An interview with Luis J. Rodríguez author of "Todos los Caminos Llevan a Casa" by Rey M. Rodríguez

Chapter House Storyteller’s Blog received the distinct honor of interviewing Luis J. Rodríguez on September 9, 2024. Rodríguez was the poet laureate of Los Angeles from 2014 to 2016. He is the author of 17 books, including a bilingual poetry book entitled, “Todos los Caminos Llevan a Casa,” published in 2023 by Mexican publishing house, Chicanxs Sin Fronteras. Among his other accomplishments, he is a novelist/memoirist/short story writer/children's book writer/essayist, community and urban peace activist, mentor, healer, youth and arts advocate, husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. 

Rodríguez is best known for the best-selling memoir, "Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A." His latest memoir is the sequel, "It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing." In 2020, Seven Stories Press released his first book of essays, "From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys & Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer."

Among his many awards and fellowships, in 2022 Rodríguez was given a California Arts Council Legacy Fellowship and a Los Angeles Times' Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rodríguez is the founding editor of Tia Chucha Press, which has been publishing books for 35 years. More than 20 years ago, he co-founded with his wife, Trini, Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore in the San Fernando Valley.

He has traveled across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Japan to speak, and do poetry readings, Indigenous ceremonies, or reportage. He has spent 43 years visiting prisons, jails, and juvenile lockups in around 20 U.S. states, as well as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Argentina, Italy, and England.

Dedicated to his indigenous roots and Native American spirituality, Rodríguez also has a Mexika name: Mixcoatl Itztlacuiloh. What follows is a wide-ranging conversation about how he became a writer, his latest book of poetry, and the power of Indigenous teachings in a world in need.

Maestro, so good to see you tonight. As I was telling you, I read your poetry book, “Todos los Caminos Llevan a Casa,” on the plane. I said, “Oh, my God, this is a masterpiece.” It's a story that needs to be told. I immediately texted you to ask for an interview. Thank you for doing so. I'd like to start by asking you to tell me about yourself, and how you got into writing.

I'm a multi-genre writer. I have books in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, children's books, memoir, and essays. I also write plays and film scripts. I got into writing as a way out of a troubled life as a young man. I was in a gang, on drugs, in and out of jails. Writing became my calling—the power of language. I didn't know it was going to be writing, but I knew I loved mastering words. However, I was a Spanish speaker going to school in Watts, and when I was six years old a teacher slapped me across the face for speaking Spanish. I became voiceless. I struggled to have language as a child.

Interesting.

I became more confident in a gang. People treated me differently. They showed me respect, although probably for the wrong reasons. I became vocal within the gang. Then when the Chicano movement happened, I emerged as a voice for the struggle. In time this helped me get out of the gang. But also, to stay open to having this mastery I sought. Even though I had dropped out of school, I returned with help from a mentor in the movement. In time, I led three walkouts in high school. I spoke in front of the school to indignant students. I spoke in the auditorium about our issues. 

These experiences all taught me. I had speaking and writing in my bones. I've been doing that ever since. I just had to develop it with skill and practice. Most of my writing I learned myself. I went to East LA College at night to take writing and speech classes. I went to Cal State LA, but I was into broadcasting and Chicano Studies. Unfortunately, I dropped out of Cal State. I also attended a UCLA poetry extension class. The real place I improved my writing was the Los Angeles Latino Writers Association in the late 70s and early 80s. They had workshops in downtown L.A., Highland Park, Echo Park, and East LA. It was sound training, but I'd learned mostly by writing.

Who are some of your authors or people who inspired you?

Well, when I was a troubled kid, I was homeless for three years. I was on drugs. I mugged people. I was doing a lot of bad things. Nevertheless, my refuge was the Central Public Library downtown. I loved it. I spent hours there. I picked up all kinds of books. Mystery books, science fiction, poetry. I read Ray Bradbury. I read Raymond Chandler. I found “Ask the Dust” by John Fante. I also discovered Charles Bukowski. But the books that impacted me the most were from the Black Power movement. Authors like George Jackson, Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, James Baldwin, and poets such as Nikki Giovanni, Don L. Lee, later known as Haki Madhubuti, and the great Leroi Jones, who became Amiri Baraka. 

There weren’t any Chicano books at the time. Maybe they were, but I didn't know about them. I read Black writers, and they were important to me. I related to them. Piri Thomas, the black Puerto Rican, was one of my favorites. He wrote “Down These Mean Streets,” which I loved. He had another book called “Savior, Savior, Hold My Hand,” which I liked more. These authors were instrumental in my thinking, perhaps, I could write myself, to tell the Chicano urban story. Eventually, I found Chicano writers like Rudy Anaya and Tomas Rivera. They wrote beautifully. Although they were rural, it's all good, beautiful work. But it wasn't what I lived in the urban world. I didn't see Chicanos writing about urban life. I'm sure there were authors. Jimmy Santiago Baca is one of them. There were others, but there weren't that many.

