WHAT PEOPLE WHO WERE ONCE BEHIND BARS CAN TEACH US
What comes to mind when you think of a military child? Perhaps you think of having to change schools every two or three years? Perhaps you envision distress in the form of storage boxes piled high and awaiting their next location? Perhaps you sense a child whose detachment from peers invites an absurd attachment to the outside world?
Well, I have never moved or experienced challenges most military children face. Yet I am the daughter of a 29-year Navy veteran and have spent six of my 16 years at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Youth and Teen Center. Unlike my peers, I have found that my detachment from the outside world is supplemented by my attachment to their stories. It is through their stories that I have grasped — and tightly held on to — the value of a first person narrative.
In every story, there is a resounding intent— an inevitable “why?” At the age of 7, my “why” was mere curiosity. I was curious as to how my peers perceived the outside world. I became captivated by my peers’ adventurous tales of foreign lands and extensive comprehension of cultures other than my own Filipinx American one. With their stay in San Diego barely ever exceeding a year, I essentially served as the obligatory San Diego tour guide — using my plentiful knowledge of all the best play structures as currency for the countless hours I spent interviewing my peers. In my eyes, it was an incredibly worthwhile bargain.
At 13, my interviews extended to that of formerly incarcerated individuals. This time, my “why” was not one of mere curiosity. This time, it emerged from injustice I had seen and an outcry for change.
Prior to my role as a youth peace maker at the Social Fabric Initiative, a program at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, I was completely ignorant about the struggles of formerly incarcerated people. This changed after a short, comprehensive interview with a formerly incarcerated woman. While astonished by her story of unrelenting courage, I was taken aback by the fact that a system meant for rehabilitation took courage to overcome. United by shared concerns over the criminal justice system, I and six other young people founded the community organization, Youth for Juvenile Justice Reform. Although we began without a specific course of action, we were anchored by our “why” — to break the stigma about formerly incarcerated youth everywhere.
In the search for a vehicle for reform, I once again turned to my love of interviews. It was through interviews that I had expanded my own perspective of the outside world, and it was through interviews that I hoped to expand others’. Youth for Juvenile Justice Reform would dismantle false narratives surrounding formerly incarcerated individuals through one-on-one interviews and dialogue.
Our first interview was with Ryan Rising, known as Flaco. Incarcerated at 12, Rising grew up in the juvenile justice system. At the time we meet, in 2020, he had completed an associate degree in behavioral science and was planning to complete a degree in sociology, Black studies and Chicano studies with an emphasis in mass incarceration. “Our society needs to get back into the business of building each other up instead of breaking each other down for profit,” he said. As one of 19 people who shared their own powerful narratives in “Reclaiming Our Stories: Narratives of Identity, Resilience and Empowerment” and founder of the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Gaucho Underground Scholars, Rising is a strong believer in the intersection of criminal justice reform and storytelling.
During our interview, Rising described how, when he was a juvenile, he and other incarcerated people wrote notes and tied them with threads from their socks on soap as a way of sending each other letters. There, Rising realized his potential as a poet. pee
I have never been incarcerated — neither have any of my friends or family. Mirroring my unorthodox military childhood, my lack of a personal anecdote does not hinder my conscientiousness. In fact, it only amplifies the resounding “why” that drives my journalism in the first place. Interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals bridge the gap between ignorance and enlightenment. Thus, indifference is inexcusable.
Today, I am 16 and Youth for Juvenile Justice Reform has expanded to advocacy panels and partnerships with youth-led organizations across the nation — all in efforts to reinforce the idea that “People are people. They are not their crimes.” I encourage interviews to be at the forefront of the criminal justice reform movement. Be it criminal justice reform or gun violence prevention activism, change begins with accountability. Not until we hold each other accountable for listening will we finally be heard.
It is through interviews that Youth for Juvenile Justice Reform allows questions to be the indicators of change and answers to spiral a chain reaction of whys.