#DownTheseMeanStreets | Reviews of Down These Mean Streets in English Books| Hashreview

#DownTheseMeanStreets

Down These Mean Streets is a memoir by Piri Thomas, a Latino of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who grew up in El Barrio (aka Spanish Harlem), a section of Harlem that has a large Puerto Rican population. The book follows Piri as he goes through the Read More..

by Piri Thomas

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Description	Down These Mean Streets is a memoir by Piri Thomas, a Latino of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who grew up in El Barrio (aka Spanish Harlem), a section of Harlem that has a large Puerto Rican population. The book follows Piri as he goes through the first few decades of his life, lives in poverty, joins and fights with street gangs, faces racism (in both New York and the South), suffers through heroin addiction, gets involved in crime, and ends up in prison.Down These Mean Streets is a memoir of experiences of racial prejudice and discrimination, identity formation, and youthful involvement with crime that leads to life-altering prison experiences. One of the major themes of Down These Mean Streets centers on Piri Thomas's identity as a dark-complexioned Afro-Latino. Although he is of Puerto Rican and Cuban heritage, the larger American society sees him as an African-American and fails to recognize him as Latino. His own family rejects the African aspect of their Latin-Caribbean ancestry, causing Piri to spend much of his adolescent and early adult life contemplating his racial and ethnic identity.The book was originally published in 1967, and later republished in a special Thirtieth Anniversary Edition in 1997, with a new afterword from the author. A sequel was made, called 7 Long Times, which gives more depth to his prison years.
Description	Down These Mean Streets is a memoir by Piri Thomas, a Latino of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who grew up in El Barrio (aka Spanish Harlem), a section of Harlem that has a large Puerto Rican population. The book follows Piri as he goes through the first few decades of his life, lives in poverty, joins and fights with street gangs, faces racism (in both New York and the South), suffers through heroin addiction, gets involved in crime, and ends up in prison.Down These Mean Streets is a memoir of experiences of racial prejudice and discrimination, identity formation, and youthful involvement with crime that leads to life-altering prison experiences. One of the major themes of Down These Mean Streets centers on Piri Thomas's identity as a dark-complexioned Afro-Latino. Although he is of Puerto Rican and Cuban heritage, the larger American society sees him as an African-American and fails to recognize him as Latino. His own family rejects the African aspect of their Latin-Caribbean ancestry, causing Piri to spend much of his adolescent and early adult life contemplating his racial and ethnic identity.The book was originally published in 1967, and later republished in a special Thirtieth Anniversary Edition in 1997, with a new afterword from the author. A sequel was made, called 7 Long Times, which gives more depth to his prison years.

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Name	Down These Mean Streets
Name
Authors	Piri Thomas
Authors
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Genre	Memoir
Genre
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Language	English
Language
Country	United States
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