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Javier, 31

Javier, 31

Stories

Ciara, 34

Meet Javier…

“I’ve learned that if someone gives me an opportunity, I can accomplish a lot”

Javier, 31

Incarcerated: 2 years

My bad behavior started at the end of my freshman year of high school. I was approached by one of my friends and he asked if I wanted to join the hood. I automatically said yes. I was getting respect, hanging out with the cool kids, and riding in the Yukon. Everybody knew us, all the females were on us, but more importantly, our brothers weren’t getting picked on anymore after school. One day, Child Protective Services came in with sheriffs to take my brothers and sisters. They didn’t take me because I was a ward of the state, and had been released to my mother while on juvenile probation. It wasn’t the same without my family. I took it out on random people and so-called enemies. I would get high and drunk to feel better and numb myself so I wouldn’t feel alone. I didn’t know how to handle that feeling, so I would look for girls to hook up with. I stabbed another 18 year old, went to jail, and a public defender got me out on a misdemeanor.  I had to learn the hard way since no one was really guarding me. I never met my father and my step dad didn’t like me. My mom was working on how to get my brothers and sisters back, her two boys and four girls. I found the attention I needed from the gang. We were smoking trees, drinking and hanging with different females. Now, that’s all changed. I miss the food, traveling, and doing whatever I want. I’ve learned that if someone gives me an opportunity I can accomplish a lot. I talk to my loved one’s two to three times a month. Love is something I see really far away. Since I’m incarcerated, a female would probably be scared of me and have way better options than me anyways. I have used being in prison to my advantage. Being in the streets, I would have never gotten my diploma. People have not believed in me or considered giving me an opportunity to prove myself. They automatically think I’m a convict that’s going to steal or be violent towards them. I’ll always be a liar to them. My only option is to keep educating myself; whether it’s life skills, anger management, or even obtaining some type of college degree. I hope that people who really want to change will do the same.

Ciara, 34

Ciara, 34

Stories

Ciara, 34

Meet Ciara…

Forgive as you may be forgiven. Make amends while you are still living. Don’t allow grudges to hold you back. Bitterness causes you to go off track. Allow love in your heart to let healing begin. Harboring hatred is a most deadly sin.

Ciara, 34
Incarcerated:  4 years
Housed: Topeka Correctional Facility, Kansas

“Forgive as you may be forgiven. Make amends while you are still living. Don’t allow grudges to hold you back. Bitterness causes you to go off track. Allow love in your heart to let healing begin. Harboring hatred is a most deadly sin.” by Lovette. I read this and felt the truth of these words. For years I’ve wandered around aimlessly, lost. I’ve allowed the poison of hatred, grudges, and pain from the things that I’ve endured as a child, from the very people who were supposed to love and protect me, to consume me. I sought to numb everything within me and became seriously addicted. Self-hatred and isolation became me. Since being incarcerated I’ve decided to change. I’ve had a lot of time to think clearly and to learn about who I want to be. I’ve heard of this statement,” you teach people how to treat you,” and I’ve latched onto it and made it into my new motto. No longer will I wait for love to find me, I’ll become love by forgiving and letting go of all that has been killing me. I now seek to help others who are like me and have gone through trauma and suffer from addiction. I’ve been gaining every bit of knowledge and experience to further help myself and others. Too many people who are just trying to survive their pain are locked away and being robbed of life because the state lacks the programs to help them, so instead they are sent to sit in a prison for years. I’m going to do what I can see about getting some of these programs started once I’m released. I’ve found a purpose worth living for. Where there is a will, there is a way. I’ll prove to the world that I’m not just a number or a statistic, my past doesn’t define me. People treat you like scum when you’ve been incarcerated or they discover you’re an addict. I’m both and I know I’m not scum. I have a big heart and for so long I’ve had it closed off, but it’s opening up now and I’m trying to make a life changing difference for not only myself, but for many others. I think being incarcerated and the efforts by the guards to do whatever as often as possible to dehumanize us, is what lit the fire within me.

Audra, 53

Audra, 53

Stories

Audra, 53
Audra, 53
Letter from Audra

Meet Audra…

My mistakes and crimes do not define me, my hurt no longer controls me.

