Author and ex-gang member Luiz Rodriguez enters Green Party California race for Governor

Democracy, elections, and voting at Democracy Chronicles

The Green Party has just announced its candidate for Governor of California where it has a decent chance in a state know for its support of environmentalism and where the Green Party has a strong local foothold in liberal cities like San Francisco.  Also, check out Democracy Chronicles’ Green Party page.  The Green Party news website Green Party Watch had some interesting information about the candidate who has a colorful history:

Nationally renowned author Luis J. Rodriguez has announced his intention in running for California Governor under the Green Party in 2014. The Green Party of California will nominate its June 2014 Gubernatorial candidate this November at its bi-annual statewide General Assembly. As a newly registered Green Party member of California and the 2012 Vice-Presidential Nominee for the Justice Party alongside running-mate and former mayor of Salt Lake City Rocky Anderson, Luis’s plan is for a campaign aimed at the wellbeing of all Californians – for meaningful and livable jobs; education/training into the new digitally driven technology; green, clean and healthy neighborhoods for everyone; and peace and safety through restorative, transformative and healing urban peace models…

Some more information about Rodriguez from the article:

…Luis J. Rodriguez is author of 15 books in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature. His most well known work, “Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.,” has been called one of the most checked out books in libraries and schools – and perhaps the most stolen. The book has also been named one of the 100 most censored books in the U.S. and was the center of controversy in some California school districts. Yet Luis has received hundreds of letters from youth over the past twenty years addressing how the book inspires and changes young peoples’ lives.

Information about Rodriquez is not hard to find in the web.  Take a look, it’s an interesting read for sure:

Rodriguez was born in the United States-Mexico border city of El Paso, Texas. His parents, natives of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, had their children on the U.S. side of the border to ease the transition into the United States, where they had intentions of relocating. In Ciudad Juarez, his father was a high school principal, but in Los Angeles he worked in a dog food factory, a paint factory, in construction, and selling pots & pans and Bibles.

He retired as a laboratory custodian at Pierce Community College in Woodland Hills, CA. Luis’s mother, who is descended from theRaramuri, a people indigenous to Chihuahua, was a school secretary but in L.A. worked cleaning homes and in the garment industry when she wasn’t taking care of the children. The elder Rodriguez, who refused to be dominated by local politicians from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, relocated the family to South Los Angeles when Rodriguez was two. There he spent the first part of his childhood, but moved out just before the 1965 Watts Riots. The family later moved to the San Gabriel Valley, and he joined his first street gang at the age of 11. He had joined the Lomas gang (which translates to the “Hills”) during their early wars with the Sangra 13 gang (Chicano slang for “San Gabriel”).

Rodriquez is holding an event next week about prison system reform in California, a badly needed solution is needed. California’s jails are hugely overcrowded:

California’s justice system appears blind–blind to the inhumanity of its prison system. Recently nearly 30,000 inmates in California prisons participated in a hunger strike against torturous solitary confinement and other inhumane conditions. The U.S. has more inmates in prisons and jails than any other country. Prisons have become big business through privatization, and they have real economic and social consequences. On Saturday July 27, Justice Party Vice Presidential candidate Luis Rodriguez will speak about restorative justice. We invite you to join us!

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ISSUE CALL
Saturday, July 27
12PM ET, 11AM CT, 10AM MT, 9AM PT

RSVP by using this link: https://www.justicepartyusa.org/restorative_justice_issue_call