“Peace Now!”
That’s what my sign said. Kids are dying again overseas. Millions were marching across the country. I was marching in downtown L.A.
Peace Now
What did I know about peace? There was precious little of it in the West LA barrio where I grew up. Every apartment was overcrowded—three, four, or five families living where there should have been one. People always shouting. Babies always crying. Older kids bullying the younger ones. Young men wrapping themselves in the machismo they saw around them, alert to any disrespect.
There were house parties every Saturday night—packed with young men carrying knives and guns. You better watch what you say, or who you look at. Somebody was going to die tonight and it was a lottery to see if it was you.
Every street had that one house—the one that would erupt in screams as someone was getting beaten. On my street, that was my house.
My papi came to America to find work. He found Jesus instead. What he really found was Proverbs 13:24—“Spare the rod, spoil the child” and it justified the beatings he’d endured as a child. His rod was the back of his right hand. I was the child and he beat me for as long as I can remember. He beat me when I took my toys out and when I put them back, when I came in early or stayed out after dark, when I started hanging out with the gang down the street.
He beat me until I was 16 and I hit him back. He threw me out of the house, telling me to never come back.
I wouldn’t have either. Except for one thing…
Let’s get this out of the way.
I did it.
I’m not proud of it, but I’d do it again. I killed the cabron. After I left, he started “disciplining” my little sister. One night, he beat her half to death. He sent her to the hospital and my mom sent for me. It was either her or him, only one would survive. The choice was easy—I had learned his lessons. That night, I went back to the house, he raised his fist, and he never hit anyone again.
They tried me as an adult; I already had a sheet. They gave me 30 years. It was worth it. My sister recovered and grew up. She got her high school paper. Found a good man—construction. Three kids. My sobrinos
Peace Now
There is no peace in prison. Everyone is in a gang. Everyone is alive to the slightest show of disrespect, always proving their toughness. Because if you didn’t, you were a punk and fair game for everyone. Every week, a “dinner and a show”, a fight in the dining hall.
I got along and survived. Eventually, I became an old head and people started leaving me alone. I got a job on the maintenance crew where I could mostly work alone.
The safest place in prison is solitude.
A couple of years before my time was up, a group started coming in, teaching non-violent communication. I was still angry but I was too old to do anything about it. I knew I needed to do something different to survive on the outside.
They taught meditation and breathing. I found myself relaxing for the first time in my life. I no longer needed to always puff out my chest to prove I existed. They taught me how to teach others. Not everyone got it, not even most. But I did and I was grateful.
When I got out, I lived with my sister for a bit. It’s hard to find a job when you’ve killed someone. Eventually, I caught on with a grounds crew. It’s a tough job at my age, but I get by. I started working with the muchachos and muchachas, teaching them the same non-violent communication that saved me. Teaching them that there was a better way to live.
And now they’re being sent to war—a war between nations puffing out their chests like those boys back in the barrio. Our country's leaders bragging about all the ways that they will kill, like those gangbangers back in the pen. And like those fights in the barrio or in the dining hall, some of those young men and women are going to die, and they aren’t really going to know what they are dying for.
Peace Now
I know.