Down These Mean Streets, an autobiography by Piri Thomas is about his individual life from childhood to adulthood on the "mean" streets of New York's Spanish Harlem. Born Juan Pedro Thomas, he was the first born of Puerto Rican and Cuban parents in New York City's Spanish Harlem in 1928. Piri Thomas began his struggle for survival, identity and recognition at an early age. He shows the problems faced by a working class Puerto Rican who was trying to find his place in a racist society which continuously rejects him. The vicious street environment of poverty, racism and street crime took its toll and he served seven years of incarceration at Sing Sing. But, with knowledge and experience, he rose above his violent background of drugs and gangs.

While growing up in Spanish Harlem, Piri adopted an attitude, hot tempered and violent. In the end, his personality flaw almost...