in us, she pushed us and instilled in us a feeling that we "could succeed if we tried hard enough." And I guess this worked. But sometimes that parental belief isn't enough.

The family I have created has had the benefit of a better class standing, better schools, access to white skin privilege, many of the things that the community and the people from which I came do not have. When I go home to visit my father and his family, things are so different. Poverty stocks every fridge, repression waits on every corner, liquor and drugs beacon with alarming efficacy. All the women of my family are there; most of the men are gone, either in jail or dead.

My father jokes he went to jail for me, so my mom would hightail it outta there. My mom tells it another way, but regardless of the telling, both of them feel like it was better I didn't grow up in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

My father gave me stories to help me succeed; Luis Rodriguez gave his son a book. It was his attempt to reach his son, who was quickly finding a new home in the gangs on the Southside of Chicago. Always Running is a warning, a plea for strength to change, a love note couched in pain and violence. This book is difficult to read. He explains in the forward to the 10th anniversary edition that in some ways the book is a partial testament to a failure of fathering, but it is also an even stronger indictment of a failure of our society to serve and protect its people.

Poverty is violence; let us not forget that.

Censorship does violence by keeping knowledge from us. He states: "There is too much censorship of reality in the classroom. Whatever involves social discomfort, emotional depth or hard thinking is cut out." Rodriguez claims the book is "the first major account of Chicano barrio gang experience from an actual participant." As a father, I read the stories of young kids fighting, young kids in pain and it hurt to remember the periods in my life standing up for my brother (or the times I didn't). It stung to think of young boys experiencing such anger and such pain at such a young age. It was like a slap to realize how it made sense while reading the book moved from fist to knife to gun and that becoming a man meant becoming violent. There has to be a different way.

This book has been banned hundreds of times because of its content. But the irony is that it is the young adults who need it the most; they are the ones who see sex and violence glamorized in so many outlets of mainstream media, see it portrayed so one dimensionally by Hollywood and MTV. They know sex is out there and they know when schools, parents, and media are fronting about it. They see the hypocrisy of our sexualized society and yet our silence about talking about sex openly and honestly. Or about gangs. Or about drugs. Or about domestic violence. Or about rigid gender roles. They know more about these issues than we'd like to believe. And so they are the ones who need books that deal with them.

Always Running is difficult to read because it's ugly. Rodriguez has an agenda, and it is both personal and political. It is rooted in his love and dedication for his familia, his hijo as well as in la communidad, the gente. And he knows this is a colored duality as well. "Prisons and war seem to be the only way out for most poor and abandoned communities." North Berkeley not far from where I live now ain't struggling with these issues. They have other institutions, other career choices open to their kids. Neither is Piedmont, Rockridge, nor Monte Clair, all within Oakland, dealing with what's going on in west Oakland or east Oakland where the homicide rate this year is 56 so far, a third higher than last year. In these communities, it is criminal to be poor, young, and male. Not only criminal, but deadly. What are we doing? Will we always be running?

He goes on to say that, "We have the technological means, we have the people, we have the ideas—we don't have the proper social organization." And that's the key: community; we need a more intimate, immediate involvement within our respective communities; we need to find a way to invest (not just financially though that certainly helps) in each other, in our environment, emotionally, spiritually, politically. But let's not pretend that politics as usual will lead the way. Which candidate will fix our poor communities, which will confront the prison industrial complex? Most likely neither. Yes, we can hope that one might some day, but until then, I want us to believe that we have to do it. I want to read books like this that inspire. I want my son and daughters to have access to books like this that explain without glorifying, that are brutal yet critical of what they represent. That remind us we can survive. That we, even in the face of this violence, can transcend. That it's never too late to try again.

Rodriguez says, "I went from victim to perpetrator to witness to revolutionary. More than 30 years later, I continue to do the vital work of helping create a healthy earth and a healthy society worthy of our gifts, our needs and our dreams (which is the ultimate struggle, the one fight really worth fighting.)"

I want to do the same work, I want to be a part of the healing, a part of the conversations, a part of the loving arms, which protect and defend our communities. As a father, as a lover, as a man, I take to heart what Rodriguez says towards the end, and I pass it along to you:

I was not a good father or a good son, but I learned. I was not a good poet, but I never stopped writing. I couldn't put two words together when I spoke, but now no one can shut me up.



column added on 2008-09-28 :: ::

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