Synopsis:

A chronicle of the life and culture of the founder of a Hispanic prison gang in California.

Directed by and starring Edward James Olmos.

Featured cast:
    Edward James Olmos as Santana Montoya
    Bill Forsythe as J.D.
    Evelina Fernandez as Julie
    Pepe Serna as Mundo
    Danny de la Paz as Puppet
    Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as El Japo
    Daniel Villarreal as Little Puppet

Opening scene: Santana Montoya is being booked into jail. A woman is talking about the two Santanas: the one like a kid who doesn't know how to do anything, the other one a criminal who knows about drugs and murder. Then Santana speaks. He agrees that he is two people. He is looking at old photos of the people in his life. He tells the woman about his childhood. His mother was Esperanza, a beautiful woman.

In June 1943 the war was going on, and LA was at war, too--whites vs. Hispanics. His father got a tattoo of a rose with his mother's name on it. They were in the tattoo parlor when the Zoot Suit riot broke out. Sailors broke in. They beat up the men and raped his mother.

Santana was 16 (should have been 15?) in 1959, growing up in East LA. He did not get along well with his father. Paulito, his brother, is a little boy. He is meeting with two other gang members--Mundo, and J.D. Their three-man gang is La Primera. They cross another gang's turf and have to make a run for it. They break into a store to hide out. The owner shoots J.D. in the leg; he will wear a wooden leg for life. Santana and Mundo go to juvenile hall. Santana is raped at knife point. He turns the knife on his attacker and kills him.

Santana earned respect with the killing. By the time J.D. showed up a year later, he had recruited new members of La Primera within juvie (23:00). One of the gang members points out that J.D. isn't Mexican. Santana says, "He's like my brother." A shot of them playing handball against the wall, then a cut to the same two at Folsom playing handball in the yard (while Los Lobos's "Shotgun" plays in the background). Santana says they got 10 to 25 years in prison (for what? the burglary? Only he did the killing.) They seem to have a lot of style. "Power became our game," Santana says. "Power to provide everything you found outside."

La Primera, now grown into the Mexican Mafia, moves among the other gangs, the Aryan Brotherhood and the Black Guerilla Family, at Folsom, but it is the most powerful. It controls extortion, gambling, prostitution, and drugs. His mother comes to visit in prison. She tries to give him a cross, which she says is in memory of the thief who died with Jesus, but a guard takes it.

A woman visitor goes into the rest room and deposits drugs in the toilet. They are flushed down to a take-out trap, then inserted into another convict's rectum for transportation. The drugs are repackaged in a sock and passed along the tier. On the yard, the purchaser complains that the drugs were cut. So they go back to the cell of the thief and set him on fire with gasoline (35:30). A confrontation erupts in the block between blacks and Hispanics over the killing of the black thief. They put Santana in the hole to break up the gang. He says, "There was nothing the system could do to stop me. I could run the show from solitary."

An inmate tells Santana the prison is transferring gang members to other prisons, so Santana has them all subpoenaed to one place (as witnesses in a legal case) to get together to plan. They are in county jail for their meeting.

The Hispanics from northern California have formed a new gang called Nuestra Familia in Vacaville. Pie Face is asked to kill a friend of his now in this gang in Folsom but declines. So another gang member, El Japo, stabs Pie Face to death lifting weights on the yard. "Killing one of our own had earned us a new respect, but none of us knew the price."

Santana tells Little Puppet to kill someone in the other gang. "It's not about being weak. It's about other people beginning to think that we're showing weakness," Santana says. "It's up to you, you know." They are watching a Woody Woodpecker cartoon when Little Puppet stabs the guy in the neck.

J.D. gets released from prison. Santana's little brother, Paulito, comes to visit. He won't talk. Santana realizes his mother is dead. "I had years on the tier to think about how my life had affected my mother." The prison gate closes behind Santana. J.D. picks him up. Santana says nothing has changed in all these years. J.D. says, "A lot has changed, homes. It took me awhile to see it." And where it could go. The inside and the outside go together.

Santana goes up to his father. They are trying to talk (to reconcile old separations) when Paulito comes up to Santana. He has kept all Santana's letters from prison--"like poetry," he says. They are having a block party. Santana and J.D. smoke constantly and look tough. Santana points out a pretty woman with long dark hair. Santana is shy around women. Her name is Julie. Santana says he has been away about 18 summers. They try to dance, but he doesn't know how. She teaches him. She leaves with her son.

Santana and J.D. go to meet with an Italian gangster named Scagnelli. They want to run the drug operation in East LA. "From now on your business in the barrio is going to be our business." He is not receptive. Santana tells him they run the inside of prison and can make it easy on his people inside--including his son. We see the son baking bread in prison. He has Hispanic friends who are having a party later; he's invited.

