This might seem like a far away place, in a far away land. My house is right there in the middle. It was in 1992, L.A. riots（暴乱）. I remember being eight years old and looking out there and thinking to myself, "This is it. This is game over. I'm done."

  The military（军队） came in, the cops（巡警） came in and I thought they were going to save us. And for some reason, they kept on pointing（指向） the guns at my people. So I grew up angry. I grew up mad（发疯的）. I struggled（ 努力） watching my parents pay rent（租金） at the end of the month. Sometimes they had to take food out of their mouth so that my two younger sisters and I could eat.

  And the people that I saw taking care of their family and taking care of business were the gang（一帮） members. So I considered that as a career path（道路）, not because they were the ones that had the girls or had the cars, but because they were the ones that took care of their families. And I loved my family enough to even consider that as a possibility. But it wasn't always bad. If you haven't put two and two together, I'm a Dodger fan. I like Dodger's even more so because Dodger Stadium（体育场） sits in the middle of Elysian Park, one of the biggest parks in L.A.

  And I remember going out on the weekends with my family and for the carne salas and Sharon Alcultura and them taking me on trails（痕迹） and showing me all this amazing stuff（材料） that they knew. I grew up, I went to Dorsey High（高水平） School. You might not know Dorsey that much, but you might know Crenshaw High School. And Crenshaw and Dorsey are rival（竞争者） high schools, but they're more than just rivals in the traditional sense of rival high schools. They're the birthplace of the Bloods and the Cribs. And so I was in ninth grade（等级） detention（拘留） and they gave me an ultimatum（最后通牒）.

  They said either you stay in detention or you go to this thing called Eco Club. And I said, what, Eco Club? Forget you. But I took a chance and I went over to Eco Club. And the first thing that they said was, you know, grab（攫取） a bag of seeds（种子） and let's go out. And I picked jalapenos because I wanted a girl salsa for my mom at the end of that.