breaking the chain
This father had a story to share. It really created a crack in some of my long held beliefs.
He grew up poor in a South American country. Before he was barely a teenager, the gangs had picked him up and began to show him the way. How to sell drugs. Introduced him to women. Drink alcohol. And for this he was provided for. No time for school. A young mind with no other perceived options.
As an adult, he migrated to California in order to find work so he could send money back to his family. He didn’t want his son growing up like he had, poor and left to the gangs, a child growing up without a childhood. And he did. He was also able to earn enough to buy a house in California. The American dream.
But he had an alcohol problem. And this is the reason he is incarcerated. I don’t know the details. He only shared that it had to do with him being under the effects of alcohol when he committed a crime. But he does not regret the outcome of becoming incarcerated. No, he is grateful. He hears other inmates talk about how they’ve got a life sentence for killing someone while they were committing a DUI.
He’s grateful he didn’t get to that point. He views his time behind these walls and bars as a time for a second chance. He has learned English in less than 5 years, which he speaks very fluently with me. And he has learned skills like plumbing and electrical work which he can take with him and make an honest living.
And his son….he has a job. He’s married with a child. They have a home in South America.
What I pointed out to him during our session was that some might view his coming here to work and sending his money back to his family as an offense against this country. But what I was thinking as I looked beyond him to the scene of the yard and the mountain beyond was that this man migrated to this country to give his son a better life. He broke the chain. He unlinked the most certain outcome of gang life spurred on by poverty. And now his son will have the means to provide for his child so on and so on. And I shared this thought with him.
A pretty timely story he shared given our current border issue (which I personally think is out of control). But if the powers that govern can get it under control and we have a viable means towards citizenship…..how many stories like this are possible?
Where we think globally– a crisis that would so often perpetuate, could be diverted by providing opportunity one ripple at a time. It becomes a story of one less person or family that needs to be displaced on this planet.
*just to note, I’ll be leaving out the name of the institution that I work at. It’s a state prison in California for reference. Images are not from the prison as no devices are allowed in.
Prison PT 
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