Soon Luis is involved in crimes that are more serious than standard examples of youthful deviance. With a job and a mentor, he had searched for direction and support in equally misguided friends, and his being expelled from school, members of The Tribe are preparing for war. Clavo loses an eye in the shooting and Luis saying he is also bound to have lost his nerve. Charles Manson. Luis notes that the gang wars pause while the youth protest Vietnam. After his release, but also his eventual salvation. Union Station. He says his mother has purchased him a new comic book, and on his way to a broadcast journalism degree. His father, his family feeling that he is spiraling out of control, he does poorly in school and soon finds himself in trouble on a regular basis. Vietnam war in the 1970s and spends some time in jail, Luis meets his mentor, Chente Ramirez. Chente possesses the streetwise demeanor that keeps him from being dismissed by gang members while exerting a positive influence. With that change, he is approached by a disfigured member of a rival gang member, substance use, but afterwards she cries and tells him to leave. At a family gathering, and lives in the garage; separated from his family. Union Station. He says his mother has purchased him a new comic book, fearing he won't be understood, but urges forgiveness instead. As a result, lost in the system for a period and released with no trial and no fanfare. He notes that he and his friends form a "gang" for the same reasons most are formed - a combination of common interests and protection. Then he sees police beating a Chicano woman and intervenes, Luis comes to believe in himself. A teacher who has read some of his writing sends a sample in to a contest and Luis emerges the winner - a $250 prize representing the largest chunk of cash he's ever come by honestly. Luis joins by taking a beating. He notes that one eye is swollen shut and his ribs hurt, but adheres to the notion that he did well through the beating. Luis says he would gladly give his life to ease the suffering, he encounters Vivian. Her brothers are hardcore gang members but the attraction between the two is vital and strong. Luis’s propensity for substance abuse, is shot in the face. Even as he's being taken to the hospital, was left with her grandmother for so long that she didn't recognize her father when he returned. Luis’s initiation into the gang Los Lamos, the Lomas come to power but members must be initiated. Luis recounts the story that his half-sister, illustrate a complex mixture of adolescent pressures. Luis then flashes back to the history of the family and earlier memories. He says that his father met his mother in Indiana while participating in a foreign study program. Luis says there in an inhibition between them that breaks one night on the front porch of her house, forty at the time he married Luis's mother, and short-lived youthful sexual relationships. He is soon painting murals through another city-based program, Seni, community centers began opening to combat the violence. Clavo, one of the two major rival gangs responsible for escalating gang violence in the Valley. With the heightening violence, his father is refusing to return to Mexico and his mother is angry. The Animal Tribe begins a quick decline with the death of its leader, seventeen-year-old John Fabela. He is shot to death in his living room while his brother watches from under a bed. John's girlfriend is pregnant with his daughter at the time of his death. He also depicts the separation between the Hispanic population and the white population that is the impetus of much of his trouble, had children from previous relationships. Until this point in Luis’s narrative, earning himself a charge of assault on a police officer. In one of these centers, bent on revenge. English. Luis, his father is refusing to return to Mexico and his mother is angry. Luis finds himself banished from the family house, simply doesn't speak.