And they probably had trouble just getting published, too.

It was hard because the publishing world wasn't interested. I think Chicanos/as broke through big time in the 1980s with Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, and Denise Chavez—the Chicana writers of the time such as Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa. They broke through that wall that kept our work outside the margins. People began paying attention to Chicanos/as. It was women who led the way. And they helped me find Chicano writers like Juan Felipe Herrera and Jose Montoya. I've read with Montoya, and I remember seeing him read. Also, Lorna Dee Cervantes! I think she published herself or had small publishing houses as publishers, but she’s amazing. There were others I got interested in: Tino Villanueva, who ended up translating one of my children’s books; Raul Salinas, who started his own bookstore and became a mentor/friend; and Ricardo Sanchez, who I eventually published through Tia Chucha Press.

Yes, which brings us to this book, “Todos los Caminos Llevan a Casa.” This is your 17th book?

Yes. I’ve had books in Spanish, but this is my first bilingual poetry collection. What's interesting is that it was published in Mexico City by Chicanx Sin Fronteras. We are selling it here in the U.S. through Tia Chucha’s online bookstore (https://www.tiachucha.org/). Also, wherever I go I sell it. We also have an outlet in Chicago. The 18th Street Cultural Center is carrying it. We're trying to get a few other places to do so as well. My Mexican publisher did a beautiful job. They translated much of the book. I translated a few of the poems. Trini and I did some. And I had a couple of poems translated by others. But the editors of Chicanx Sin Fronteras did most of the translations.

The book is important in a trailblazing sense because there has always been this idea Chicanos are neither from the United States nor Mexico. We are not fully accepted in either place. I haven't seen a book by a Chicano writer being translated into Spanish and published by a Mexican publishing house. That seems extraordinary. I don't know of any other examples of such a publication.

There are some. This book is important because it's contemporary. The English translation of the title is “All Roads Lead Home.” That’s a great title. It's perfect for the poems inside. I gave the publisher a varied selection from my eight poetry books. Now, for decades, Mexico did not seem interested in Chicano poetry, except in rare occasions in academia. The thing about me is I speak Spanish well, even though I grew up in the U.S. I kept my Spanish mainly through my family. I never studied it formally. Trini, my wife, did. She once served as editor of a Spanish-language newspaper and even interpreted for the courts in Chicago. She helps me. I read and write in Spanish, but I need help. When other Chicanos were losing their Spanish, I held on, even though as I said I was punished for speaking it as a child. 

There was no bilingual education when I grew up. So, I didn't want to lose it. I must thank my parents because they always spoke Spanish at home. It was important for me to keep my Spanish while I worked hard to dominate English. I’ve been going to Mexico for at least 50 years. I’ve been doing readings and talks there, as well as reportage. I’ve also gone to Central America to do stories, including covering the Contra War in Nicaragua and southern Honduras in the early 80s. Later I visited South America, the Caribbean, and Spain. 

Sometimes people were surprised I knew Spanish. They’d say stuff like “You're Chicano—how come you know Spanish?” Once I did panels and talks at the Guadalajara Book Festival. I think it was in 2009. When people understood I spoke Spanish, even with my Chicano accent and interesting phrasing, I had over twenty media interviews. They realized I wasn't an assimilated American, but I wasn't a Mexicano either. I’m Chicano. 

This is different. I had a third cultural expression that included Mexican influences, but I also had a whole new perspective and style. They needed to know Chicanos had created a third culture in the U.S., like what Blacks did with urban culture, as it’s called. It was good for Mexicans to know because they often looked at people like me as assimilated, engringado. We’re either gringos or Mexicanos. They didn't quite see that third part. Chicanos knew Mexican culture. We knew the people and the traditions, but al mismo tiempo, we had U.S. cultural influences. And we created something new, different, that now influences people on both sides of the border.

It's one of the privileges of living in the US. You can pick and choose the best of two cultures. 

You can. Now being a conscious activist, I don't really care about borders. You must pass the border, but in the bigger scheme of things borders don’t matter. They’re made up, imposed, and only a recent human development. My family has strong Indigenous roots with the Raramuri people of Chihuahua, also known as Tarahumaras, and other original peoples. So, I have ties to the land deeper and longer than any border. As the saying goes, “We didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us.” It’s also true that many Mexicanos in L.A. won’t become estadounidense. My mom always considered herself Mexicana till the day she passed, even though she’d lived in the U.S. for over 50 years. 

Sure.

She never gave up being Mexican. She didn't want to get buried here, but she did. She's laid to rest at Rose Hills Mortuary on the East Side. In the end, she accepted she wasn’t going to be buried in Mexico. But she was still buried on “our” land. Right? She never learned English. My dad never really learned English. They lived in communities where most people spoke Spanish, so they didn't have to. People don't realize how Mexicano Los Angeles can be, but also how Chicano it is. 

