Always Running: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

One evening while Luis is ten, he is walking through his South San Gabriel neighborhood with his friend Tino. They come the chain-link fence surrounding their school. Ignoring the “No Trespassing” sign, Tino climbs over the fence and then encourages Luis to follow, and Luis does so.

The two boys horse around for a while. Then, suddenly, they hear voices—police officers are standing by the fence, waving batons. Tino yells for Luis to run—if they’re caught, the officers will beat them up. The boys run toward the school and try to climb onto the roof. The officers tackle Luis, but Tino runs past them. Over the officers’ cries of “greaser,” Tino climbs up the side of the building. But then he slips and, a moment later, Luis hears a crash.

Luis steps back to explain what happened in the year between the end of Chapter One and the beginning of Chapter Two. He and his family remain in Los Angeles and survive with the help of a poverty agency. Their new community, San Gabriel, is on the edge of Los Angeles (technically it’s part of the city of Rosemead in the 1960s), and until recently it consisted mostly of cornfields and factories.  Many of the poorest parts of Los Angeles are counties like San Gabriel. These areas often lack paved roads or sewage systems, but they have lots of police officers.

Luis’s neighborhood has many interesting characters, including an old woman who’s rumored to be a witch. One day, the police arrest the woman—she’d been babysitting three small children who later turned up “in a playpen next to the morning garbage.”

San Gabriel is largely Mexican, and many of the men who live there are field workers. Most of the neighborhoods in the area have Spanish names. Over time, some parts of San Gabriel become middle-class suburbs, populated by white families fleeing the inner city. But one neighborhood, called Las Lomas (literally, “the hills”), takes a different direction. It becomes an “incubator of rebellion,” or, as the media dub it, a “haven of crime.” In other words, Las Lomas sees a huge increase in gang activity.

Luis joins a gang at a young age, but he doesn’t think of it as a gang so much as a club. Five years after the death of Tino, Luis and his friends create a group called “Thee Impersonations” (“the” is spelled the old English way). Miguel Robles, the president, tells the members to pledge to protect one another.

The boys form their club “out of necessity.” One day, an up-and-coming club called Thee Mystics comes to Luis’s school, waving guns. The members fire at the school’s windows, and others attack some of the students. Luis is horrified but also drawn to Thee Mystics—he remembers, “I wanted the power to hurt somebody.” He, Miguel, and the others found Thee Impersonations because they need protection. Around the same time, many other new “clubs” pop up.

Alfonso gets a job as a lab technician, and Luis begins junior high school. His school is ranked one of the worst in the state—the dropout rate is about fifty percent. Luis enjoys school if for no other reason than that it lets him look at some of the girls, who suddenly seem very attractive. Luis begins dressing like a cholo, or gang member. He still has vivid memories of gang graffiti on the walls and gang fights breaking out in the halls.

Luis develops a crush on a girl named Socorro. Socorro likes Luis, too, but she insists that Luis has to give up the cholo lifestyle, or else she’ll leave him. Luis refuses, and Socorro breaks up with him. Luis’s next girlfriend, Marina, encourages his cholo activities and even suggests he get a tattoo. The tattoo, on Luis’s arm, shows a cross with the words “Mi Vida Loca.”

In junior high, Luis feuds with his teachers. Some of the teachers are very dedicated, but many others seem like “misfits” themselves. One day, Luis and his classmates are tormenting their shop teacher. Because he’s distracted, the teacher accidentally cuts of his own finger with a rotating saw. Someone steals the finger, and in secret the students pass it around.

Alfonso learns that Luis is getting into trouble at school. He doesn’t discipline his son, leaving this up to María. Luis’s mother is an intense woman who punishes Luis whenever he misbehaves. She knows that Luis is attracted to the cholo life, and she wants to ensure that he stays away from gangs. Once, the vice-principal of the school meets with María to tell her that Luis is too smart for gang life. Luis’s parents decide to ground him every day after school to ensure that he doesn't spend more time with gangs. But by this time Luis is thirteen and already “tattooed,” “sexually involved,” and “into drugs.”

Around this time, Luis and Rano drift farther apart. One day, two bullies who are upset that Rano has beaten them in a track race confront Luis. Luis claims that Rano is better than either one of the bullies, and they attack him. Later, Rano asks Luis why he stood up for him. Luis replies, “I did it because I love you.” It’s the last time he ever says these words. Rano—who starts going by Joe—skips grades in school, plays in bands, does well in sports, acts in plays, and generally becomes a “Mexican Exception.” He doesn’t interact with Luis very much.

Around the age of thirteen, Luis starts spending all his time with some friends named Clavo, Wilo and Chicharrón—together, “The Animal Tribe.” The Animal Tribe (or just “The Tribe”) is a powerful gang, and Luis is proud to be in it. Teenagers from across San Gabriel join The Tribe, consolidating their small gangs into one big organization.

It is Miguel Robles who first introduces Luis to The Tribe. At a school dance, Miguel greets Luis and invites him to dance with Tribe members and their girlfriends. Miguel tells Luis and his friends that they need to join a big gang that can protect them. He warns Luis that he’ll need to choose between the Tribe and the large Sangra gang.

Luis tells Miguel that he wants to join The Tribe. Miguel talks with Joaquín Lopez, an important Tribe leader. Later that night, Luis witnesses a cholo having sex with a young woman, and someone tells him, “She’s being initiated into The Tribe.”