This story was told by a person incarcerated at Solano.
UCI: So, what facility are you currently housed at?
Caller: Ask that again. I didn’t hear you.
UCI: What facility are you currently housed at?
Caller: Solano.
UCI: Solano.
Caller: Solano, level three prison.
UCI: Okay, what has the COVID situation been like at Solano?
Caller: Do you mind if I make one quick comment before I answer the rest of your question?
UCI: Yeah, sure, go ahead.
Caller: Okay, I understood everything that you read for me. I agreed to everything. I agree to be recorded. You know, you can do whatever you want to do with it.
The part about not identifying me. I’m okay if you do identify me because I’m out there in the public. I do a podcast here at the prison, and part of the podcast, and what we did for COVID, which we did a pandemic playlist.
So, there’s some things that we had done, and it’s sort of on me to give information out, not only about the COVID but about the podcast and what we do. So, I’m okay with not being anonymous if there’s some way that you can get around that. But I’m okay with saying my name. If UC Irvine is okay with me saying it, you can use it.
UCI: Well, thank you very much, but unfortunately, for legal reasons, we will have to keep you anonymous.
Caller: Okay. All right, so your question again?
UCI: Okay now, what has the COVID situation been like at Solano?
Caller: You mean for me or in general?
UCI: For both, for you and in general?
Caller: Well, when we were first notified that something was going on, it was in March, March last year. Nobody, none of the administrators or custody, of which I’m aware, actually knew what it was or, you know, what was going on, or how serious it would be. I remember I was at my job, at my prison job, obviously, and I was doing the podcast, and an officer came upstairs and said, everybody has to go back.
And, of course, we’re gonna ask questions like little children. You know, why? “Why?” And they just said, “Look, you gotta go back.” And when we, there was only a handful of us that work at that job. So, when we went downstairs, we asked another officer, at least I did ask another officer what was going on. And they said there’s been an outbreak of some sort at another facility within the prison, but another prison yard.
And so we didn’t get any details in, you know, it wasn’t until I came back to the building, was locked up, and it was they, they really made it seem scary in the beginning, you know, like what’s really going on? Why say outbreak? Say exactly what’s going on. So that’s how it started from my memory.
And initially, I do recall that there seemed, there seemed to be no rules in place early on, you know, when we were able to move, very limited movement, there were no masks in the beginning. There was nothing about distance, even though I finally started seeing something on TV after a couple of weeks. None of that was happening at this prison, nothing.
People were close together. Staff, everybody that had been working had continued to come to work, and that’s where we would’ve gotten the sicknesses from. That’s where we would’ve contracted COVID-19, would have been from staff, prison staff, because they immediately stopped our visitors from coming in. So, there’s no way possible we would’ve gotten it from visitors after a certain point.
I think that I may have gotten COVID-19 in December 2019 because I had one of the symptoms. I was coughing really hard in the middle of the night with no phlegm, and it hurt my chest really bad. You know, I will wake up and just cough and cough and cough. I felt like my lungs were gonna go inside out, but as I was saying, this is what I remember early on in the beginning.
It was just sort of scary because we didn’t have any guidance. We didn’t have any real rules that made any sense. And some of the rules that they did come up with initially seem contradictory. As telling us to stand six feet apart or six feet away from somebody, but then putting us back in the cells where you’re never further than three feet away from your cellmate.
And then allowing us initially to walk to the chow hall, which is a community chow hall and being two feet away from the person sitting across from you at the table, you know, one foot next to you, two feet across from you. So, a lot of the spread, I think, just came from people not really knowing how to manage. I know that was a long answer, but that’s how it was in the beginning.
UCI: Yeah. Thank you. So how, has the vaccine – vaccination situation been like at Solano?
Caller: I don’t know. I don’t have the information about how many people or the percentage of how many people have been vaccinated but people have been vaccinated. It’s not something that’s forced. They’re allowing people to be vaccinated if they’d like to. They are making it available.
I seem to be aware that we were being allowed vaccinations prior to what the public knew about. ‘Cause I kept seeing it on TV like, this group of people get them, this group of people get ’em, not prisoners until this point or that point, when they were saying prisoners weren’t going to get ’em, we were already getting vaccinated.
You know, when I say we, I mean prisoners. It’s not me personally. I refused to be vaccinated. I’m not going to get the vaccine, and I don’t mind answering if you want to know about why I won’t personally take it.
UCI: Yeah, that’d be – that’d be great.
Caller: I will not take a vaccine because I’m Black.
I think maybe a further question. I can ask and answer my own question on that one. So, what does that have to deal with you taking it? Well, I have an inherent distrust of the government, and I remember Tuskegee.
