Piri Thomas (September 30, 1928 – October 17, 2011) was a writer and poet whose memoir Down These Mean Streets became a best-seller.Thomas (birth name: Juan Pedro Tomas) was born to a Puerto Rican mother and Cuban father. His childhood neighborhood in the Spanish Harlem section of New York City was riddled with crime and violence. According to Thomas, children were expected to be gang members at a young age, and Thomas was no exception. Thomas was also exposed to racial discrimination because of his Afro-Latino heritage.[1] He identified as Black because of his Afro-Puerto Rican heritage. Thomas was involved with drugs, gang warfare and crime. While spending seven years in prison, Thomas reflected on the teachings of his mother and father, and realized that a person is not born a criminal. Consequently, he decided to use his street and prison know-how to reach at-risk youth, and to help them avoid a life of crime

1. Welcome
Prepared by Anju A
Keyi Sahib Training College

2. Piri Thomas

3. Biography
•Born in Harlem, New York on September 30,
1928.
•He was the eldest of seven children.
•His mother is of Puerto Rican descent and
his father is Cuban.

4. •Thomas' full name is John Peter Thomas
• Some sources state that his parents
named him Juan Pedro Tomas,
but that his name was changed in the
hospital to the English version of the
latter.

5. •The nickname, Piri, was given to him by his
mother, whom he had a very close bond with.
•It comes from the name of a bird called the
"pirri", which is a small bird that has enough
strength to wound its enemy bird by attacking
its underwing.

6. •Thomas grew up in Spanish Harlem (El
Barrio) at a time when lynching was still very
prevalent in the United States, so the threat of
racism was very real for him and others like
him.
•As a young boy he attended public school in
East Harlem, where he was forbidden to
speak Spanish.

7. • Because the assimilation towards English was
greater in school, Thomas began to lose some of
his ability to speak Spanish.
• Thomas was faced with racism at school and in his
own neighborhood, where he was taunted by
whites and frequently called a "nigger spic".
• Thomas later writes of his experiences with racism
in his books and in his poetry.

8. • In his late teenage years, Thomas began to get
involved with the street life in Spanish Harlem
and later found himself facing a 7 year prison
sentence.
• In 1950 Thomas was involved in a shoot out with
police when an armed robbery attempt at a
nightclub went sour.

9. • He was wounded and spent time in the prison ward
at Bellevue Hospital and after his case was settled
he was sent to Sing Sing prison.
• It was during his imprisonment that he began
writing what would later become his first book,
"Down These Mean Streets" which was first
published in 1967

10. Down these Mean Streets

11. • Thomas said in an interview from "Puerto Rican Voices In
English", a book of interviews by Carmen Dolores
Hernández, that
"I promised myself not to serve time, but
rather make time serve me. I'll educate my
mind, not eradicate it. I, Piri Thomas, will be
born anew at each A.M." (179).

12. Thank You