"the Irish Invasion" and Latin American Immigration

In this excerpt from his memoir, Rodriguez provides a stirring recollection from his adolescence: the first time he experienced racism as a result of being an immigrant in America. As he says, the experience "stays with [him] like a foul odor."

In this interview, Luis Rodriguez describes how the systemic demoralization he faced in school and society at a young age drove him to join a street gang and how writing his book, Always Running, was an attempt to call his son and other young people in similar situations to change their lives.

“The Irish and the English share a long legacy of conflict.” And this conflict extended across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World as a wave of Catholic immigrants arrived in the United States in the 1820s.