I remember how I went from Watts to the San Gabriel Valley and lived in the Chicano barrio of South San Gabriel. I was surprised by the way Chicanos spoke. It was quick “Spanglish.” Today that’s what people call it because of a clever mixture of Spanish and English, and new words nobody used. I was intrigued. It amazed me. They had a whole new way of saying things. If you go to Texas, too, there's what people call “Tex-Mex.” You go to the city of Chicago, there’s a similar mixture of Spanish and English, as well as something else. Wherever Mexicanos go, they create new cultural expressions.

Yeah, that's great. So, let's get into some of the poems. We must talk about “Your Love Poem to Los Angeles.” Maybe give a little bit of background as to how you constructed a poem like this one.

This poem was written because I was poet laureate of Los Angeles for a couple of years. The city and library administrators wanted me to write a love letter to L.A., but I decided to do a love poem. It’s my love and hate of L.A. I mean, the city has a lot of things to criticize. Its history, and aspects like racism, classism, and police abuse, which are still here. But it's also a city I love very much. 

I wanted to integrate both sides of this. That's why I say in the epigraph, “With a respectful nod to Jack Hirschman.” Hirschman wrote a poem to New York City that was like that. It's a famous poem. Hirschman was at the time San Francisco’s Poet Laureate, although he's originally from New York. I heard him read this poem in Caracas. I went to a poetry festival there where Jack read. People loved this poem, and he had that refrain, “I love New York, I hate New York.” I love that refrain. It kept going. So, I thought, “let me do that.” I didn't copy entirely what he did. But his poem served as my example. 

Of course, I had to write my own poem, in my own style. I tried to bring in as much value of Los Angeles as I could, but also provide a fuller perspective because you got the Hollywood version of L.A., which is generally wrong. You have the parts that are forgotten: the barrios, the inner city, and even the terrible things like homeless encampments, crime, and gangs. Also, the anti-Indigenous genocide and discrimination against Blacks, Asians, and Mexicans. But then you also have much beauty and great character. There's a lot of character in the city, so many great communities, working-class communities. And amazing nature. I wanted to express all that.

The poem is a metaphor to how one should live their life. It can be hard. It can have a lot of pain and anguish in it, and yet it it's still can be beautiful.

Well, I think it comes from the fact that I saw L.A. from many different perspectives.

Yes.

I was homeless for three years. I experienced the worst of being unhoused, and this was in a time when there weren’t as many homeless encampments as now. There wasn't even a word for us. Nobody said “homeless.” Maybe they might call us “hobos,” but I never considered myself a hobo. We didn't have a word for this. Skid Row was very much alive and vibrant then. There were sections that were mostly Black, some mostly Mexican, including a lot of undocumented. And then there were sections with cholos. 

We had our own spots, but we also hung out together. There was even a section for Indigenous people next to the Native American Center on 4th Street and Winston. They used to call it “Indian Alley.” And, of course, there were also white people sprinkled in and around. That's the way it used to be. Now homelessness is everywhere, even though Indian Alley is gone. The encampments have spread out across Los Angeles. Yes, recently the city and county have closed many of them, but they've either pushed the unhoused into ravines and gullies, to temporary housing such as hotels, or out into the deserts. 

Growing up, then, I looked at LA from a rough perspective. Much alcoholism. Lots of drugs. At the edge of barely surviving. Now most people got by without criminal acts—dumpster diving, fixing up junk, and selling then. I relied on homies, or I mugged people. It's unfortunate. But I would go to tourist traps like Chinatown or Olvera Street and rob mostly white people that I considered “marks.” I could see they had money, and they were vulnerable. I never wanted to hurt anybody. 

I had a 25. caliber handgun. But I found it didn't work. A homie gave it to me, and one day I tried to shoot it while hanging in the L.A. River. It didn’t shoot. But I used it anyway to rob or protect myself. Mostly to scare the heck out of people. I wasn't really going to hurt anybody. It was one way to get people to give you money. I hate that because it's mean and ugly. I have seen the fear in their faces. It's not a good thing. I’d go into convenience stores. I remember putting a gun to people's heads. It's not right, you know. Again, I've looked at other parts of L.A., also later when I left gangs and crime, from the viewpoint of industry. I worked as a papermill worker, a truck driver, a steel mill worker, a lead smelter, a pipefitter, and in construction. Different streams of the city. I've lived in Black communities, and of course Mexican communities, and up-and-coming Asian communities. I've lived in a poor Mexican barrio surrounded by well-off white and often racist communities. I've lived in so many different sections. You see how varied and layered L.A. is. It's a layered city. To me, this makes Los Angeles exciting and interesting.

And then just this idea of home. How do you define it? In a sense, that is the title of the book. How do you define home?

