By Patrick J. Kiger
FROM: L.A. Times

Most mornings, poet, memoirist and essayist Luis J. Rodriguez gets up around 5 a.m. at his San Fernando Valley home, reads for a few minutes for inspiration and then quickly goes to his computer to start writing. “I read, and then it’s, hey, man, I’ve got to do something!” he says. “If I can get a couple of hours in the morning, then I’m happy.”

He’s lucky to get that. Nearly three decades after publication of his classic memoir, “Always Running,” the former gang member who became a Los Angeles literary icon is still a man perpetually on the run.

He spends about a third of his time roaming the world, giving readings from Cuba to Japan. He believes so strongly in the redemptive power of well-chosen words that he regularly ventures into prisons to encourage inmates to try their hand at poems and stories. He only recently stepped back from day-to-day involvement in Tia Chucha’s, the Sylmar bookstore and cultural center he co-founded in 2001 to bring literature and the arts in the San Fernando Valley.

Rodriguez continues churning out elegant poetic verse, gritty nonfiction and children’s books. He sees his craft as a way to bring people together in an increasingly chaotic and divisive time, a theme that resonates throughout “From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys and Imaginings From a Native Xicanx Writer.”

His new book is a collection of stories on such diverse topics as his tenure as L.A.’s poet laureate, education reform, the Japanese fascination with Xicanx custom cars and fashion, the immigration debate and his disillusionment with the political status quo.

“I’m trying to use those pieces to speak to America and the world as a native person, a Xicanx, but also as a writer and a thinker and activist,” says Rodriguez, who joins the Los Angeles Times Book Club on Feb. 15. Read Rest of Article Here