Joseph Brooks grew up on the east side of San Antonio, Texas in a violent neighborhood controlled by gangs and organized crime. His father was a long-haul truck driver and his mother was a maid. Despite the circumstances of violence, poverty, and drugs, Brooks’s mother refused to let him fall into the gang lifestyle.
Brooks’s mother wouldn’t allow him to speak or act like the other kids in the neighborhood. If he were to get a woman pregnant, he would be expected to marry her and take care of the child. If he were to be arrested, she would not bail him out.