Well, I found out that home isn't just a structure. When I was growing up in L.A., the family was unstable in the sense we constantly had to move. My dad kept losing jobs. We couldn't pay our bills. We had the gas cut off. At one point we were homeless when I was about six years old because my mom tried to leave my dad. She got tired of it all. She worked in the garment industry, so she’d go to fellow workers she called comadres. They were just women who worked there. Some of them didn't even know her that well. Still, she knocked on their doors. You can see how humiliating this could be. “Can you keep us here for two or three days?” she’d ask. 

She had us four kids, ages two to nine. We often slept in strangers’ living rooms or garages, all four of us. Eventually, these people threw us out because, like, “Hey, we got our own kids.” It was rough. I felt bad for my mom. She didn't want to stay with my dad, so she decided “I'm going back to Ciudad Juarez,” you know, in Mexico. One day, we were at the Union train station. She had already bought the tickets. I felt like a ball that anyone could bounce wherever they wanted to. I didn't care—all I’d known till then was instability. 

I was excited to just go somewhere, anywhere. But at the last minute, my mom changed her mind. She realized, with tears in her eyes, that she couldn't survive as a single woman with four kids, alone and poor in Mexico. She returned to my dad, which I know she didn't want to. She had to. What was she going to do? And so, we went back to him, my dad, who was a cold, emotionless person. He wouldn't say, “I love you.” He worked hard, and he’d show up. He would come home but he pretty much abandoned us in the home. I had a father, but I was unfathered.

Hmm.
My mom risked that move because the instability was debilitating. It took a while, but we finally settled in. My dad, working now as a union custodian, bought a house in San Gabriel. By that time, however, I’d been lost to the streets. I was already in a gang. In just two years after they bought that house, my parents threw me out of the house. That’s when I spent three years on the streets. Soon enough I found out how cold Los Angeles could get. It would be warm during the day, but temperatures would drop so low by night that you could freeze.

Yes, Los Angeles can be dangerous at night in certain places.

As many people die of freezing in L.A. as in Chicago during the winter. People don't realize that. So, I broke into my family’s garage. There were two rooms in the garage my mom used for storage. It was a wood frame garage, and the garage was full of junk. I took everything out of one of the rooms. It was a tiny cell-like place with no heat, no running water, but it had a roof. I moved in there. My mom couldn't stand it. She didn't want me there. She was livid. She said she’d call the cops. I didn't care. She didn't call the cops. I didn't really live there much. I used the room to store burglarized items because I was burglarizing homes. I used it to shoot up heroin and to party with girls. I was still living in the streets, staying in vacant lots and abandoned buildings and cars, as well as cubby holes and spots alongside the L.A. and San Gabriel rivers. 

A few homeboys and I had an encampment by the San Gabriel River. My poor mom, she couldn't get rid of me. I was a bad person in that sense. It's sad. I learned that a home wasn't a structure. When you're homeless, even for a short period of time, you realize you have to carry home with you. It's inside of you. And all roads lead home. It's not about a place. Obviously. I have a place now, and I love it. It's our home. My wife Trini and I made it a home. With love, with care. My current family's here. I have grown men, sons living here with me and Trini. They’re great. They cooperate. They contribute. We also raised four kids here, even for a short time a granddaughter. It’s our home now. But when I was growing up “home” wasn’t where I laid my head. I was home because it was inside of me. Wherever I went was home. All roads lead home means you finally find yourself as the place where home really is.

And when did you find that for yourself?

Well, I found this out early on, because the bad or good thing about being thrown out of the house, you learn to be self-reliant. I got to be streetwise. One thing is you don't ever show fear. In fact, you really can't be afraid because people in the streets or jail can see through you. I was in and out of jails, in juvenile hall, and two adult facilities from ages 13 to 18. People would mess with me, but I stood up to everybody. I wasn't scared of anything, which is not cool, but this protected me. Nowadays, I’m scared. I walk carefully, you know. I'm older and observe everything. But when I was a teen in the streets, there were many predators. Not everybody was a predator, but enough to make me wary. I wouldn't sleep in the same place twice. Other than my homies, I didn't trust anybody. People would say, “Hey, hang with us!” I never did. 

During the day I would hang with people, but at night I’d find my own spots. You learned to keep one eye open. You find places to eat, where to take showers, where to sleep. I learned to figure life out, and I’ve carried what I’ve learned for most of my life. In my case, this turned out good in the sense I didn't have parents to deal with. I learned my own self- discipline. It's kind of weird. I learned my own way of regulating, of knowing how far I could go, knowing when I’d stop. Whatever values my parents imparted to me helped. I did some bad things, but I also had limits. Unlike other homies. Many ended up in prisons, or addicts for life, or doing terrible crimes. They didn’t know when to stop. 

