Luis Javier Rodriguez (born 1954) is an American poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and columnist. He was the 2014 Los Angeles Poet Laureate. Rodriguez is recognized as a major figure in contemporary Chicano literature, identifying himself as a native Xicanx writer. His best-known work, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., received the Carl Sandburg Literary Award and has been controversial on school reading lists for its depictions of gang life.

The founder and co-founder of nonprofit organizations including Tía Chucha's Centro Cultural, Rodriguez has been active in politics. Rodriguez was the 2012 vice-presidential nominee of the Justice Party. In 2014, Rodriguez ran as the Green Party of California's candidate for Governor of California and received 66,872 votes (1.5 percent of the vote) in the June primary. He ran again as candidate in the 2022 California gubernatorial election, endorsed by the Green Party and the Peace and Freedom Party.

Rodriguez was born in the United States-Mexico border city of El Paso, Texas. His parents, natives of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, had their children on the US side of the border to ease the transition there, where they had intentions of relocating.

In Ciudad Juarez, his father was a high school principal, but in Los Angeles he worked in a dog food factory, a paint factory, in construction, and selling pots and pans and Bibles. He retired as a laboratory custodian at Pierce Community College in Woodland Hills, California, a wealthier neighborhood in Los Angeles. Luis's mother, who is descended from the Raramuri, a people indigenous to Chihuahua, was a school secretary in Mexico, but in Los Angeles she worked cleaning homes and in the garment industry when she was not taking care of the children.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Luis was an active gang member and drug user in East Los Angeles, developing a long rap sheet. However, his criminal activity did not preclude his participation in the Chicano Movement, and he joined the 1968 East L.A. walkouts and took part in the August 31, 1970 Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War. At the moratorium, he was brutalized and arrested along with numerous other peaceful protesters.

However, unlike other arrestees, Luis with four other "cholos" (Chicano gang youth) was held briefly in the Murderer's Row of the Hall of Justice Jail and threatened with charges in the three persons killed during subsequent rioting after law enforcement attacked a mostly-peaceful crowd. He had a cell next to Charles Manson. He was later released with no charges filed.

Luis found a mentor through the John Fabela Youth Center, part of the Bienvenidos Community Center in South San Gabriel, who recognized Luis' capacity as a graffiti writer and community leader. With this mentor's help, in 1972 Luis painted several murals in the San Gabriel Valley communities of Rosemead and South San Gabriel. Although Luis dropped out of high school at 15, he later returned and graduated from Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra, where he led school walkouts and became president of To Help Mexican American Students (TOHMAS).

He got arrested for "assault with intent to commit murder" at 17 in an incident in which four people were shot, but witnesses failed to identify him and he was released. He later attended California State University, Los Angeles briefly from 1972 to 1973, becoming a member of the Chicano activist group MEChA but eventually dropped out.