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HeretoLead

Boys and Men of Color are Here to Lead

Criminal Justice Reform

Alejandro Galicia Cervantes: Why We Need Systems Change to Achieve Education Equity

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Our society needs to shift the blame from youth to systems.

As a child, I moved around a lot, living in Los Angeles, parts of Southern California and San Fernando Valley until I was 14. When I was in seventh grade, the home we lived in was within reach of gang violence. Our neighborhood was constantly targeted by the LAPD. The environment I was in was pushing me into vocational school and away from higher education. While there is nothing wrong with that route, I learned early on how the influences and environment that surround you can provide a clouded picture of what you can actually achieve. 

When my family moved to a different community in South Sacramento, the school I attended had one of the highest expulsion and suspension rates. I watched as my friends took different paths than me. That struggle within myself — was I guilty or proud that I had turned out differently — had a profound impact on how I experienced education. I felt like school was a shackle on one leg, and my culture was a shackle on the other. I was ashamed of speaking Spanish, and never thought of school as a gateway to a better life, just a means to graduate.

What changed my outlook was mentorship — having supportive adults who were able to guide me to what I could become — and having the encouragement to dream. I was given multiple opportunities, room to fail and, ultimately, grow. This allowed me to transform my dreams into achievable goals and accomplishments, which would not have been possible without my mentors. 

While I was lucky to have my family around, I didn’t have consistent adult support. My parents worked day and night. This was just the system in which we live in — parents not being able to spend time with their children because they’re too busy working to put food on the table, or not being able to plan for a future because they were too busy worrying about the present. It’s the same for education equity. Our society needs to shift the blame from youth to systems. Disparities in our education system exist because of income inequality. Right now, there is no national leadership around how to continue with school during a pandemic. We see that those who are able to afford education and have access to resources are not impacted, but what happens to the rest of us? Those of us systematically less able to adjust to remote education.  The assumption is that we’re all going through the same thing, but kids like me are being punished for having to support our family during a global pandemic. 

Because of my experience, my work centers around education on a state and local community level. As a Board Member for the Mentor of California Affiliate of the National Mentor Partnership, I focus on programmatic expansion and drumming up support (funding and geo political) for mentoring programs across the state. On a local level, I tutor and mentor youth as part of the My Brother’s Keeper (MBK Collaborative) and support the 1300 Campaign, which launched in Sacramento to increase the number of boys and men of color going to college. I am also the Chairman of ASUCD’s DREAM Committee that provides basic needs resources for undocumented students on campus, including textbooks and supplies. Finally, my personal brainchild is the Dream STEM Initiative, funded by the Donald A Strauss Foundation,  a virtual boot camp where young people and AB540 folks can learn coding skills from Undergraduate and Masters students.

It is imperative for youth to have a voice. There is a disconnection happening in that we are creating public policy around youth without their voice or input. A lot of the time, we, as youth of color, are involved with systems that negatively impact us, and are victims to punitive punishments and biases because of our skin color. If we are to get youth to college, we need to shift the responsibility from the youth, who are under the burden of a system not built for them, onto the system for removing the barriers to college. By becoming a mentor or joining the 1300 campaign, we can make this a reality. 

Alejandro Galicia Cervantes is a Junior at UC Davis double majoring in Economics and Political Science and minoring in Community Regional Development, with an ultimate goal to end up in Congress.

RESOURCES

Corey Jackson: Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline in Riverside County

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Southern California

I grew up in the Inland Empire and founded SBX Youth & Family Services to dismantle the barriers that are preventing young people from succeeding. While our goal was, and continues to be, youth mentoring, in 2014, we made the decision to get involved in systems change and advocacy work. 

At the time, we were seeing kids getting pepper sprayed and put in handcuffs on campuses at all ages and knew it was time for a change. It was time to eliminate law enforcement from school campuses and dismantle the school to prison pipeline. Our society has gotten away from our ancestral roots and the idea of “your child may not live with me, but your child is my child.” Because of that, we even see parents of color internalizing racism and speaking the language of the oppressor when they say it’s ok to lock up other children. If we don’t intervene, we’re going to pay for that destruction and suffer the consequences for our inhumanity towards our children. 

Anyone who makes an argument in favor of law enforcement is ignoring the facts and the data. Police in schools do not make our children safe and, more specifically, they criminalize Black and brown youth. As a result, we are condemning our young people to a life of poverty, trauma, and a path to prison. 

That’s how we got involved in fighting the school to prison pipeline. With the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, the ACLU and NAACP, we filed our first successful lawsuit to start reforming the juvenile justice system. The lawsuit focused on reimagining what safety on school campuses looks like and resulted in cutting the number of police officers in half on campuses across the county. By suing the County of Riverside on behalf of the students, we argued that the county’s Youth Accountability Team (YAT) program spent millions of dollars funneling children into an unconstitutional probation system that denied them their due process rights and subjected them to oppressive, invasive policies. Through a historic settlement, the County now no longer has the right to enroll young people in the probation program for adolescent, non-criminal behavior. Instead, we can ensure that youth receive due process protections and positive incentives instead of punitive restrictions.