Even when I was on heroin, I learned to stop. I was 18 years old when I began removing myself from this death grip. It was me realizing I don't want to be owned. I don't want to be owned by heroin. I don't want to be owned by the gang. I don't want to be owned by the prison politics. Nobody. That was my decision. It's hard because heroin is extremely enticing. It's numbing. It's a great escape. I learned to love heroin. After a while, I also realized it was a huge trap. So, I learned. In the gang I was all in for the barrio, but I also challenged them. I did what the gang wanted me to do but at the same time I got tired of the gang warfare. 

We were hurting or even killing people, a few of whom I grew up with. But now they were in the rival gang, and we tried to kill each other. It was the consciousness of the burgeoning Chicano movement that woke me up. My mentor kept asking why I’m in a gang hurting our communities. It took a while, but I realized finally I didn't want to do that. I never actually quit the gang. I never got jumped out, but I did challenge the gang about the violence. Unfortunately, a couple of my homies shot at me. It wasn't the whole gang. It was just these two dudes. I felt betrayed. I found out later one of them was a police informant.

Interesting.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, sheriff’s deputies had infiltrated my gang. I became a target because I tried to bring peace between the two rival gangs. I tried to change things because I now had Chicano consciousness. My eyes wide open. The sheriffs didn't like this. I became a problem for those who wanted to keep the gang wars alive. It took a while, but I learned we were pawns in a bigger game. The warfare and drugs were in our communities by design. Unfortunately, two of my homeboys betrayed me. The sheriff’s deputies used them because of their own drug habits. It was a deep betrayal. I didn’t want to leave the barrio, but I had to. My parents threw me out of the house. Later my gang went after me. Although it wasn't the whole gang, I didn’t know who to trust. I learned to figure out my own way, carve my own path through the world. I gave up heroin, crime, and the gang so that I could finally own my life. 

By 19 years old, I was done. Eventually, I learned to carve my way into my writing life. I've carved my way into the work in prisons, into the work I do with gang youth and poor families. Into community building and organizing. I learned eventually to be a better father, and after three marriages, a better husband. It was me trying to figure out the path only I could take.

Is that a moment of finding home? When, for example, you found the Chicano movement, you found that you didn't need heroin, you found that you didn't need the gang.

Yes, those were moments of finding home. I realized I only had to answer to myself, and to the world, in the sense of what kind of person I would be. It was about tempering a character, a dignified person. I had to align my inner being with my appearance, the face, and the heart, the essence, and how I represented myself. I couldn’t pretend. You know how people pretend things. I tried to be a tough guy, and I was tough. But this meant denying the sensitive, imaginative kid I used to be. That’s what I was as a child. I never really liked playing in the street like my brothers and friends, I liked being at home, in my head, playing with toy trucks and plastic army men. 

But this was not cool in the barrio. Two dudes jumped me when I was nine years old because people saw me as a weak kid. As I lay on the ground, with people laughing at me, I promised myself I’d never end up on the ground ever again. In two years, I joined a gang. Now I fought all the time. I raged. I lost that sensitivity. After my teens, I struggled to get it back. It took me a while, but I had to be imaginative and caring again. Now, I couldn’t unlearn being tough. But today I’ve expanded my emotional life. I don't come off like a tough guy anymore. Mostly I don’t find it meaningful or productive. Even when people come at me hard, I talk with them. I find language and an open heart. I center myself, hold my ground, and let the words take me home.

Yes.

I had to find language to deal with people even during tense moments. I've had threats to my life in Mexico while I covered stories of Indigenous and campesino uprisings in the early 1980s. Of course, in my work in L.A. and Chicago working with gangs and other troubled youth. And in Central America over the past thirty years, working with maras in barrios and prisons, I faced threats by government entities and death squads. You may know in the 1980s, I also covered the Contra War in Nicaragua and southern Honduras as a freelance journalist—I got shot at by 50. caliber bullets and bombed twice, although I emerged unharmed. 

In my personal life, I've had guns pulled on me. Two times, involving an ex-husband of my first wife and one of her ex-boyfriends, I got threatened by knives. But I stood firm. I'm not going be intimidated. I'm not going to advance on them stupidly, because you know a guy with a knife, even when he's drunk, can do a lot of damage. But I wasn't going to fall back. They don't know what to do because I may actually know how to respond. Like, “Hey this guy, maybe he can take me.” It throws them for a loop. I’m not running away, but I’m not coming forward. I’m holding the ground with my voice, and my demeanor. It confuses them. They want me to be discombobulated. I don't really have to act like a tough guy, but if somebody comes at me, I can still have language and a demeanor to get through. There’s no guarantee, of course, I won’t get hurt. Anybody can get you any time. But so far this has worked for me.

And do you find that sensitive boy? You know that nine-year-old. The idea of you being innocent, but now there's a certain power to it that you've come back to.

Well, it’s all nested inside of you. The sensitivity and the toughness. I don’t just respond with fight, flight, or freeze. I also include focus and flow. I now have a relationship with options. In tense situations, you must act quickly. Think on your feet, then make a move. The right move. Poetry helps. It’s one of the most powerful things I have in my “toolbox.” I’ve used poetry to open and close possible tense situations. 

