How the shame of poverty became 27 years in prison

The monster of poverty ruled my childhood. Me, my mother, and my brother were poor. I vividly remember: When the ice cream truck would come down the street in my neighborhood on the West Side of Los Angeles, I could hear it from a block away. The trucks used to play this little music, like the Pied Piper, and all of us kids would run out to buy something. Something, anything from the ice cream truck made you one of the tribe. Me, being ashamed that my mom didn’t have money to get me anything, I started lying, making up false reasons that I had to leave. I’d say I had to do some type of chore or something. I would listen until the ice cream truck came and left, only to return and act as though I missed it because of the lie I had just told. 

This is the deceit after the lie: making it all seem true, all the theatrics because I was actually ashamed. Something as simple as being accepted—because you could buy an ice cream from the truck—was the catalyst of my criminal thinking and antisocial behavior. And it only progressed from there. 

In my teenage years, Reaganomics hit. The flood of cocaine created a big market for drug sales for small street kids like me, working in what we called “rock houses.” The lies and deceit now had a monetary purpose. I gained social gratification beyond my wildest dreams. I was getting paid $200 to $300 a week, every Friday. The older small-time dealers would come pick up sacks and drop off pay at the end of every week. All of this was rooted in the shame of being poor that I learned as a child, and my memories of the coldest parts of poverty.

At the age of 18, I began to commit robberies. At the age of 19, I was convicted and sent to prison. Strike number one, although at that time, I did not know it was a strike. After I parolled, I was a street hustler, driven by the distorted belief that money gave me value. Having things validated that belief. I was ultimately sent back to prison, where I spent 27 years, two months, and two days.

Now, at 58 years old, I have been out of prison for five months. My resentencing—recommended by the then-director of CDCR, Kathleen Allison, one week before she retired—is in and of itself a miracle. Under California’s Three-Strikes law, I had been served 103 years with three life sentences.

Now that I’m out, I’m here to join the fight. Everybody picks a side, whether they know it or not. And it’s easy to fight for family. The people I see on the street, that’s my family. My aunts, my uncles, my cousins, people in my own family have lived on the streets. It would have been me, but I started hustling. These people are my family. 

Peace and blessings to the masses. To all the beautiful people in Berkeley, thank you for your embrace.