Product Description

autobiography of gang member turned policewoman

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1460912 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Amazon.com Review
Never forgetting the words of her father, who said that police are Christ's soldiers on the rough city streets, Mona Ruiz spent her youth with gangs, married an abusive husband, then went from collecting welfare to preserving the welfare of others as a police officer in her hometown of Santa Ana. Ruiz tells her story with the objective eye of a detective who sees both the issues of necessity in joining a gang and the gang system's fatal vision of drugs and war. Informative and inspiring, Ruiz is one who made it out of the gangs, but never abandoned the streets.

Review
"Fascinating--alternately gruesome, tragic and funny," -- The Women's Review of Books

From the Inside Flap
"Beneath the unique story of a gang-banger turned cop was the story that really grabbed my attention: how a young Chicana went beyond all the social pressures to fail—including physical abuse, racism, and sexism—and followed her own dreams. Geoff Boucher has helped transform this experience into a good read." —Luis Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca ". . .Fascinating—alternately gruesome, tragic, and funny." —The Women’s Review of Books

". . . this well-written book is the engrossing autobiographical account of how one woman found her way out of the world of gangs to achieve her dream of being a police officer." —MultiCultural Review