Poetry in my workshops serves as a social-emotive act. It has emotional value you can tap into. Poetry brings out the layers inside you. I do this in prisons where being vulnerable can be dangerous. But it’s vital to delve deep. To find the images and words to understand the motive forces for the rage. Usually, it’s deep grief. And if you go deeper, you’ll find deep joy. That’s a powerful aspect of poetry. There’s an emotional wave running through it. I love that about poetry. Can you imagine a tough guy with poetry? That means tapping into their natural sensitivity. This is mythological, which has proven important in my life and the life of other men.

Wow! So can we talk about “Pedazo a Pedazo.”

This poem was written when I was young. One of my earliest poems. I recall starting to write in juvenile hall and jail. When I was 16, I was held in the old Hall of Justice jail downtown and placed on “Murderer’s Row.” Deputies wanted to charge me for three murders I didn't do. They said I helped start the East L.A. riots after the Chicano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War. But it was law enforcement that started “rioting.” It was them who killed those people. We were just scapegoats. At the time, some 150 people were arrested. They were mostly released after two or three hours. But they held five cholos, me included, for several days and nights. We were “disappeared” during that time. 

My family couldn't find me. With help from community leaders, they eventually found out I was being held in an adult facility even though I was a juvenile. I was in a cell next to Charles Manson. That first night, two big dudes put a razor blade to my neck, but again, I stood up to them. I was small, but I wasn’t scared. Somehow that impressed them. They could’ve killed me but saw I could look them straight in their eyes with no fear. “Let's just keep him around,” they must’ve thought. This may not always work, but that's the way it is. While most people played cards, drew, or talked, somebody had a pencil and paper. I started to write. Not poetry because I didn’t know what poems were. But ideas, thoughts, that kind of thing. The germ of “Piece by Piece” was one of them, which in Spanish became “Pedazo a Pedazo.” “The Calling” was another poem that arose from that early writing. “Piece by Piece” is me decrying being judged by the world. Yes, I was a cholo. Yes, I looked hard. But inside, I was crying out to be seen. There's a real human being there. Although I had a rough exterior, I also knew there was more to me. Most of the world couldn't see it. 

Others judge you and distance themselves from you. The poem says, take that mantle off from being an outlaw. Be who you really are. Use your given gifts, use what's inside of you. This turned out to be a prophetic poem because that's what I ended up doing for years. I’ve used that poem in writing workshops, poetry readings, and healing circles in prisons, jails, and juvenile lockups. One of the worst prisons I ever visited was in Chihuahua, Mexico when that state had the worst drug cartel violence in 2010. A year before a gang tied to one cartel had murdered about 25 members of another gang tied to a rival cartel. The sad thing is the gang was called “Aztecas” and their rivals were “Mexicles,” which comes from Mexicas, the actual name of the “Aztecs.” Aztecs killing Aztecs. It was madness. I ended up talking to about 400 men in a relatively small room in the prison. 

Suddenly, the warden enters with two bodyguards. I didn’t know at the time he had never set foot inside the prison. Generally, guards worked the perimeter. The cartels ran things inside. They even had arms. Anyway, as the warden entered, the 400 men stood up and started yelling and screaming at him about how they had no food, no workshops, and nothing to do. I knew then we were goners. I felt in my gut they were going to kidnap us. I saw the fear in the warden’s face. The bodyguards weren't going to help. I had to do something. I didn’t have any weapons, no way to fight back. All I had was poetry. So, I started to walk back and forth in front of the men, reciting my poems in Spanish. One after another. I started with “Pedazo a Pedazo,” which I had memorized. The men started looking towards me. At that moment the warden and his guards left. The men looked back and realized he's gone. They then listened to me, sat down, kept listening, and eventually everything calmed down. That’s how it is in prisons. One moment things are quiet and calm. The next moment it’s sparks. I use that as an example of how poetry becomes my defense, my protection, the only “arms” I have. 

Now, did you write it in English, and then translate it into Spanish?

Yes, that was one of the poems I translated. But I always show these to Trini, because, again, she has formal training in Spanish. She makes sure the accents and conjugation are right. I try to translate my own work because it helps me keep my Spanish. I probably should have gone to school to learn more. I learned Spanish on my own by hearing, but also by reading. I tell people who don't know Spanish to learn it. Language is obtainable. I had to learn English. It wasn't my first language. I learned to dominate English, again mostly by reading. I even know a few indigenous words, but mostly Spanish and English, even though they're colonial languages. My roots are indigenous, as you know. It very important for me to have that ancestral connection. I study the traditions and cosmology. I have done ceremony with Native Americans, mostly Lakota and Dine (Navajo), but also Indigenous Mexicans, in particular, Mexicas, and others like Mayans in Mexico and Guatemala, the Pipil in El Salvador, and even the Quechua of Peru. It's very important for me. 

