American Me

This epic depiction of 30 years of Chicano gang life in Los Angeles focuses on a teen named Santana who, with his friends Mundo and Caucasian-but-Hispanic-acting J.D., form their own gang and are soon arrested for a break-in. Santana gets into trouble again and goes straight from reform school to prison, spending 18 years there and becoming leader of a powerful gang, both inside and outside the prison, while there. When he is finally released, he tries to make sense of the violence in his life, in a world much changed from when he last knew it.