Audra, 53
Incarcerated: 13 years
Housed: Central California Women’s Facility, Chowchilla

In my childhood dreams, I wanted to be a police officer so bad, in order to help people. Then with his dirty touch my dreams become nightmares. These things were seen but not seen, heard but not heard. As a young girl my soul was broken. My dreams and trust were consumed by fear, so my voice was no more. Anger and hate replaced my innocence. My granny tried, she cried, and prayed to my uncles to protect me, but the damage was done. I trusted no one, so I ran straight to her arms. I was seeking a mother figure or friend, but found my lover instead. Too young to understand, I was used, fooled by the pretty red painted dirty hands. I ran into many dead ends, then drugs came in. It was pure hell as a young girl. The money grind became my life, I was a hustler by nature, so fast, it kept me blinded.

For my lifestyle, my children paid the price, life in prison, twice. In here, the lion’s den, I began my destructive cycle, running, gaming and manipulating, only to pretend we were family and friends, just to fit in. As a young, broken, lost and damaged mother, how was I to provide from behind bars? It was just so hard, so now that is granny’s job. My soul had long ago died, 25 to life could break the broken. I thought I was too far gone to be helped, my hustle was grand, it could buy my freedom, but it couldn’t fix the pain. When death seemed like the win, I succumbed to seventy five Tylenol codines, chasing my end, to the peace I wanted more than anything. I heard the chaplain say, “Seek and ye shall find, He is the way, the truth and the light.”  So I gave God a try, and I put up a great fight. I lost, He won and a relationship began. I was blinded but now I see, lost but now I’m found, broken but now I’m healed. Once there was no hope, but today I am full of hope. My life is now enriched because of his grace and mercy. His love within me is never ending. My mistakes and crimes do not define me, my hurt no longer controls me. Though I was judged by man, I was saved by grace. The world sees me as nothing, but I know I’m a bride of Christ, heir to the most high.

Renee, 33

Renee, 33

Stories

Meet Renee…

I might not feel the healing at the moment, but I feel the trust to talk about things that I wouldn’t have the space to in any other area.

Renee, 33

Incarcerated: 3.5 years

Housed: Itagui, Colombia

Diane: Tell us about you. 

Renee: I’m from Itagüí and have been here all my life. I don’t like to talk much about the crimes I committed because I’ve had a lot of issues in the past. I’m a musician and a composer. I play the guitar and that’s what I love the most. I’d love to be in touch with people around the world, perhaps through letters with people in jails in other parts of the world. I love that this interview will be seen by a lot of people. I’m also a poet, and that’s one of the things I love the most. I traveled through Brazil just selling poems. I’ve spent a lot of time in Cartagena selling poems and going to events with poets. When I was young, I used to sell poems to my friends that were having fights with their girlfriends. They’d pay a penny for a poem to give to their girlfriend who was really mad. 

Diane: Do you have a poem memorized that you want to share?

Renee: Yes, it’s a poem I wrote for my girlfriend. I have a lot of poems, and this one is one of the biggest ones. 

I don’t know why you’re in my path. 

I don’t know why I met you. 

I don’t know why God put you in my path, 

but when I hold your hand, 

I know God brought you into my life 

because you are my destiny.

Diane: It makes me cry, I feel that.

Renee: That’s the first poem I wrote to my girlfriend. She’s 59 years old and I’m 33. I was 13 when I started dating her, and she was the wife of a very rich man. With poems and ice creams I won her heart. We’ve been together for 20 years. I had a foundation for animals, so I know a little about ethology.

Diane: What kind of animals did you take care of?

Renee: Cats and dogs because people in the neighborhood knew I took care of animals. Some people left an almost dying, skinny horse at my door. Some people left some dying chickens with their babies. One time someone left a pregnant dog. It’s because people knew that I had a big heart about animals. They’d always leave them at my door. I mostly had cats and dogs, but I always had my house open for any animal that needed a hand. 

I want to tell you the most important part of my life.

Diane: I want to hear it.