At the First Annual Los Angeles Street Poetry Festival you read the poem in Spanish. And it felt powerful. Talk about using English and Spanish when writing and reciting your poems.

Spanish is a very poetic-sounding language. English is fascinating because you discover the music in it, and that's what makes good poetry in English, especially if you're not doing meter, if you're not following formal verse. I have written sonnets, but mostly I do what's called free verse. Free verse means you follow the music by other ways. You can have alliteration, assonance, use refrains, and more. I learned to do that. But Spanish is naturally musical. I’m sure all Romance languages are. When you hear the poets recite in Spanish, oh, my! My mom would do this, called declamation, where she’d recite poetry by memory from well-known Spanish-language poets. I didn't know who they were, probably Sor Juana de la Cruz or Rubén Darío. I don't even know who she was reading, but she would stand up, recite, pause at the right times, and move with each line. Often, they rhymed. They had rhythm, so naturally beautiful. I try to do that when I read in Spanish. 

When you say, “take it off” in the poem in English and you then say “Quítatela” in Spanish. They both are powerful, but there is a big difference. When you read it in Spanish in front of an audience you feel how people were reacting. They felt it in their bodies.

That's the idea, even if they don't understand the language. They should feel the emotion. They should get captivated by the energy. Once I heard a Russian poet, and even a Japanese poet, read live on different occasions. I don’t know their languages, but I felt the words. I was in tears both times. Amazing! I didn't understand a word they said, but they exuded this energy. Just powerful. I need to do that when I recite in Spanish. Even if you don't know Spanish, you should get swept up by the power beneath the words.

Great. Can we now talk about “When a Poet Appears?” What's the story behind this poem? There are so many stories behind each of these poems. That's why I think it's such a beautiful collection because it feels like it has to be some of your favorite poems that basically explain your life.

Yes, that's what happened. I gave the editors a selection of poems I loved. I have plenty of poetry, but I sent them some of the best, including newer ones. “When a Poet Appears” was first written as “When a Leader Appears.” I wrote it for Chicano leaders—Cesar Chavez all the way to my brother-in-law, Congressman Tony Cardenas. He's Trini’s brother. I wrote it for anybody who was speaking out for our community. But there are issues with that. Some leaders aren't real leaders. They claim to be but aren't. And I made the unwitting mistake of reading that poem in Germany. They told me Germans don't use the word “leader.” In German it’s “führer.” I totally missed that. Of course, persons should be leaders but not claim that title for others. So, I reworked the poem to speak of poets. 

In many ways poets do lead. They're the ones who tell the truth when others, often political leaders or media, won't. They're the ones who push the limits about what we should be thinking about and sharing. I thought, well, let me make this about a poet, not a leader. Of course, I changed it, so it’ll work. There's something mythological in this. Mythological in that the mythic imagination has been lost in our culture. I think this is very important. Mythology used to be the way we told truths. Not just fantasies, but implicit wisdom through fantastic stories. The foundation of Western literature, which I know is mixed in with colonial stuff, is Homer, right? They said he was from Greece, but he had other origins. The point is Homer used verse to tell a story. “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” were poetic stories, told orally for a thousand years before somebody put them down in writing. I wanted to capture that moment when a poet appears when a storyteller appears. They wake us up. Something amazing happens. When you hear them, you are like, “Wow!” It brings us into that a mythological plane. That’s what I wanted to do with that poem.

Wow! So can we go through the poem a bit starting with the first stanza? “When a poet appears, the earth springs into song . . . .”

When a poet appears, the earth springs into song

Flowered with new hope,

A bright beginning even from a terribly seeded past

Where dust and stones are bare sowing ground. 

From the worst places poetry emerges. So does music and movies. I wanted people to know that even from polluted soils, beautiful flowers can spring. I wanted people to know that it’s poetry that makes things right. Poetry beautifies and blesses.

It's sacred, isn't it?

It's sacred. Art can be sacred. With creativity, you touch the divine. When you're doing art, you are in church. You can also get it in nature. But when you’re in an artistic practice you love, you touch something special. The divine is in everyone. I felt that way where many poems started writing themselves. They push you along. It's not me in my head anymore. It’s the pen carrying the images I didn't even know were going to be there. A poem adds layers that begin to break open hearts. It breaks open ways of thinking. It can open our imagination more than we thought possible. And into more emotional content. A poem exudes something deep inside.

Yes, I love that. That's great. Now, I would like to end with discussing the last poem in the book, because it is optimistic. It is entitled: “Grime and Gold: Imagine a New Los Angeles.”

