Summary of the beginning

In the beginning of the book the author Luis Rodriguez explains his family. His mothers want to return to Mexico and his fathers need to achieve the American Dream. He tells about the troubles he faces being a Mexican in a place where white people saw them as illegals and treated them like they didn't have the right to live here. He talks about his first experience in a school, and being put in the corner because he didn't speak the language and the teachers were not prepared to deal with him.

By the time he hit middle school gangs began to surround him. It became a way of life and either you belonged or you were attacked by them all. At a young age he began his "clique" and later got pushed into bigger and badder gangs. It became a big war between Lomas and Sangra, the same people fighting for different land. At a young age he begins to see his friend killed, and the unjust world around him from the cops to the teachers who didn't know how to deal with someone "like him".