Title Significance

The title of this memoir Always Running has a significant meaning to it.  The title its self is a metaphor, there is a figurative meaning of the title and a literal one.  One of the literal meanings of the title was that he had to run from situations at times.  One time early in the memoir Rodriguez had said, “But TIno dropped the ball and ran.  I heard the deputies yell for Tino to stop.  One of them began climbing the fence.  I decided to take off too.”(36) This quote backs up my theory about him running from a situation that he managed to get himself into.  There were many times throughout his childhood where he was very scared and he always ran whenever he thought he would really be in trouble.  Another literal meaning of the title is that he felt like he was never fully protected.  He felt like he had to always be cautious about what he did, where he went, and who he associated himself with.

The figurative meanings of this title are a little bit more obvious and you have to do a lot less inferring.  One of the figurative meanings is that he was always scared and worried but he was not running all of the time.  Rodriguez had a tough childhood and never had the resources available to him that children in this generation always have handy.  He grew up a poor boy in Los Angeles and he had bad influences so he would have to stay away from these bad influences and not get involved with gangs.  While staying away from this dangerous and misbehaved society he referred to it as “Always Running”.  Another figurative meaning of  the title is that when hearing the title you think of physical enduring running.  In this case all of the running was done emotionally and he had t run from peer pressure around him.  He would always have these people around him whether he liked it or not, regardless he had to make the decision to not follow them and to be an individual.  That takes courage.  A quote that supports the fact that it was psychological rather than physical is “We were always afraid.  Always running.”  This is saying that they were experiencing fear constantly and they had to avoid it by making decisions.  Earlier in the passage Rodriguez says, “It never stopped, this running.”  He obviously wasn’t running forever, but in his mind he was.  All of the running was done with their minds, not with their feet.