The Character of a Shoeshine Boy: Lessons Learned On The Streets Of Los Angeles

Thomas Zuniga was a kid who grew up in Los Angeles, California. He was nine years old with learning difficulties when he started shining shoes and hawking newspapers in 1963. On Saturdays, he carried his homemade shoeshine box bar to bar in Lincoln Heights, then walked to downtown Los Angeles. All the while, his household was on the brink of collapsing with parents fighting regularly. Terrible things happened to him in his backyard, like the time when someone hanged his dog from the clothes...