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INTRODUCTION RAFAEL PÉREZ-TORRES The story you are about to read reflects a world where crime follows punishment and persecution shades into injustice. The life that Ernie López has led seems like a cross between a Dickens novel and a potboiler. But the events recounted here are real. Born into poverty in East Los Angeles, a young boy finds himself committing petty crimes because he fears the abuse of his father. Subject to harsh beatings if he doesn’t bring home money to contribute to the family’s expenses, the boy learns to survive as best he can through petty criminal activity. As his misdeeds escalate, he gets committed to a brutal youth camp after a harmless joy ride through the streets of Los Angeles. His criminal involvement leads ultimately to incarceration in three infamous prisons: McNeil Island, Alcatraz, and San Quentin. Though dramatic and powerful, the events told here are conveyed as accuratelyas possible.These events, related during hours of interviews, form the basis of this first-person narrative in which I have attempted to convey in writing the flavor and tenor of Ernie’s vivid stories. Why read the story of a man who has spent the majority of his life in prison? What significance is there to the life of a career criminal? My own involvement in the writing of this book is due entirely to the sense of humanity that fills the story. After years of brutal incarceration , Ernie conveys a strong sense of humor, a firm code of his own ethics, and a burning sense of defiance. The U.S. prison system is designed to break men of their will. Ernie has refused to succumb.Though one might not envy or approve of Ernie’s choices in life, there is much to learn from his example about self-reliance and fortitude in times of adversity and suffering. The grace, irony, and humor Ernie demonstrates are somewhat characteristic of Chicano culture. The stories Ernie tells reflect the wry, often understated humor that marks one way Chicanos express themselves . A kind of gallows humor proves useful when approaching the inevitable trials and setbacks that life deals. So while Ernie’s story is interesting because it offers an insider’s picture of Alcatraz and San Quentin, it also shares qualities found in other aspects of Chicano culture and storytelling. Ernie’s history is one of struggle and survival, of endurance and triumph. The philosopher Walter Benjamin says that the history of the underclass is a story of suffering and defeat told with ‘‘courage, humor, cunning, and fortitude,’’ those qualities that bring to our lives refinement and spirituality (254–255). An attentive reader may find these qualities evident in this story. The events recounted here are ones few of us are likely to have shared. While it is, unfortunately, becoming more and more common for people in the United States—especiallyamong its raciallyand ethnically subordinate populations—to experience incarceration, few men have endured the kind of inhumane treatment meted out to Ernie López. Fewer still have responded with such burning ambition and fiery defiance. Finally, few have survived with their integrity and humanity intact. Ernie has. As these pages will reveal, at every turn possible Ernie sought to beat a system of justice and punishment that seemed out to destroy him. No matter how one may feel about the things he has done, his survival is a testament to thewill and the power, both light and dark, of the human spirit. x TO ALCATRAZ, DEATH ROW, AND BACK THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ...

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