Last Chance in Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth

Ronnie, described as “a tall youth with a narrow face and deep-set, penetrating black eyes” (11), is the juvenile offender whose story Hubner follows most closely among the male students in the COG program. Ronnie’s father is white, and his mother is Mexican. After his mother developed a cocaine addiction and became neglectful, Ronnie drifted into a life of crime, selling drugs for his stepfather and getting involved in a burglary ring run by his cousins. He was particularly abusive toward his little brother, several times threatening to kill him.

Ronnie’s mother, Marina, is unusual among the book’s mothers in that she eventually wants to improve her life and develop a positive relationship with her son. These factors help Ronnie transform his own life. The COG psychodrama is able to break through his resistance, and he develops a sense of empathy. After his release from Giddings, Ronnie gets a job at the nursing home where his mother works, eventually becoming the supervisor of a custodial crew.

Marina is Ronnie’s mother and one of 11 children. Her father was a fire-and-brimstone preacher who routinely beat his wife and sexually abused his daughter for years before she was removed to a juvenile facility. The author’s description of her is sexualizing, noting that she was “exceptionally pretty, tall and slender with long black hair that curled as it fell down her back, and eyes that sparkled […] She had a wide smile, breasts that attracted a man’s attention, a slim waist, and long legs” (29-30).

Marina married a white man whose family was prejudiced against her Mexican heritage. Eventually, the marriage broke up, and Marina was left to raise two small boys on her own. Although she had plans for college, she started dating a drug dealer named Jimmie who helped advance her cocaine addiction.

Marina’s addiction destroyed any chance for her sons to grow up in a stable home. She routinely abandoned them to the care of other relatives, only to resurface years later and act entitled to respect. Eventually, her sons went to live with her and Jimmie, which proved disastrous. Their unstable home atmosphere pushed Ronnie toward a life of crime. After Ronnie was arrested and sent to Giddings, Marina managed to recover from the cocaine addiction, leave Jimmie, hold down a steady job, and join a church. Once Ronnie is released, the two reconcile and help one another build a better future.

Jimmie was Marina’s boyfriend and is presented as a fully negative influence on his girlfriend and her sons. He was a drug dealer and a risk-taker. Once he saw that Ronnie shared his liking for thrills, he recruited the child to help him with his drug operation and enmeshed him in a burglary ring formed among Jimmie’s younger cousins. The author describes him as having a boldness and swagger:

Jimmie had a cowboy’s build, tall […] slim, and narrow-hipped. He had caramel-colored eyes flecked with brown and beautiful teeth that flashed when he smiled. He oiled his black hair and combed it back on the sides and into a big pompadour in front (34).

Eventually, Jimmie’s negative influence on Ronnie forced Marina to seek custody. When Ronnie wished to remain with Jimmie, Marina left her boyfriend and took her younger son with her. After Ronnie committed the burglary that eventually landed him in jail, Jimmie refused to help or shelter him. He disappears from the narrative once Ronnie recalls getting arrested.

Along with Ronnie, Elena is the student whose story the author follows most closely. Like all her 12 siblings and most of her older relatives, Elena became involved in a gang. And like other women and girls in the book, Elena is a survivor of chronic sexual assault by a male caregiver (one of her many stepfathers), and her mother, Lucy, denied the abuse. This pattern—one parent habitually raping their child while the other parent willfully looks the other way—also appeared in Marina’s childhood, and it highlights the theme of legacies of dysfunction. Lucy’s own family of origin was fraught with violence—but, upon becoming a mother, she was content to perpetuate that violence, however passively. With no help from Lucy, Elena is the one to break the cycle. As with other figures in the text, the author draws a colorful portrait of her:

Short and stocky, Elena oils her short brown hair and combs it straight back, like a rockabilly singer. Easily the most kinetic group member, she is forever popping out of her chair to rotate her head and twist her arms and shoulders until her back cracks (168).

Elena’s robbery of an antiques store landed her in Giddings, and although she goes through the same psychodrama therapy as Ronnie, it takes her far longer to remodel her thought patterns and behaviors and develop a sense of empathy; the author explains that chronic childhood sexual trauma, like Elena’s, is more challenging to recover from. She remains at Giddings for six years before her release into the outer world. Once freed, Elena manages to avoid gang activity. She goes to school to become an aide in a nursing home, finds a boyfriend, has a baby, and moves into an apartment with her sister. She sums up her life by saying, “It’s like I told them in Capital Offenders. I won’t reoffend, and I haven’t” (248).

Lucy is Elena’s mother, who constantly worries about her numerous children, all of whom have gotten into legal trouble—yet Lucy’s egregious parenting was a vital factor in producing her children’s criminality. Lucy herself was gang-affiliated when she was younger, but, unlike her daughter Elena, she did little to stop the generational dysfunction; on the contrary, she was invested in sustaining it, denying claims that her latest husband was raping Elena. Likewise, Lucy promptly chose the comfort of ignoring complaints that her neighbors were abusing not only Elena but also her sisters.

Despite whatever ease her self-deception has afforded her, Lucy is tired. The author describes her: “Lucy appears twenty years older than her actual age, forty-three. Her eyes have lost their luster, her hair its sheen […] It is hard to detect any trace of the graceful girl she was at thirteen” (170). Lucy is still in denial about her own responsibility for modeling bad behavior for her children, but after Elena’s release from Giddings, she at least allows Elena to stay with her for one year until Elena can get her bearings.