Our goal now is to completely eliminate any form of law enforcement on campus. We, as a society, have been conditioned to think that law enforcement prevents crime, when all they do is respond to it. And, whatever they do respond to, all too often turns into racial profiling. All of these things can be prevented if adults do their job on school campuses. Everyone knows when a fight is about to start or a kid is being bullied. We are not being preventive, nor are we giving young people mental health support to live and think healthier. More affluent communities have these supports because they don’t allow their children to be criminalized, but we have zero tolerance policies that do nothing but destroy the most marginalized young people. Instead of asking them what they need, we criminalize them.

There is no way our nation and California will be able to create a healthy society for everyone if boys and men of color are forced to head in the wrong direction. We need to uplift boys and men of color and dismantle the systemic racist barriers that restricts them from living a productive and healthy quality life. 

It takes courage to speak up, be consistent, and not be afraid to get into good trouble. Right now, we have to have courage to reimagine and to dream what safety could look like. In this moment, we have the opportunity to reclaim the power that each of us have and use it to create a world that allows everyone to be more prosperous and healthy. If you’re a young person, the time to fight for the future you want is now. The future is not for someone else, it’s for you. Young people have a unique opportunity to transform society into the one they want to live in.  My call to action to them is: step up; you have nothing to lose; this is your time. 

I want to repeat the wisdom of John Lewis: “step up, have courage, get in the way, speak out, the time is now”. I believe this is the second Civil Rights Movement. I know that, at this moment, I am doing everything I can. When we look back on history, we tend to ask “why didn’t they do this?”. Now it’s your turn to do something.

Corey Jackson is the CEO of SBX Youth & Family Services, a nonprofit organization focused on breaking the cycle of poverty and violence through mentoring, education and organizing.

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Daniel Torres: Leading with Conviction

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Southern California

When Daniel Torres was just two months old, his father was sentenced to 20 years in prison. His mother struggled to raise him and his two siblings on her own. From ages 13 to 18, Daniel was in and out of the juvenile justice system and group homes. Growing up in poverty with a lack of positive support, he would find himself incarcerated as an adult for the first time at 19.

For the next four years, Daniel spent most of his time incarcerated, struggling to find stable employment. “There were times I felt that I was destined to repeat the cycle of my parents and put my wife and kids through the same pain and struggles I went through.” Daniel recognized that he was caught in a cycle of violence, poverty and incarceration – the same cycle that traps thousands of individuals every year in California.

“When I got out in 2009, I was at a fork in the road. On one side was death and incarceration, and on the other side was the opportunity to change and build a life with my wife and two daughters. I knew I had to do something different.” Daniel said.

But there was a problem. “As I began looking for work, door after door was slammed in my face because of my background. Nothing is worse than wanting to provide for my family and being denied the opportunity.”

A friend referred Daniel to Pasadena-based nonprofit Flintridge Center’s Apprenticeship Preparation Program (APP). The APP, a 10-week 240-hour personal development program, works with formerly incarcerated and gang-impacted individuals to secure sustainable employment in union construction careers.

A decade ago, union construction was one of the only fields open to employing formerly incarcerated individuals at a living wage.

Through the APP, Daniel found the training necessary to become a union Marble Mason earning $50,000 a year. For the first time, he was able to provide for his family. At Flintridge Center, he also found a community of individuals who were deeply committed to his success.

This was in large part due to Flintridge Center’s approach of helping individuals overcome all of the barriers to success they face. Trauma, lack of housing, criminal record, mental health, and financial assistance are all addressed through a network of community partners. Flintridge Center’s case management team, all with lived experience in the justice system, use a trauma-informed approach to develop a care plan and meet unique needs and goals.

Daniel made a commitment to himself and his family to break out of the cycle. Now, he is part of a team that works to do so for others. “I always say that I’m a client first. That experience continues to give me a unique perspective in developing programs and services to best serve our community members and work to ensure their success.”

For the past six years, Daniel has worked in nearly every capacity at Flintridge Center to support reentry and workforce development programming. Daniel emerged as a leader in the reentry workforce development field, often being asked to share his expertise on panels at state-wide conferences. He was also asked to help develop learning opportunities for similar organizations across California.

“The beginning of my story is not unique,” Daniel shared. “I was able to use the program to transform my life, and I want to see anybody who wants the opportunity have access to it.”

While the United States represents just 4.4 percent of the world’s population, it houses around 22 percent of the world’s prisoners. California leads these figures with over 160,000 people in our state, juvenile and federal facilities. With over 95 percent of these individuals expected to return home from incarceration, it is imperative that support is available to ensure their successful transition back into our communities.

