The Other Side:Fault Lines, Guerrilla Saints, and the True Heart of Rock ’n’ Roll

This collage of journalism, diary entries and verse explores the tensions within culture, politics and spirituality experienced by an author living between two worlds: specifically the First and Third World

Stories from the front line of the war in El Salvador are juxtaposed with tales of a Hollywood-mythological childhood, and the history of Los Angeles, the city-stage where today many of the world’s political, cultural and aesthetic battles take place—both symbolically and literally. The parade of characters ranges from Latin American revolutionaries in exile to hip-hop teens in the US inner city; the endless “changing of the guard” in a transitional generation which came too late for Che Guevara and too early for the fall of the Berlin Wall. In scenes from Mexico City, Havana, Tijuana and Los Angeles, Martinez profiles the young guerillas-turned-relief workers of the 1986 Salvadorean earthquake, devotees of an innovative Latino “rocanrol“, graffiti gangs and their nightly “bombing runs”, and the vibrancy of youth culture in the barrios.