Essay about American Me

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American Me

American Me The film; American Me is an epic depiction of 30 years of Chicano gang life in Los Angeles, California. The movie focuses on the life of a 1950s teen named Montoya Santana, who forms a gang with his close friends. The gang is arrested for a break-in, and sentenced to time in juvenile hall. Santana finds trouble on his first night in juvenile hall and goes from juvenile hall to prison for 18 years. There he created and led a powerful gang that operated both inside and outside the prison. When released from Folsom Prison, he tries to make sense of the violence in his life, in a world that has changed greatly. Inspired by a true story, the film provides a fictionalized account of the founding and rise to …show more content…
. His associates saw this internal struggle as weakness. Santana’s challenges in society were appropriate socialization and healthy behavior in romantic relationships. After a short time on the outside, Santana is arrested, and returned to prison. It is here that Santana’s life ends. He is brutally murdered by his gang associates for not going along with a decision. The Santana family lived in the same home in the barrios (ghetto) of East Los Angeles for some 30 years, their economic status described as poor working class. Santana’s’ parents were Mexican American. Santana’s ethnicity is partially unknown, as he was born as a product of his mothers’ rape. Some of Santana’s strengths were his strong family and neighborhood ties, his abilities to organize and lead people, his loyalty, and pride. He also had a very sensitive side to him, which was deep, poetic, and soulful. The primary presenting issues of the character Santana are: He comes from a background of poverty, lacking education and job skills. His neighborhood role models and leaders were gangbangers or Zoot Suitors. He spent most of his life institutionalized in prison and lacks socialization skills, such as knowing how to buy a pair of shoes or how to go about build relationship with a woman. He has never had a healthy sexual relationship and his sexual
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