Rodolfo Alvarado "Cheyenne" Cadena (April 15, 1943 – December 17, 1972) was a Mexican-American mob boss and a prominent figure in the Mexican Mafia prison gang also called La eMe (Spanish for the letter M).
He was incarcerated at Deuel Vocational Institution after he and Richard Ruiz, who would become one of the founding members of La eMe, stabbed a man to death outside of a dancehall called 'Salón Juárez' in 1959.
According to Chris Blatchford, By 1961, administrators at DVI, alarmed by the escalating violence, had transferred a number of the charter eMe members to San Quentin, hoping to discourage their violent behavior by intermingling them with hardened adult convicts.
For example, the story goes that Cheyenne Cadena arrived on the lower yard and was met by a six-foot-five, 300-pound black inmate who planted a kiss on his face and announced this scrawny teenager would now be his 'bitch.'
[1]Cadena and Joe "Pegleg" Morgan, who became his best friend and mentor, led the gang to prominence in the California correctional system by terrorizing other unorganized ethnic inmate groups, gaining a monopoly over the sale of drugs, pornography, prostitution, extortion, and murder for hire.
He struck an uneasy alliance with George Jackson and the Black Guerrilla Family and became active in Latino political organizations like the Brown Berets.
Cadena was subsequently buried at Union Cemetery in Bakersfield, California with an inscription reading, "Recuerdo de tu madre y familia" (Remembered by your mother and family.)