The Marvelous Ones

Randol Contreras is Associate Professor of Sociology and of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside.
 

and Resistance in East Los Angeles

"The Marvelous Ones achieves a rare feat for academic work: equally engaging the head and the heart, pairing deep empathy with sharp analytical rigor. Unfolding like a novel, it leaves the reader with a rich understanding not only of the Maravillas' history and culture but of their emotional worlds. It will be of great interest to researchers, students and general readers alike."—Luke Billingham, coauthor of Against Youth Violence

"This very lyrically written book combines longue durée historical perspective, sensitive individual life histories, and reflexive ethnography to offer a raw but sensitive vision of the brutal consequences and impact of being a Maravilla gang member in the deeply unequal, racialized, and violent world of East Los Angeles."—Dennis Rodgers, Research Professor, Geneva Graduate Institute