If you are a college student, I don’t know if you are or not. But if you are a college student, I don’t know if you’re old enough to know anything about the Tuskegee Airmen and how they were given a disease just so the government could test them and see how it would react in their bodies.
And that’s one of the main reasons why, and because initially, it seemed that, people of color, in particular, Black people and Hispanic people seem to be suffering disproportionately, from not the vaccine, but from the disease itself. You know, then that started conspiracy theories that maybe there’s something out there that’s intended to hurt people of color or shorten the lifespan of people of color. And to me, seems like the next logical thing, if that were true, would be to include something in the vaccine that was specifically engineered to help a breach those ends.
I know that sounds diabolical, but I’m not the one making the vaccines. So, I’m not going to take a vaccine, you know, I’ll wait for herd immunity.
UCI: Thank you very much for sharing that.
Caller: You’re welcome.
UCI: Well, how have you been coping with the with the crisis?
Caller: I haven’t really been doing anything differently than I’ve done before. I’ll go ahead, and I’ll say these things because these things won’t, they won’t allow me to be identified either, but I’m a writer. I write a lot.
So, with the books that I already have published, I have five nonfiction books published; I’m writing another book now. I guess I won’t say the name of it. I’d like to, but I won’t.
But I’m writing another nonfiction book. It’s a book of satire. It’s political, social, or religious satire. And since I’m already a writer, I’ve been doing that during the pandemic.
I have my wife ordering books for me, languages. English is my first language. I read, write, and speak French semi-fluently. I’m brushing up on my Spanish again.
So, I’ve been studying languages, and I’m 52 years old. I don’t look or act 52, but I’m concerned about everything now, concerned about my brain, which means it’s another reason why I’m studying languages so I can open up more neural pathways. And I’ve been studying about neural plasticity, just things that never mattered to me before, they matter now.
So, what I’ve been doing is I’ve been continuing what I’ve been doing in the past and then doing a little bit more of that. So, I guess the short answer would have been studying. The long answer is what I gave you.
Studying primarily languages. And then I’ve been studying some other stuff about certain aspects of science, things that interest me.
UCI: Thank you for that. So, what has been like for you to have reduced visitation and programming?
Caller: Well, I don’t really concern myself too much with the programming. I’m one of those types of people. I’ve been in prison almost 30 years.
It’s over 28 now. I’m into my 29th year, consecutive year, and I’ve always been, I don’t want to say, a loner, but I’ve been someone who has stood alone.
So, I don’t concern myself with programming and prison politics or programming that the prison offers unless it’s like a self-help group. So that hasn’t affected me one way or the other because I find things to involve myself in.
And as far as visits, there was a time where I used to get a lot of visits from a lot of different people. But I’m married now. I’ve been married for almost seven years, and my wife and I, this won’t identify me either, but my wife and I are from the Bay Area. But when I was in Southern California prison, I moved her to Southern California.
And then I got moved by a prison policy, a medical policy that made me medical high risk, so they moved me away from her to the prison that I’m at now, and I haven’t had any visits from her since I’ve been at this prison, even prior to the pandemic. So that’s nothing new for me. It’s no more over stress or strain, and that’s just how it is.
UCI: Yeah. Is there anything else you want people to know about your experience?
Caller: Let me think about that for a second ’cause I didn’t give it much thought before I called.
I just wanted to just see what this was about. Give me a moment. Let’s see.
UCI: Oh, yeah. That’s fine.
Caller: You know, whether there’s a pandemic or not, some things I say, I can speak for myself. Other things, I think I can speak for the masses of prisoners. And one of those things is we’re still humans. I’m not my crime. The people that are in prison with me, they are not their crimes.
And I know, in some cases, it’s more than just, I just made a mistake. Well, maybe you just made a mistake, or maybe you did something really horrible, you know, including myself.
But, as long as there’s a spark of humanity within me or within anybody here, that’s something that should be cultivated, cultivated by me and cultivated by others, whether you know me or not. And I don’t think we should put so much focus into necessarily what’s happens during a pandemic with prisoners, what happens during this time or that time.
I mean, what? What happens, period. What happens to a person’s psyche? A person’s mindset, period. You know, going through this, even guilt can eat a person alive. I’ve had my share of crime. It’s going to hang up. Are you still there?
UCI: Yeah, I’m still here.
Caller: Yeah, it’s going to hang up shortly. Are we done, or do you want me to call back and finish? Let me know.
UCI: It’s great if you want to call back and finish.
Caller: All right, I’ll see if I can call right now.
UCI: Okay.
Caller: Bye-bye.
UCI: Bye.
