Barrio Warriors: Homeboys of Peace [signed and inscribed]

Los Angeles: Diaz Publications, 1982. In photo-illustrated wraps. 181pp. Signed and inscribed to front flyleaf. Shelf wear and some loss at front fore edge; else very good.

A rare self-published memoir of a young man growing up in East Los Angeles, and his path from street gangs to Chicanismo, signed and inscribed by the author.

The author relates his story of growing up in the barrio and his trajectory through the streets of East Los Angeles and the University of Southern California: his experience as a young child at the Chicano Moratorium; carrying a gun from 6th grade on; gang violence and police killings, becoming chairperson of MeCHA; coordination with UFW, Centro de Accion Social Autonoma (CASA), the August 29th Movement; and his formation of an organization to "End Barrio Violence" in an effort to redirect violence away from the Chicano people and toward a broader liberation struggle.

Written during his time in graduate school, he cites Che Guevara, the Brown Berets, Marx, and other figures throughout the radical and revolutionary left. Frias tells of his hope to organize the lumpenproletariat "homeboys" that others he met in the student movement forsook, and to reach kids growing up on streets like him, and to organize so-called Barrio Warriors.

"The positive homeboy is called the Barrio Warrior...he lives and will die trying to bring unity, peace and justice to La Raza."