The Diamonds are a Chicago Street gang whose members are second-generation Puerto Rican youths. For Felix Padilla the young men who join the Diamonds have made a logical choice. The gang is an alternative and dependable route to emotional support, self-respect, material goods, and upward mobility. Although Padilla shares the same ethnic background as the gang members and also grew up in a Chicago barrio, gaining the trust of the Diamonds was not easy. But eventually he was able to get close enough to the members to interview and observe them.
Padilla shows us the process behind the decision to join the Diamonds. From early childhood, boys develop positive images of the gang. They realize that the dominant culture promises mobility, but that their paths to that mobility are blocked. By joining a gang they can creatively oppose the dominant culture. 
Padilla does not paint a romanticized picture of the Diamonds. Some members come to understand that when they sell drugs, they benefit the gang's leaders and suppliers more than themselves. Further, they recognize that the gang is also subject to problems of domination and inequality. Padilla shows that though the Diamonds are sometimes violent, they are not psychopaths. While we need not approve of what they do, Padilla urges us to understand it as a rational response to the doors these young men see closed around them.

The Gang as an American Enterprise

Padilla, Felix

Business & Money

Rutgers University Press

Outside the Wall: A Puerto Rican Woman's Struggle

Santiago grew up, married, and lives in a once-safe working-class  Chicago neighborhood to which, she believes, her generation brought  gangs. Marrying a gang leader at 15 to escape her strict mother, she  rationalizes: her mother beat her, but she's really a good person; her  husband used/dealt drugs, but he wasn't a junkie; prison guards harass  women visitors but the search is necessary, etc. Using a "life history"  approach, sociologist Padilla relies on interviews that were taped over  the course of two years to convey a Puerto Rican woman of color whose  life story is tied to her spouse's incarceration. Though Santiago has  much in common with many women, for whom her self-analysis is relevant,  some readers may question Padilla's perception of feminism. In addition,  the rush to transcribe, edit, and get this work into print is evident.  The book has a potential in some psychology and sociology classes.- Helen Rippier Wheeler, formerly with Univ. of California SLIS, Berkeley

Politics & Social Sciences

Women's Studies

“Each time I have taken on a different battle, the more confident I get about gaining more power and liberation. They can’t no longer control me!”--Lourdes Santiago 
Lourdes Santiago is married to a man who is serving a seventy-year prison term for allegedly killing a rival gang member. For more than half of her life, Lourdes has devoted her energy to aiding her husband and fighting for prison reform. Her endless battles on behalf of her husband, other prisoners’ families, and her neighborhood have transformed Lourdes. Although she remains deeply faithful to her Puerto Rican community in Chicago, to her religion, and to her marriage, she has also shed many of the traditional roles of Latina women. Her husband’s imprisonment has allowed Lourdes to liberate herself. 
Now we hear Lourdes Santiago’s story in her own voice, thanks to Felix Padilla who interviewed her over the course of two years and sensitively wove her words together into this book. We share her anger at the injustices she sees in the penal system--from the ‘shake-down’ pats on visitors' days to the secret transfer of her husband to a prison halfway across the country in retaliation for Lourdes’s advocacy of prison reform. We see how her protests give her new strength. She is determined to pass on a heritage of resistance to the next generation of young people, to enable them to escape the drugs and gangs that overshadowed her own youth and led to her husband’s incarceration. 
Lourdes Santiago and Felix Padilla give us an unparalleled look at the effects of the penal system on the hundreds of thousands of men and women in prison and on their families outside the wall. Compelling reading for anyone interested in the lives of women in contemporary America, in criminal justice, and in Hispanic culture.

Social Sciences

An elderly woman, who sits on a park bench singing Puerto Rican songs, teaches a little boy what it means to be Puerto Rican.

My Two Lights

Children's Books

Mango Tree Books

The Struggle for the Authentic Self: Creating Your True Self for a Peaceful World concerns itself with the issue of self identity and awareness, as such, it is built around two inter-related and very central questions: "Who is the real me?" and "What is my purpose for living in the human world?" In response to these two and other related questions, the book's purpose is to awaken in individuals an intense desire to live an authentic reality, recognizing that their self identity is not their true, authentic self for it does not originate from their true nature. Dr. Padilla integrated the work of social scientists, philosophers, quantum physicists, spiritual mystics, writers and practitioners, literary writers, singers and his personal experience to create a text which aims to inspire individuals to recognize that the attainment of the authentic self represents the ultimate, infinite purpose for which they live in the human world. That all other "finite" purposes, like the pursuit of happiness and love, living in caring and compassion cannot come prior to the attainment of the authentic self. How can a person feel love for self and others when that person does not know self from within the essence and beauty of his/her true nature? Dr. Padilla uses the word struggle in the title of the book to firmly establish how the attainment of the authentic self represents a struggle, a battle or fight to be waged against the conditioned "lesser self" or the self that society and individuals collaborated to create. Society is fully equipped with a wide array of forces of influence to sway individuals away from the authentic self so to ensure that they develop into and remain living as normal, ordinary, lesser self beings. But once we agree to take on this struggle, this fight and win, once we give ourselves the permission to become the true authentic self, we will experience true freedom; we will experience true, ever-lasting love and happiness; we will experience the most incredible connection with the rest of the world, making us want to naturally and with profound heart-felt love inspire others to take on the struggle for the authentic self.

The Struggle for the Authentic Self, Creating Your True Self for a Peaceful World

Religion & Spirituality

Indigo Heart Publishing

The simplytrinicooking.com website has passed a 10 year milestone and the owners of the site are celebrating this by publishing this cookbook with over 600 Caribbean recipes. It is also a recipe book for the many fans and visitors of the site. The recipes reflect the varied ethnicities on the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago. They are presented in a simple and appealing manner - as some recipes are accompanied with mouthwatering pictures, tips, and variations. The recipes are easy to follow and anyone can master these cooking techniques in a short while. Some of these recipes have been passed down from generation to generation and thus documented for safe-keeping. So all was not lost! Also, for those who are following diets, such as a gluten-free and vegetarian, will be interested in this book. It is therefore a pleasure to share them with the reader who wishes to indulge in cooking the foods we enjoy in the Caribbean the same way we prepare them.

Simply Trini Cooking

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Regional & International

Movement Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Padilla, Felix. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Padilla, Felix

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Padilla, Felix. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Gang as an American Enterprise

Outside the Wall: A Puerto Rican Woman's Struggle

Outside the Wall: A Puerto Rican Woman's Struggle

My Two Lights

The Struggle for the Authentic Self, Creating Your True Self for a Peaceful World

Simply Trini Cooking