Leyva and his daughters
Eight years ago when Martin Leyva walked out of Chino State Prison, a guard told him: “We’ll leave the lights on for you…” insinuating that Leyva would be back. Instead, seven years later, Leyva walked across the stage to accept his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts/psychology from Antioch University in Santa Barbara.
Leyva’s youth and early adulthood reflected the toughness and bravado he believed were required for survival. Dropping out of school in ninth grade, Leyva was in and out of trouble with the law and sent to jail and prison multiple times.
Those days are behind him now. A certified drug and alcohol treatment counselor, a skilled gang intervention and prevention facilitator, and a core facilitator at AHA!, a social and emotional learning program for teens in Santa Barbara, in 2008, Leyva founded the Santa Barbara City College/Extended Opportunity Programs and Services’ Transitions Program, helping those released from the criminal justice system re-integrate back to society and succeed at furthering their education. The Transitions program won The John G. Rice Award for Diversity and Equity in 2012.
Leyva is the author of “From Corrections to College: The Value of a Convict’s Voice.” He has spoken at universities and criminal justice conferences throughout California, and is now a graduate student in the Cal State San Marcos Master’s of Sociological Practice program. He responded to the theme of The MOON’s current issue with the following:
ALTHOUGH I WAS SHOCKED by the 2016 Presidential election results, I can’t say I was surprised. As a person of color I’m aware of the racist and discriminatory feelings of many in the majority culture. I’m even aware, as a man, of the misogyny and sexism, hatred, xenophobia, and all the other rhetoric that now seems permissible. I know because my friends think it’s OK to express it to me. I also felt a deep sadness and fear on behalf of people along the margins of our society who are feeling scared post-election, and rightfully so. Donald Trump gave a megaphone to people who’d quietly harbored hateful feelings for a long time. Even before his election they felt emboldened. After he won, they had a victory celebration.
At the same time, as an activist and community organizer, I also have the sense that “nothing has really changed.” We still have the same work to do; the same battles to fight. Their outlines are perhaps a little clearer now.
I was born into poverty, in a working class Chicano community, in 1972—a year after Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy #1.” I never knew my biological father very well. My mother worked long hours and valued work over education. There were a lot of drugs, alcohol, and violence in my neighborhood, and in my family, so when Nixon declared war on drugs, he declared it on us. The number of police officers and surveillance cameras on my streets went up, the numbers of searches, seizures, arrests and convictions went up; and the sentences handed down to my neighbors got longer. I was part of it all. I colluded with the system that was oppressing me until I ended up in the juvenile justice system, and then the prison-industrial system, where I was sentenced for a robbery conviction. My sentence was totally warranted; I’ve never said I didn’t deserve what I got. But this was also the predetermined role I was supposed to play in the war I was born into.
The truth is, there’s not a lot of wiggle room—room to make mistakes—in poor communities. We always hear about the success stories; the ones who “made it out” of poverty; but those people are very rare, it’s a very small percentage. I see it now when I return home on breaks from graduate school: the same people are still there, on the street corner, in front of the bars, etc. If not, they’re in prison or dead. Very few of the people I knew as a child have changed. I feel guilt and shame about that, as well as relief. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is.
Americans talk about equality, opportunity, and freedom—but when you look at communities and see who’s being over-policed; when you look at schools and see who’s being disciplined; when you look at the courts and see who’s getting the long sentences, it’s predominantly people of color. There are poor white people caught up in in the system too, and their needs also should be addressed. But it has always been so much easier to stereotype people based on race; on color. The Brock Turner case in Stanford is a case in point. He’s the athlete who was convicted of felony sexual assault on an unconscious woman—and was sentenced to only six months in prison and released after serving only three. There’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that a man of color would have received a much harsher sentence in the exact same case, but when we see cases like Corey Batey, a 19-year-old All Star athlete from Vanderbuilt, who is black and committed the same crime as Turner, and got 15 to 25 years in prison, I’m reminded of the injustice.
For one, I wish there was no punishment, for most cases. When people made mistakes, I wish they were given opportunities to repair them by means of restorative justice. I wish that all people could be appreciated as having potential, no matter their race or gender. I wish we were all on an equal, loving, level playing field. But we aren’t. We’re in one of the so-called advanced countries of the world, but we are still hampered by all these barriers and divisions around race, gender, ethnicity, education, and class. We have 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prison population. What does that tell you? I tell young people of color who have dreams, goals, and ambitions, “You can do this! We can do it together.” I believe what I’m saying is true, but I also know how much harder they’re going to have to work to get where they’re going than someone who was born into different economic and social circumstances.
Fortunately, in prison I did a lot of soul-searching and, with the help of some mentors, had a dramatic awakening. I realized that I could continue being part of the problem, or I could use my experience of living in the problem to inform my work as an activist to create solutions. The experiences that once were liabilities are an asset to me now.
My mentors were older, wiser inmates, who took me under their wing. One man in particular, Mitch, was a father figure to me. As I said, I barely knew my biological father. I had a stepfather who did some cool things with me—was a soccer coach, taught me auto mechanics—but he also taught me about alcoholism and acting out violently. For whatever reason, he never had the impact on me that these men in prison did.
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