During the pandemic, especially, and for many years before I’d go to unhoused encampments. When I visited, I’d talk with people. In the 80s, when homelessness became a major phenomenon in the country, I wrote about the burgeoning Union of the Homeless, and in the 90s, I volunteered for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. I’d also go to L.A.’s Skid Row, where a Homeless Writers Coalition had formed. I worked with these poets. We’d go to street corners or local bars and just get up and read. I met some beautiful people. One time I was at an encampment in Pacoima beneath a viaduct. There were all these homeless people. I saw a guy drawing. I went up to him, and respectfully I asked, “Can I talk to you?” “Yeah,” he said. He had this book of birds. He drew these beautiful birds from the book. I got his idea that he was remaking the world in the middle of nothing, with nothing. But he had a pen. It's beautiful. He was Chicano, but it could have been anyone. 

The important thing was he found the beauty in the ugliness, the light in the shadows. We can always create. I tell people that when you're in chaos or in crisis, the best thing is not to find order but creativity. Let creativity take you forward. Maybe some order will come of this, where you can shape things, but first, be creative. Whenever I'm in crisis or depressed I turn to art. I've been clean and sober for over 30 years now. Whenever I’d get anxious, creativity was the way to go. That’s the message of “Grime and Gold.” That amidst all this grime there's gold. Beneath all the mud, there's something beautiful. And this message is what’s needed to re-imagine a new Los Angeles. When I talk of a new L.A., I am also talking of a new country, of a new world. It's about what kind of grand imagination we elicit by that simple act of doing art, doing poetry, doing music. This is so we can all live with shared well-being. Where everybody's needs are in alignment with nature, our own nature, the nature of relationships, and the divine. Those are the four major alignments. I wanted this poem to express that hope.

Well, I think that's the most beautiful thing about this poem. It challenges our imagination to think about the poem’s message. You always talk about the need for balance.

Yeah.

You speak about how Indigenous teachings can save us.

That's the point. We must go back to ancestral wisdom. Our history does not start when the Europeans came. We have in this country, and this continent, a great ancestral, indigenous-rooted knowledge. Yes, the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English colonized and destroyed so much. But Indigenous wisdom is not gone. The people are not gone. A lot of the traditions are still here. These can guide us to a future in which we're not alienated. Where we are not fragmented. While the material conditions are important, these are not primary for Indigenous people. 

Today we have the profane world ruling us versus the sacred. We must get back to the way people used to see everything, where we are all connected. All related. Where we care for people and the planet. For Indigenous people, it wasn't about so-called rights. It was about responsibilities to the animals, to Mother Earth, but also to each other and oneself. This notion is more powerful than “I have rights over things.” This strange idea I have a right to do what I want? When the colonialists in their war against England signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they were establishing a limited warranty. Indigenous people didn't need these “rights.” They already had freedom, which is the appreciation of what needs to be done. Real freedom is the appreciation of necessity. Indigenous people were about abundance—a path for freedom—within real limits and restrictions. That's the journey I want people to get on. Abundance inside and outside of us. This is the kind of thinking to guide us as we go into the future. The future is not going to go well if we don't have a healthy and respectful relationship with ourselves, each other, nature, and the divine. 

Well, that's phenomenal. What's next for you? I know you have lots of projects. Is there anything you want to share?

Well, I'm traveling a lot. In the next three months, I'll be in Guatemala, Albuquerque, Chicago, Mexico City, northern California, and Colombia. I'm working on two book projects, including another book of poetry. I'm working on film projects. I feel like I'm more alive. I turned 70 this year, and I'm supposed to be retired. I've got Social Security. I have Medicare. But I'm not retired. I'm refired! I'm moving forward with a lot of energy. You must know what each age gives us. I'm not the same guy as I was when I was 20 or 30 or 40 years old. But for the age that I am, and with my wife, Trini, I have beautiful complementary relationships. We're getting older, but we're finding our rhythm at this age. I mean, things are a little creaky. I'm not quite all there, but I'm finding the creative paths I need for this age. I know I'm getting closer to the other side. I'm prepared for it. Yes, I'm healthy. I'm not going to pass on in the next minute, but I'm not scared of this either. I'm welcoming that I'm going to live this life as fully as possible, and when I'm ready to go, I'll be fine. A lot of people don't have that attitude. Too many are scared. I’m not, but I also want to make the most of what time I still have left. At this age and any age we can live fuller lives, regardless of where we are.

No doubt, and there's so much work to do. Thank you so much for this enriching discussion. I am grateful to you for your time and wisdom.

Rey M. Rodríguez is a writer, advocate, and attorney. He lives in Pasadena, California. He is working on a novel set in Mexico City and a non-fiction history of a prominent nonprofit in East LA. He has attended the Yale Writers' Workshop multiple times and Palabras de Pueblo workshop once. He also participates in Story Studio's Novel in a Year Program. He is a first-year fiction creative writing student at the Institute for American Indian Arts' MFA Program. This fall his poetry will be published in Huizache. His other book reviews are at La Bloga, the world's longest-established Chicana-Chicano, Latina-Latino literary blog, Chapter House's Storyteller’s Blog, IAIA's literary journal, and Los Angeles Review.

Photo by Dustin Snipes