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7th out of 38 books
—
35 voters
Down These Mean Streets
by
Piri Thomas
Thirty years ago Piri Thomas made literary history with this lacerating, lyrical memoir of his coming of age on the streets of Spanish Harlem. Here was the testament of a born outsider: a Puerto Rican in English-speaking America; a dark-skinned morenito in a family that refused to acknowledge its African blood. Here was an unsparing document of Thomas's plunge into the dea...more
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
November 25th 1997
by Vintage
(first published 1967)
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Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas. This book is a memoir about a kid growing up in spanish Harlem.
This book takes place in Spanish Harlem, the main character Piri he has problems with his father and having difficult time to connect.
This book is fairly good and interesting to read mainly because this book has a lot of drama and Piri wants to solve his problems without any help from anyone.This book affected me in many ways because Piri started smoking and joined a gang which surprised me. Th...more
This book takes place in Spanish Harlem, the main character Piri he has problems with his father and having difficult time to connect.
This book is fairly good and interesting to read mainly because this book has a lot of drama and Piri wants to solve his problems without any help from anyone.This book affected me in many ways because Piri started smoking and joined a gang which surprised me. Th...more
The book Down These Mean Streets is a memoir about a young Puerto Rican, named Piri Thomas, growing up in New York City. The book is told from the author's perspective and he gives us a brief look into his mind, where he argues with himself on what to do while facing racial discrimination, a life of crime and drugs, an identity crisis, jail time and a religion conversion. After his prison sentence his perspective of things change but only after he finds that he is slowly going back to his old li...more
The book Down These Mean Streets is by Piri Thomas. The main topic of the book is a memoir, about Piri who struggles throughout the book. The book addresses many problems. One problem the book address frequently about being prejudice and trying to overcome that problem. The setting of the book takes place in New York,in the 20s and 30s. The main character Piri has problems throughout the book with trusting and making executive decisions. The book is interesting in many ways because the author sh...more
This book is truly amazing. It first caught my eye because it was about a Puerto Rican and as a Puero Rican myself, it loved to see what my own kind have been through before i was born. This book talks about a young boy who goes through many problems in his life and tries to overcome it by changing his ways. I liked the way the author incorporated his spanish slang into it. In the beginning i truly did like the character, but after getting deeper and deeper into the book, i realized the characte...more
"Down These Mean Streets" a memior wirtten by Piri Thomas has deffinetly captured my intrest. It's a novel about how life was for Piri (the author) in 1950's Spainish Harlem (Today's East Harlem. With Piri Thomas uncensored potty-mouth this book would capitivate the minds of today's high school students. Piri Thomas has the blunt recollection of the acts of teenage bebauchery that he participated in during his younger years that can only be compared to the average teenager's facebook wall. The...more
"Down These Mean Streets" gets you three books for the price of one.
The first book is true to its title: a young man's coming of age along the dangerous byways of Spanish Harlem.
Here we see the perils associated with traversing the concrete jungle, the need for toughness and concomitant death of tenderness in youth.
Author Piri Thomas details what life was like for Puerto Ricans moving into what had been an Italian neighborhood and the Italians' response to their displacement.
Thomas was born i...more
In the memoir Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas is about a typical teenager trying to find a way to live life better than he already is.
In the memoir Piri struggles internally and has many external conflicts that lead to his own internal conflicts. he is a teen that lives in harlem, in other words "el barrio" is what he calls it. in the memoir piri has a family. its Piri, his father, his mother and 4 other of his younger siblings. yes he is the oldest out of the 5 siblings.
this memoir is i...more
In the memoir Piri struggles internally and has many external conflicts that lead to his own internal conflicts. he is a teen that lives in harlem, in other words "el barrio" is what he calls it. in the memoir piri has a family. its Piri, his father, his mother and 4 other of his younger siblings. yes he is the oldest out of the 5 siblings.
this memoir is i...more
This book is about a puerto rican boy by the name of Piri Thomas. It takes place in the streets of harlem and down south during the late 20's through the 30's and 40's. Throughout the story Piri battles himself internally and externally because he does not understand why his brothers and his sister are white like his mom and he is dark like his father. He asks himself why one is better than the other. He later realizes that too much time was lost in his life by wrong decisions and by something h...more
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Piri Thomas is a young boy who grows up in Harlem and has to face various obstacles and is forced to make vital decisions that will ultimately take a toll on his future. Piri witnesses the injustices and sinful behavior of everyone around him, and he must realize that survival of the fittest is essential. But how can he truly be “the fittest” without eventually leading himself into incarceration? Well that’s nearly impossible in his generation. One of the only reasons he gets through everything...more
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Snapshot:
Piri Thomas pulls no punches in describing life in Spanish Harlem during the 1930s and '40s. This classic memoir follows Thomas from childhood through adolescence and time in prison, concluding with his release and return to the streets he calls home. Drugs, sex, violence and crime weave together to create a brutal depiction of Thomas' life in the 'hood.
