“It’s about choices. You guys are young, you guys are the future. Start making good choices with your lives now.”

I quit school at 16 years old. At 18, I started teaching myself law. I retired in 2017 as a paralegal — 12 years after coming home. Same man, different choices. Nobody handed me a different life. I made different decisions, one after another, until the life I was living didn’t look anything like the one I came from.

That’s what I tell every room full of young people: the choices you make today are already writing your future. You don’t have to wait until you’re grown to start choosing better. Start now, while there’s still time to choose — because the future you’re building is the one you’re going to have to live in.

To bring this message to your school or youth group, contact Leonardo Lechuga at leonardo@wordinthehood.com or (630) 301-1743.

“I was immune to violence. I was desensitized to violence. I thought selling drugs was what my career was supposed to be.”

When violence is all you grow up around, it stops shocking you. It becomes background noise — just the way life is. And when nothing shocks you anymore, selling drugs starts looking like a career, like the only future on the table. That’s not toughness. That’s what being numb does to a kid. I know, because I lived it.

But numb isn’t permanent. I woke up from it, and there’s a lot of kids out there right now thinking the same way I did. If somebody had gotten through to me sooner, maybe I’d have seen it sooner. That’s why I tell this story — so a kid hears it before it’s too late, while there’s still time to choose something different.

To bring this message to your school or youth group, contact Leonardo Lechuga at leonardo@wordinthehood.com or (630) 301-1743.

“You can’t force anybody to do anything… Somebody’s got to have an influence. You got to find whoever it is that it’s going to have the strongest influence.”

You can do interventions. You can sit somebody down and lay it all out. But you can’t force anybody to change — nobody changes because you pushed them. They change when the right voice gets through to them. Somebody has to reach them, and it’s usually not the person doing the loudest talking.

So find that person. Find whoever it is that has the strongest influence on them and work through them. My grandma was that voice for me — she lived in the heart of the hood and she’d sit us down and talk to us before we walked out the door. Those talks weren’t always enough when I was deep in it, but they were real, and I remember them. Somebody has to be that voice for the kid in front of you.

To bring this message to your school or youth group, contact Leonardo Lechuga at leonardo@wordinthehood.com or (630) 301-1743.

“They were showing me that there was a world outside of the gang bang that I was living in and I was too young to absorb that.”

When I was young and always in trouble, they sent me to a place called Wilder Wilderness Camp in Minnesota. It was the greatest experience of my life. I was a lumberjack at 15 years old. We went to work every day, we went to school every day, and we had a lot of free time out in nature. It was a great environment for a kid — even if they weren’t locked up. I just happened to be locked up.

But I was too young to understand what they were offering me. They were showing me that there was a world outside of the gangbang I was living in, and I was too young to absorb that. A kid doesn’t have to wait until he’s grown to see there’s more than the streets. If somebody shows you a door, walk through it while you’re still young enough for it to change everything.

To bring this message to your school or youth group, contact Leonardo Lechuga at leonardo@wordinthehood.com or (630) 301-1743.

“I thought we were supposed to die in the hood.”

When I turned 18 years old and I wasn’t dead, I thought I had accomplished something. That was my reality growing up in Aurora — dying young felt like part of life. When that’s all you see around you, you stop believing there’s anything past it. You stop planning. You stop dreaming. You just try to survive the day.

But it isn’t normal, and it isn’t your destiny. I’m living proof that the story doesn’t have to end the way the streets wrote it. If you’re a kid who thinks your future is already decided, hear me: it’s not. There’s a life waiting for you on the other side of that lie — and it’s worth fighting for.

To bring this message to your school or youth group, contact Leonardo Lechuga at leonardo@wordinthehood.com or (630) 301-1743.

“I was a predator preying on kids.”

I used to send young kids out to commit crimes in Aurora. I’m not proud of that — I tell it now so a kid can spot a predator before he gets used. When you see it, recognize it, and say no.

Predators don’t always look like strangers. Sometimes they look like the older kid who finally pays attention to you, who gives you a job to do and calls it loyalty. The real loyalty is to yourself — the choice to walk away before you get pulled in.

If you want your students to hear it from somebody who lived it and walked away, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

“My best friend left me hanging at trial.”

When it counted, the brotherhood had somewhere else to be. The street’s loyalty runs one way — you’re loyal to it, but it’s loyal to itself. I learned that in a courtroom, not on a corner.

Kids hear a lot about loyalty, but loyalty is proven when the room gets serious. Ride with people who show up when it costs them something. That’s the difference between a crew that uses you and a life that keeps you free.

If you want your students to hear it from somebody who lived it and walked away, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

“I don’t know no old gangbangers.”

Think about it — where are they? Dead or locked up. There is no retirement plan in that life, no old-timers sitting on a porch telling war stories. The ones who got out got out young. Or they didn’t get out at all.

That is the whole pitch, if you listen close enough. The street promises you family and respect and forever, but it never shows you the end of the road. There is no old version of that life to grow into. So don’t wait to be the exception. Get out while you still can, and find people who want you alive and free.

If you want your students to hear it from somebody who lived it and walked away, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

“Twenty years of giving back — and they still denied me housing over my felony.”

Two decades of speaking to kids, mentoring them, and steering them toward gyms instead of gangs — and a housing application still said no. That record follows you long after the sentence ends. It doesn’t ask how you’ve changed. It just says no.

I tell it so kids hear the price before they pay it. The life doesn’t just cost you years. It costs you doors that stay closed long after you’re free. If you want your students to hear it from somebody who paid that price and still came back to give, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

“I’ve kept this letter for almost 40 years.”

Junior wrote it to me from the youth home when we were kids. Our gangs told us we couldn’t be friends anymore — and we listened. He’s been dead 30 years now, and that letter is still in my hands. A piece of paper outlasted the brotherhood that told us to walk away from each other.

Don’t let a gang choose your friends. Real friendship doesn’t come with conditions about who you’re allowed to care about, and it doesn’t expire when the street says so. If you want your students to hear it from somebody who kept the letter and lost the friend, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743