American Me is a harsh look at the "reality" of prison and gang life, especially within the Chicano community. Based on a "true story", American Me traces the life of a Latino crime lord, Santana, from his youth growing up in the barrio of East Los Angeles, through his rise to power behind the walls of Folso Prison. Set against a backdrop of hopelessness and prejudice the movie brutally attempts to portray the continuing cycle of violence inherent within a crime-based life-style. In the end Santana is unable to escape that cycle, dying violently at the hands of his former gang members, while at the same time such violence is given rebirth within the barrio.
             Santana, played by Edward James Olmos is in prison and looking back at his life, his parent's life, and discovering what his life has become. In the first scene of act one, the viewer is taken back in time to the 1940's to a scene where Santana's parents were beaten and raped by sailors in the streets of Los Angeles, simply because they were "zoot suiters." In the mid-to-late 1950's, where the young Santana and his buddies J.D. and Mundo are introduced. The three young boys make a pact to stay together and be a part of the long tradition gang of their barrio called "La Primera."
             First, the three boys are sentenced to time in juvenile hall for breaking and entering into a store to escape being chased down by another barrio gang. In juvenile hall they begin feeling superior to other mates when Santana kills a cellmate who rapes him in the middle of the night. Everyone in the prison is proud of Santana and his group. Because of the "respect" that he has earned, Santana and his group begin to feel that they run the show around juvenile hall. Transferred from juvenile hall into Folsom Federal Prison.
             As Folsom Federal Prison is being shown on the screen, Santana's voice is narrating the movie and he states that drugs is the new way to prove who runs the show. La Primera discovere...