Santana gets Julie to help him look for shoes. He speaks sharply to a shoe clerk. She says, "Why? Was he not showing you respect?" They go on to eat. He tells her about getting "la cliqua" going in prison. The gang made it possible to protect its members from other stronger prisoners. He says he read all the time. "I loved it in there. Had whatever I wanted." He knew nothing about women. She teaches him to drive a Volkswagen in a parking lot.

Tony Scagnelli is drinking with the Mexicans in prison. Santana is walking with Julie, telling her to read, go to school, and educated her mind. Santana says he has never been at the beach before. She gives him a kiss. While Santana is undressing with Julie, the Mexicans are getting Tony drunk.  He says the pruno goes right to his head. The Mexicans jump on him, tie him down, and rape him, then stick a knife in him. Santana is having sex with Julie, and turns her over on her stomach for anal sex. He is very rough with her. She says stop it and breaks away. (He's been in prison too long; had too many men to enjoy such a fine woman.)

Papa Scagnelli is swimming in his pool when he gets the bad news about Tony. Julie finds her brother Netto dead of a heroin overdose in the bathroom. Scagnelli has let the heroin go through uncut, causing overdoses among the Mexican addicts in East LA. Santana is afraid his brother is one of them, but then Paulito comes in when Santana and his father are about to come to blows. Santana apologizes to his father later at Esperanza's grave in the cemetery. His father tells him about the rape in 1943; he didn't know which sailor was Santana's father. Santana and Julie cross paths without speaking.

A black gang crashes into a Mexican gang splitting up heroin. The blacks make the Mexicans snort the powder until they all die. Santana goes to see El Japo in prison, who tells him the Black Guerilla family did it for the Italians. El Japo says, "Santana, watch your back."

J.D. and Santana talk about how best to get even with the Italians. Santana wants to get their people out of prison. J.D. tells him if they don't fight their enemies they can lose it all. They hire the Aryan Brotherhood to shoot up a black club. Little Puppet has a big wedding when he gets out of prison. He is overjoyed. He gets drunk and puts down his prison time. Santana and J.D. talk. Santana criticizes J.D. for the way the AB shoot out was done. "It came out racial." J.D. says, "I don't know what's wrong with you. I don't know if it's that woman or what. But you're starting to show weakness. And we both know you can't do that." J.D. is a completely ruthless form of gang leader--a cutthroat executive operating without Santana's moral perspective.

Little Puppet is drunk. He says he doesn't want to be in the gang any more. Santana and Julie talk. She says he is like two people. She liked the kid. She hates the one who knows. He says he doesn't have to listen to this shit. "If you were a man ...." "You'd kill me," she says. "No, you'd fuck me in the ass." "I guess we got nothing to say to each other," he says. She says she was impressed when she met him, but "you're nothing but a fucking dope dealer." He says he's just taking care of business. "Your business kills kids." He sees how little she thinks of him. "There is no fucking hope... for our kids... for our barrio. With people like you around."

A police car pulls us. The two officers ask if Santana has been in the joint. They find heroin in the pocket of the coat, belonging to Little Puppet, on the back of the bench. Santana is arrested and taken to jail. Puppet is next to Santana in prison. He says Little Puppet's name is on a piece of paper (marked for killing). Santana meets with J.D., who tells him Little Puppet is talking about getting out of the gang. Santana tells him to take Little Puppet's name off. J.D. says it's going to happen (the killing). J.D. says the word is that Santana isn't showing them anything. Santana recollects when they were kids thrown into juvie, trying to show that no one could take things away from them: "Whatever we had, we gave it away." Santana says take care of yourself and hangs up the phone.

Mundo tells Puppet to take his brother out. Puppet says he thought it was taken care of. But it wasn't, because Santana is no longer in control. Little Puppet picks his brother up. Santana writes Julie a letter: "You were the door to another life." He is trying to use her as a breath of life in prison. Little Puppet is driving Puppet. Santana sends Julie his St. Dismas medal--the patron saint of all those in prison. St. Dismas has protected Santana in prison. Puppet strangles his brother with a cord. He looks up to the sky: he gives up hope. "God damn me," he says.

The gang comes for Santana. El Japo stays in his cell. They ask: "Coming out?" Julie gives Paulito the medal: "Your brother wants you to have this." Mundo and the other gang members surround Santana. "You got a lot of heart, Colonel, maybe too much." Santana's last words, "You got to give it your best shot, you know." Six of them stab him many times and throw him off the tier. He falls dead to the floor below.

Paulito and two other boys are driving around sniffing glue. Paulito gives one a gun. "Which one?" he asks, meaning who is he supposed to shoot. "Don't matter." "La Primera lives." The film ends with gunfire. (1:58:46)

Commentary:

The moral dilemma: how to do what it requires to run a gang profitably while being a good person? Santana finds this impossible, and gives himself up to death when he realizes his mistake.