Hook:
The front cover features a photograph of an urban neighborhood at night, directly linking to the title. Critics' reviews are list...more
Piri Thomas pulls no punches in describing life in Spanish Harlem during the 1930s and '40s. This classic memoir follows Thomas from childhood through adolescence and time in prison, concluding with his release and return to the streets he calls home. Drugs, sex, violence and crime weave together to create a brutal depiction of Thomas' life in the 'hood.
Hook:
The front cover features a photograph of an urban neighborhood at night, directly linking to the title. Critics' reviews are list...more
Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas is a story of struggles, heart and identity. Speaking from his own experiences, Piri Thomas writes of his life as a teenager growing up in El Barrio—Spanish Harlem. He faces many battles as he fights to find his true identity and place in this racial society. Thomas explains the life of a lower-class Puerto Rican kid who tried to fit-in in a world where gang fighting, doing drugs, sex and stealing was as natural as breathing. In his fight to fit in, he los...more
The main characters of this book were Piri Thomas, his family, and his girlfriend Trina. This book is a true story about a guy, Piri Thomas growing up and facing many problems. He grew up in Spanish Harlem. He was dealing with gangs,fights,drugs,money,criminal scenes,and much more. He has to make the right decisions when he left his parents house. An internal problem that Piri faces is that he isn't sure if he should go on with the criminal scence to get money. An external problem he faced was...more
This book was about a boy transitioning into a man the hard way. he faced many problems mentally and physically dealing with race and his family. In his eyes he saw himself as a negro-hispanic and his family thought they were white-hispanics. He saw the streets as his home. at first he was doing ok but then he started hanging with the wrong people that had him doing the wrong things. Then he got introduced to drugs and everything went down hill after that. He started robbing small businesses and...more
This was a very cool book that i can relate to a lot. This was a story of Piri thomas an it was about his life growing up in spainish harlem. For Piri thomas growing up in spainish harlem it wasnt easy he had a lot of bad influences around and his pride was the one thing that always kept him in trouble. Once he went to jail though he went through a major recovery and started taking life more serious and wanted to make a change in who he was. My favorite part was when Piri just started meeting th...more
Four and a half stars, really.
I wish someone had introduced me to this book when I was 14 years old to let me know someone else was thinking some of the crazy shit I thought and to put my own peculiar road (so different from Piri's) in perspective.
I read it for one field lists for my PhD in English, but I was moved by it, by Piri Thomas's voice and the questions he asks himself about race and ethnicity - about what it means to be Puerto Rican when a Puerto Rican can be black or white, but still...more
I wish someone had introduced me to this book when I was 14 years old to let me know someone else was thinking some of the crazy shit I thought and to put my own peculiar road (so different from Piri's) in perspective.
I read it for one field lists for my PhD in English, but I was moved by it, by Piri Thomas's voice and the questions he asks himself about race and ethnicity - about what it means to be Puerto Rican when a Puerto Rican can be black or white, but still...more
Excellent book - it's rare when an author has you right there in the moment with them, and that's how I felt when reading this book. Piri Thomas tells about growing up in Spanish Harlem in this incredible memoir, but it's so much more than that. All through the book Piri is on a quest to discover who he is, where he belongs, what identity to claim. A part of life everyone goes through, but oh is it different when you're a stranger amongst your family, your friends, when nothing is what it seems...more
Down these mean streets is a story about a young boy growing up in spanish Harlem. We see him go through alot of trouble and pain as he travels through the art of becoming a man. The main character Piri Thomas has an anger problem and grows up showing lots of violence that eventually lands him in jail. One of the central problems in this book is family trouble. Piri as a young boy feels that his father in some way doesn't love him. "Pops i wonder, how come me and you is always on the outs? Is it...more
What first drew me to this book was the similarities it shared with the book "Drown" by Junot Diaz which I read and fell in love with back in 10th grade. Both stories are about a young man growing up in the mid 1900's in Harlem, every day offering its own challenges as they struggle with barely functional families and the rough neighborhood of Harlem. When I first picked up this book, I found that the lack of grammar and the language used made it hard for me to read it. However when I tried agai...more
This memoir of growing up as a black puerto rican in spanish harlem in the 50's was very well written. He maintains a very approachable style while at the same time achieving a poetry to his prose.