Flintridge Center is working at multiple touchpoints to break the cycle of poverty, violence and incarceration in Pasadena and across LA County. In addition to their work with adults, they work with youth at high risk of falling into the justice system, as well as youth diverted to their services in lieu of arrest or incarceration to stop the cycle before it starts – a program Daniel says he wishes was around when he was younger.

“When you change the life of one person, you change the life of their families and the communities we all live in,” Daniel shared. “This is what we work to do every day at Flintridge.”

Daniel Torres is co-executive director of Flintridge Center, a Pasadena-based nonprofit that breaks the cycle of poverty and violence through community planning, innovation and action.

Resources

Reimagining the Criminal Justice System and Philanthropy

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Northern California

“It is only through learning about one’s own history that we are able to appreciate the history and culture of others, and humanize them in a way that they’d want to be humanized in return.”

Eddy Zheng is the president and founder of New Breath Foundation. In this Here to Lead Q&A, he discusses the importance of reimagining the criminal justice system, how philanthropy has an opportunity to better support AAPI communities and the importance of healing, learning one’s personal history and cross-cultural engagement.

Tell us about your work and why you do what you do?

From the age of 16, I was impacted by the criminal “injustice” and immigration systems. This experience solidified my political and social consciousness, allowing me to take responsibility for my actions, and dedicate my life to helping people and communities in similar situations to transform and heal themselves.

What drives me is to use my lived experience to empower marginalized communities and create an equitable, inclusive society. Ultimately, I want all movements and nonprofits to be less reliant on philanthropy and government. By providing support to Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities who have been harmed by the immigration and criminal justice systems, my goal is to promote racial solidarity through healing, shift the narrative and keep families together.

How did the idea for New Breath Foundation come about, and what do you think its role is in the philanthropic space?

Through my experience as a nonprofit leader, organizer and formerly incarcerated individual, I saw time and time again that AAPI communities are not at the table when it comes to funding. With less than one percent of philanthropic dollars going to support Asian-led organizations, these communities are not only left out of the conversation, but overlooked when foundations are speaking about equity and the criminal justice movement. This happens for a variety of reasons: lack of disaggregated data (AAPI individuals are often considered part of an “other” category in the prison system); the “model minority” myth that is often associated with Asian communities; and only talking about the school-to-prison pipeline, not the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline. With that in mind, I knew that I couldn’t wait for a magic moment to create a table for our community. I started the New Breath Foundation with the goal of mobilizing resources to support AAPIs harmed by the unjust immigration and criminal justice systems to heal, keep families together, and build movements that shift narratives and policies.

What does anti-racist solidarity look like in practice and in your work?

To me, racial solidarity starts with education and creating opportunities for cross-cultural engagement to counter the idea of the “other”. Even in the Asian community, there are different rituals, issues and cultural practices. When it comes to creating solidarity across African American, Latinx and AAPI communities, we need to focus on tapping in to our CHI – our culture, history, and identity. It is only through learning about one’s own history that we are able to appreciate the history and culture of others, and humanize them in a way that they’d want to be humanized in return. I live and breathe that vision–how to create a space and opportunity to do cross cultural healing and produce racial solidarity by addressing anti-Blackness that is prevalent in the Asian community. 

What is the call to philanthropy in this moment, and beyond?

The larger vision is not only about equity in addressing some of the injustices our communities face, but equity in funding: how can we get funders to increase their giving from the mandated five percent to 20 percent or more, or ensure that they divest from harmful practices and corporations that are causing these inequities in the first place?

What is the impact that COVID has had on AAPI communities?

As we see the federal government characterize the pandemic as the “China virus” and the “Kung Flu”, we are seeing an increase in racial violence and hatred toward Asians and Asian Americans, and a re-emergence of Anti-Asian sentiment. Across the U.S., the most marginalized Asian and Asian Americans, especially the elderly and women, are targets of verbal abuse, threats and physical violence. Additionally, due to historical economic and health disparities, we see Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities disproportionately impacted by the health crisis. The lack of political analysis on the impact of this health pandemic continues to deepen the racial chasm among people of color. Our communities are being further used as wedges and scapegoats for the government’s inefficiency and perpetuation of institutional racism. 

What do you think is the opportunity in this moment to reimagine the criminal justice system?

In this moment in particular, we have an opportunity to reimagine the criminal justice system by focusing on transformative justice. It’s only now, in the time of COVID-19, that we are seeing people beginning to come around to the idea of abolition, but we have yet to see investment in the healing, education and power of boys and men of color and communities of color. Letting people out of prison in response to COVID is not nearly enough because society still believes in crime and punishment rather than investing in healing within those communities. This is one of the reasons our funding strategies and programs are built to support cultural education spaces that translate historical policies and narratives of how institutions and systems have perpetuated racism and injustice among African American and Chinese communities. We must not only reimagine criminal justice, but invest in policy change, mental health and solutions like ethnic studies to empower people to learn their true history and culture. It is not enough to simply “better” our prisons or push for easy fixes.

