04.26.2021
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Salinas Valley
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Full Story
This letter was written by a person incarcerated at Salinas Valley.
April 24, 2021
Hello PrisonPandemic!
My name is [redacted]! Yes, it sounds a bit ghetto, but say it in a French accent, and it’s it! Anyways, please excuse my writing and punctuation, to the point.
My cellmate received a letter from one of your pupils about your PrisonPandemic project. Well, long story short, he didn’t want to participate. But, I feel like our stories deserve to be told. Also! Going to say, I would love to be a part of you all’s project.
I love to write and tell stories! I’ve been in prison now for ten years, June 2021. Have been in and out of correctional facilities since I was very young. I come from a fucked up childhood! Drug addicted parents, gangs, pimps, prostitutes, the whole nine, and I would love to share my story! Not only about me, but what COVID-19 has done to us here on the inside.
I first wanted to run it by you first professor, share a little about me, and let you know that I am not a bad person solely by being in prison! But, if possible, could you forward this enclosed short story of COVID-19 in prison. And if PrisonPandemic is up to it, assist me in developing an autobiography on myself. Thank you! Maybe she can get a few extra credits!
I write poetry, music, rap/R&B/pop. I sing, draw, do electrical work, masonry work, almost anything! Just need something to do, to occupy my time. (Please excuse my punctuation and writing!)
Well, my cellmate received your letter about you all’s PrisonPandemic project. He didn’t want to participate and passed the address on to me. Being that I love to write and tell stories, I jumped at the opportunity to be involved!
First, thank you, and every single other person involved in you all’s project! We are an entire civilization, that is too often forgotten, so easily! So, on behalf of all of us inside, we greatly do appreciate your thoughts, prayers, help and love, as well as encouragement! It means a lot to us!
But, yes, I would love to share my story about prison and the COVID-19 pandemic from our angle. Before I start, I want to share a little about myself. I come from an almost unreal upbringing. I’ve been, unfortunately, forced to survive in some of Southern California’s worst areas and living conditions imaginable!
I am a young 31-year-old Black man! I’ve been in prison since June 2011, tried, and wrongfully was convicted, of a homicide I did not do! Sure, “you are all innocent.” That’s what we hear daily here, from the COs (correction’s officers), and the free staff.
Anyways, I’m not a weirdo, or a crazy person, no stalker, or anything of the sort! Promise! As I informed PrisonPandemic, I am just a person who loves to write and would love to be able to receive your assistance in writing an autobiography about myself and the life I came from, which unfortunately, ended me here!
Shaking my head! In prison, on a Friday night, writing this, instead of being free, enjoying family, friends, and just life in general. Like I was saying, I came from a movie type childhood and upbringing.
Drug addicted parents, drug environment, pimps, prostitutes, gang banging, guns, fights, etc. My story is one that I am sure would be a true page-turner, for people to relate to, and also, if a prison is just eventually interested in how “that life” is from the “inside-out,” and, also how it is on this “inside-without.”
From petty punishments, to severe and traumatizing beatings by drughead parents, to witnessing everything from dope transactions to murders, robberies, gang initiations and disciplines, life on the streets, to being put behind bars for a mistaken ID! To the mistreatment of inmates in our jails, courts, prisons, and just this entire system in general!
I just want to tell my story! Hopefully, I’m not asking you for too much of a big thing! It’s just very hard to get someone kind enough to find someone on the outside willing to lend a helping hand!
A non-judgmental, open-minded, helping hand, from another good person, that truly just doesn’t mind assisting us less fortunate people, with no access to the internet! (LOL) Crazy, ain’t it?!
But I will end this letter here, with one more thought. If you do not choose to assist me, could you please direct me to a nice person, that wouldn’t mind assisting me with me autobiography! I would like for it to be either you, reason being, telling my story to a different person every time I write gets to be confusing on both ends, I would think. I don’t know!
So, if you do choose to take on my challenge, it would be greatly appreciated, in the utmost! Once again, I just want to thank you and the entire UC Irvine PrisonPandemic Project Team for what you all are doing to help us get our stories out of these concrete walls, and into the world, to the pages of books, the scroll of all phones, computer screens across the globe.
Thank you!
Please write back!
Love and respect,
Hope to hear from you!
P.S. Would you know of any art courses that I could participate in from prison through correspondence?! If so, I would love to participate in any of them. Thanks again!
My family has established a Facebook for me if you need to contact them on any subject of my incarceration.
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