This book made me think about what i'll call "memoirs of the dispossesed" as a genre (anyone know a more legit title for this genre?). Each decade since the 50's seems to have published a few of these. I wonder about how they are marketed and what the audience ends up being and who the authors are writ...more
This book made me think about what i'll call "memoirs of the dispossesed" as a genre (anyone know a more legit title for this genre?). Each decade since the 50's seems to have published a few of these. I wonder about how they are marketed and what the audience ends up being and who the authors are writ...more
I grabbed this book last year when I started reading Latino literature. I was looking forward to reading this memoir because it takes place in New York. It was ok---- it was not that interesting, and it wasn't that well written. Same typical struggle of a young Latino searching for his identity. I wouldn't put it at the top of my list of books to read on this subject---and I definitely do not think my students could read it (too difficult).
Boy growing up in Harlem during the 30-40s? Searching f...more
Boy growing up in Harlem during the 30-40s? Searching f...more
I have to admit that the most interesting part of the book to me was when Piri writes about his six-year prison sentence. I think it was because it was here that Piri finally started to grow up. Prior to that, he seemed really immature. Growing up in Harlem, his concern was in looking "cool" and showing that he had "heart," but really he did not have any concern for anyone but himself and his own needs. He gets a girl pregnant and he doesn't care. He takes drugs, steals. But, after shooting a co...more
Down These Mean Streets has been called a Hispanic version of 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X.' I understand the comparison, but they are two entirely different reading experiences. Alex Haley gave Malcolm X a professional feel, Thomas words are unpolished and raw. This isn't a slight, but a part of the books strength. The words come from the heart and have more power. It is a classic tale of innocence lost, taking the wrong turn in life, and then finding redemption. Much as I make fun of my rus...more
This is a great book, i enjoy reading it,because it makes me wonder whats going to happen next and keeps me reading it and not wanting to stop.
This book connects to lots of larger issues that happens to young teens,growing up in neighborhoods where all you see is violence and drugs.
This book can perfectly be described as how hard it is for a young teen to grow up when he feels like he is alone in a cold new world.
Some positive things about this book is that the chapters has titles that give's yo...more
This book connects to lots of larger issues that happens to young teens,growing up in neighborhoods where all you see is violence and drugs.
This book can perfectly be described as how hard it is for a young teen to grow up when he feels like he is alone in a cold new world.
Some positive things about this book is that the chapters has titles that give's yo...more
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This book is about a person named Piri and his life story. Piri grew up in EL barrio. As Piri was growing up Piri was not loved by his father because he was the darkest child that he had. To hide his feelings he used drugs and screwed most of his life up.
I'm going to use a text-to-world connection because today in the world there are parents just like Piri's and don't accept there children as they are and there are also people that screwed up there lives by taking drugs and actually risk kill...more
I'm going to use a text-to-world connection because today in the world there are parents just like Piri's and don't accept there children as they are and there are also people that screwed up there lives by taking drugs and actually risk kill...more
The theme of the book Down These Mean Streets is the growth process and struggles of growning up. The author shows this though his main charater as it goes though lives in poverty, facing racism, and suffers through addiction.
The charater Piri Thomas's, the main character who is a dark skin latino who lives life poorly guild the kid to a life of figthing on the streets of west harlem, getting invole with drugs to help him ignor socity which refuses to expect his lation heritage which he vaules v...more
The charater Piri Thomas's, the main character who is a dark skin latino who lives life poorly guild the kid to a life of figthing on the streets of west harlem, getting invole with drugs to help him ignor socity which refuses to expect his lation heritage which he vaules v...more
Amazing book. I would even go as far as to say that it is my favorite book of all time, at the moment lol. The book is autobiographical and it is an easy read, because the language is not difficult. The only difficulties that one may encounter is the spanish slang thrown in, but there is a glossary in the back, which is something you don't see anymore, because America is so "Multicultural". As well, since is set in Harlem in the mid 20th century (1950-60s) the English slang can also trip you up,...more
A coming of age story about a young Puerto-Rican boy growing up in the grind of Harlem, during the 1940s. This young boy, is Piri Thomas. Piri is dark-skinned but doesn't want to be black, at first. Throughout the book most of his decisions are based off of him finding out who he is.
This story is very relate-able no matter what ethnicity or color you are because I think anyone can relate to trying to find who they truly are. Reading this book really made me rethink my ideas about race, and I'm...more
This story is very relate-able no matter what ethnicity or color you are because I think anyone can relate to trying to find who they truly are. Reading this book really made me rethink my ideas about race, and I'm...more
This book is amazing because its languange is the language of now. It talks about things that happen in small neighborhoods that have a certain ethnic concentration. the part that I liked the most was when Piri's family had moved from 103rd to 114th street in spanish harlem or el barrio and his new block was full of Italians, which he called spaghetti eating and then a curse word. This book expresses what every kid that has two races thinks about, Piri is trying to find out what world he belongs...more
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Piri Thomas (born Juan Pedro Tomas September 10, 1928 in Spanish Harlem in New York City) is a Puerto Rican-Cuban who is influential in the Nuyorican Movement as a writer and poet.
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Dec 22, 2008 06:38am