Renee: The most important part of my life was my childhood. My mother was pregnant by this guy from Africa who refused to recognize me. In the old days with my grandparents, if one of the girls got pregnant, she had to marry. Because the guy was from Africa, he denied the child and didn’t show any interest, so she couldn’t get married. Her grandfather threw her in the street pregnant, and she lived on the streets. She went into labor and some paramedics helped her give birth in the street. I lived all my childhood in the streets. We used to live under bridges, eating from trash, waiting for the restaurants to close so we could dig in the rubbish. Then I went into foster care, and lived from house to house. I never had my own house, watched TV or did anything like a regular kid. Throughout my childhood, I worked informal jobs selling candy or asking for money in the street. I spent my teenage years in foster homes. Then, when I got to prison, my mom told me I have double nationality: African and Colombian. I have the possibility to go to Africa, but I have to talk to my father to do that. I don’t want to. My father was never there, so I don’t feel comfortable reaching him right now and telling him to sign the papers for me to go to Africa. 

Diane: Have you had any contact with your dad whatsoever?

Renee: No, never. I’ve never told anyone this before, just you: Sundays are one of most difficult days because it’s a busy day, and everyone gets to see their dads. Every time I hear the word “dad” it feels like a stab in the heart. Last Sunday, there was this guy who was super excited for his dad’s visit. He said in a full sentence the word “dad” four times, like, “Hey, how’s it going, dad …dad…dad…” It was so hard for me to feel the absence of my own dad that I had to go to the bathroom to cry. When I was in the streets I never actually thought about my dad, but being in prison has made me think a lot about him and the roots I have of him that I don’t know about.

Diane: Talking about it, and talking about it with us today really helps healing.

Renee: I might not feel the healing at the moment, but I feel the trust to talk about things that I wouldn’t have the space to in any other area. To come here and to see both of you and feel like I can let it out. Also, I dream about going to North America to sing with the highest of the highest like Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre… because I think I’m on the level of rap and music that they do. Because I’m here in this situation, I’m unseen, but I think I have what it takes to be in the highest of the highest. I dream about being in North America and being seen as a musician.

Diane: Humans of San Quentin, we can be your platform. We can put up your poetry, we can put up your rap… anything you want to send us or put on tape we will put out there on the internet for people to see.

Renee: I’d really really really like to receive letters and the dynamic of sending and receiving letters. Like “I don’t know you, I don’t know your crimes… but I love you.”

Sequoyah, 28

Sequoyah, 28

Stories

Meet Sequoyah…

There have been many times in my life that the road forked and someone saved me before I went the wrong way. One person in particular was the director of the Robinson’s Scholars program.

Sequoyah, 28
Incarcerated: 3 years
Housed: Lexington, Kentucky

Do you ever wonder what your life might be like if you’d never crossed paths with certain people? I do. There have been many times in my life that the road forked and someone saved me before I went the wrong way. Some were just brush encounters, but there were others whose impact changed the entire course of my existence. One person in particular was the director of the Robinson’s Scholars program I was a part of. I met him when I was a sophomore in high school, during a time when I was lost within my trauma. I think he sensed that from our first conversation because every time we talked after that, he showed genuine interest and concern for me. Over time the fortress that I’d built around me for my protection gave way and a bond forged between us. I had never had an active father to nurture me and most of the men I’d been around were predators who made me feel very uncomfortable. He was different though. Kindness, safety, love, and support radiated off of him. He took me under his wings with the goal of seeing me fly on my own one day.

Despite his efforts, I stumbled many times before I began to find my footing. When everyone counted me out, he dug his cleats in and coached me through the storms. I was ready to give up on myself and probably would’ve without his unwavering encouragement. Very often, I found myself questioning why. Why did he care? Why did he try so hard? What was so special about me? I mean he was a stranger; he had no obligation to help me. My own family didn’t even do these things, so why was he? I could never understand what he saw in me that made him think I was worth investing in. But he did and never faltered in showing me how much he wanted me to succeed. When I graduated high school, he stood in those stands proudly like a father would for his daughter. His presence continued on when I went to college too. When I started making reckless decisions again, he swooped in and got me back in order. He was determined to keep me from self-destructing. After a while, he became the voice of reason and my most trusted confidant. Nearly seven years after we met, I walked across the graduate stage once more. The stadium was packed full. When it came time for me to receive my diploma, there he was standing with honor as my father.

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