On Friday, May 7th, over 40 youth from Bay Area high and middle schools gathered at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco to present work from the anthology Walk a Mile in My Shoes: Stories & Poems from Children Impacted by Incarceration to a packed performance space. Young people read stories, poems, songs, and spoken word pieces illuminating their personal experiences of cycles of poverty, homelessness and violence, racism in the justice system, and described the impact it has on children when a parent—sometimes their only parent—is incarcerated.
What does it mean to have incarcerated parents? For some kids, it means being shuffled from foster home to foster home. One young writer put it this way, ”I became a ghost. My foster family ignored me. It was as if I ceased to exist.” For others it means they have been in and out of shelters, temporary placement with relatives, or juvenile hall. Most describe the fear and pain of losing a parent to incarceration being compounded by inheriting that legacy: others treat them as throw-aways. In a direct and powerful piece performed by middle-schoolers, one young lady asks the audience what it meant when her parent went to jail, while other students answer by walking by and sticking post-it notes to her body with phrases written on them: You’ll never amount to anything, You’ll turn out just like your mother/father, Thief, Worthless, Can’t be trusted. What arose again and again out of each poem and story were questions these young people are demanding an answer to: Don’t I have the right to be kept safe and informed at the time of my parent’s arrest? Don’t I have the right to a lifelong relationship with my parent? Don’t I have the right to support as I struggle with my parent’s incarceration?
Community Works, which hosted the performance, and published the anthology, has developed the ROOTS program in bay area schools to address the needs of children impacted by incarceration. ROOTS’ aim is to provide these children with the support and tools to question and interrupt the legacy of incarceration and violence. ROOTS provides a safe space for these youth to share and process their experiences, to make healthy choices, and to understand and analyze the circumstances of being a child of incarcerated parents, thus increasing their chances of succeeding at school, both socially and academically. ROOTS combines counseling and case management; opportunities for leadership development, community engagement, skill building and creative expression through the arts; an in-school elective class; an after-school program; and support for the youths’ caregivers. The program currently has six locations: Balboa High School (SF), Visitacion Valley Middle School (SF), McKinley Elementary School (SF), International Studies Academy (SF), El Cerrito High School (EC), and Edna Brewer Middle School (Oakland).
ROOTS program’s primary funding has come for many years through San Francisco’s Department of Children, Youth and their Families. Claire Kiefer, ROOTS Program Teacher at Balboa High School, found out in early May of 2010 that the $75,000 funding to keep the program alive for this fiscal year was not approved, and was cut along with 420 other city programs. “It's devastating how many incredible programs were cut entirely,” Kiefer says, “I really do believe that programs like ROOTS are preventative and healing and a necessary conversation for youth impacted by incarceration.”
Kiefer’s curriculum includes units on Race/Racism, Gender Roles in the U.S., and Political Economy/Poverty as they relate to the prison system. “We talk about the Prison Industrial Complex and how imprisonment affects families, communities, societies, and our country, and explore these ideas through creative writing, visual art, and performance.”
It is clear from the students’ performances of Walk a Mile in My Shoes that the pain and confusion they write from is real, but through the act of writing and sharing the work, they are putting it into perspective: they are no longer at the mercy of it, and communicate in frank, empowered language with an attitude of forward motion and accomplishment. Students accompanied one another to the microphones to stand in silent support, urging one another to share their experiences despite the difficult emotions. The audience too, joined in many times with shout-outs and words of encouragement.
Kiefer says her job has a similar aspect, that it’s about being consistently available to the students, who like anyone, don’t need the support just during the specific class hours, and can’t rely on that support from parents. “Because I only teach 2 classes a day, I am able to meet individually with struggling students, offer some counseling/case management, provide behavior interventions, and support students who are in crisis: this element is crucial. I've been teaching ROOTS at Balboa for 4 years, and the students surprise and impress me with their bravery and talent every year: I really cannot imagine Balboa no longer having the ROOTS program.”
For more information on Community Works, the ROOTS program, or to purchase a copy of Walk a Mile in My Shoes: Stories & Poems from Children Impacted by Incarceration, visit http://www.community-works-ca.org/.
Related Links:
Read personal stories online by youth impacted by incarceration.
Acknowledgments:
Walk a Mile in My Shoes: Stories & Poems from Children Impacted by Incarceration includes original work by: Azereas Johnson, Kayla Swisher-Smith, Jessica Howard, Leilani Ibarra, Cari Marquez, Raschelle Roldan, Damondre Eddings, Eddy Mendez, Darren Guan, Ebone Price, Lester Gomez, Damian Rubalcava, Elsa Garcia, Greg Morton-Crawford, Dezmond Tayeh, Leilani Clark, Matthew Pascubello, Angelo Williamson, James Webb, Damondre Eddings, Omar Rhamoudi, and Samantha Velarde.
In addition to the work in the anthology, Lonnie Barkus, Marnae Mark, Imani Cloman, Sophia Hernandez, Eliza James and Laquita Jackson performed their original pieces at the event.
Project WHAT! performed a group poem, “The Rights We Deserve,” featuring: Cheyanne Torres, Danielle Dokes, Dominque Armstrong, Elizabeth Sanchez, Jayla Miller, Haniyah Muhammed, Marriah Humphrey, and Sadie Armstrong.
The ROOTS chapter from Edna Brewer Middle School performed “Step Into My Shoes,” featuring: Edna Acuna, Jacob Adams, Roshelle Brown, Jacqueline Christie, Kyree Gibson, Ashley Gilbert, Nathaniel Keller, Mariah Smith, Angelina Tang, Kathleena Troung, E’Niyah Wilson, and Carl Young, Jr.
posted by LJ Moore editor(dot)moore(at)gmail(dot)com
Comments
this is so very sad to read about children who suffer so. It is heartwarming to realize such great organizations exit. Keifer and the Roots program are to be thanked for such dedication. Thought providing and well written review
Thank you, Laura, for a beautifully written review of our event. Here's hoping that somehow we'll get the money to keep the program alive.
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