Finally, just as we center boys and men of color when we talk about criminal justice reform, we have to center girls and women of color. They are not only as impacted, but actually face harsher treatments and are often times overlooked in this conversation.

How do you define civic engagement and why, particularly in this moment, is it so important?

Civic engagement has to be a priority in communities of color who, every day, are being stripped of their voting rights as a result of racist policies. While we want certain freedoms now, like voting rights for those who have been impacted by mass incarceration, the long-term goal is to empower boys and men of color to be civically engaged so they can understand not only the importance of their vote, but how to participate and actually vote more consciously. It’s up to us to change the way in which people in this country, whether they are citizens or not, are treated and end the impact of white supremacy.  

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Youth Leaders of Today Hold the Key to a Better Future

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Northern California

“Young people will be the leaders of our future, so why not start now?”

Tell us about yourself – where you grew up, what shaped you into the person you are today?

I consider myself very fortunate. I grew up in Oakland in a Caribbean family that was never wealthy, but never poor. My parents are really responsible for setting up my foundation and priorities. My mom, who is currently the assistant district attorney in Alameda, has always worked in law and has always known that the criminal justice system in this country is skewed. Her motivation for becoming a lawyer came from wanting to change the system from within. She graduated from UC Berkeley at 19 and is the one who taught me about working hard and to speak up for what I believe in. My dad, who was a professional swimmer taught me about dedication and discipline from his experience in professional sports. Splitting my time between my parents in the Laurel District and East Oakland, I went to private school the majority of my life and surrounded myself with like-minded friends, including Akil. He was the co-organizer of the protest, and we have known each other since we were four. We had a lot in common: we were both Black, heavily into sports and academics and loved history, politics and the arts. It was the desire to tell the untold stories of people of color and Black people that lay the ground for my love for the arts.

How do you define leadership? Civic engagement? How do you see those connected to the protest you organized?

Both leadership and civic engagement are tied directly to the act of protest. With any action, you have to have people engaged, and be able to get across what you need. There is no protest without some sort of civic engagement. In terms of leadership: a leader is someone who cares. You can’t have strong opinions or tell people what to do unless you care about them, and respect them as much as they respect you.. Akil and I genuinely cared about the cause. We told ourselves the day after we put out the flyer that even if it’s just the two of us, we’ll still march because we care about the people who listened to us. Throughout the process, we made sure that every single person felt safe and felt heard.

Why is the leadership of youth of color so important in this moment?

When we are talking about the youth – youth of any race – we have to remember that they are the future. Young people will be the leaders of our future, so why not start now? Elders always have to pass on the torch. For youth of color, and particularly Black youth, this is our cause. Just like the Black Panthers of Oakland fought for their rights, we have to fight for ours. We know what we want. Even if it is someone who is in their 30s protesting, they’re protesting for what they want, but if it’s Black youth like me that want something different, we have to speak up. You can do whatever you put your mind to and make a difference at any age.

What’s your vision for Black youth, for boys and men of color? For our state?

I want to see respect. Black men and Black people in this country, and in some parts of the world, are not respected as humans. I want to see respect from the outside in, and see respect within Black community. When I see us get the respect we deserve, I know that we’ve achieved our vision.

What demands do you have for community leaders, or policy makers? What do you want other young people to know?

Policies around policing in Alameda County need to change. When I say defund the police, I don’t mean to disband the police, but to give the excessive funds that go to police to build up the community so police are not needed in the first place. There can be a specialized group that is specifically trained for high-stake situations, and trained for much longer than they are now, but using the police as a militarized force to solve any issue that may arise needs to change. Currently, police are targeting people who are a products of their own environment. For example, a lot of low-income, Black communities don’t have access to stable housing, quality education, family-sustaining wage jobs, or mental health programs. And when someone grows up in this type of community, and are policed on top of that, of course you are going to have problems. We don’t see police presence in predominantly white neighborhoods like Piedmont, where people have access to all those things, because people have what they need to be happy and thrive.

I also want to make clear that the way I choose to protest and show my pain may be different to other people’s. I have no opposition to the rioting or looting because it’s people showing their pain. I show my pain through my words. I want to make sure that people know that the protests we organized were not truly peaceful. The media made it out to be as such, but, while it was non-destructive, it was not peaceful because we were not at peace – we were mad, hurt and angry.

Xavier Brown is in the acting program at UCLA and an Oakland native. He co-organized the Oakland Tech youth march in response to the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and the numerous Black lives that have been lost to police violence. The protest saw more than 15,000 attendees.

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