Introduction “Viviendo en el olvido …”

Abstract

These are the words of an incarcerated Latino currently in a prison in upstate New York: words that echo throughout the penal system of the United States, whether from the jails, the state and federal prisons, the immigrant detention cen- ters, the high-security facilities, the private incarceration buildings, the military prison in Guantanamo Bay. This anthology is a direct response to those words— an effort to say to that incarcerated Latino and to all the men and women in the U.S. criminal justice system, “No! You are not living ‘en el olvido.’ You, your lives, your presence as part of both our community and our society—whether behind walls or barbed-wire fences—are important to those of us on the outside. You have not been forgotten!”

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know, What I was walling in or walling out.

—Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”

The worst thing about being in prison isn’t even the loss of my freedom. Es saber que estoy viviendo en el olvido. [It is knowing that I am alive, but forgotten.]

—Carlos, prisoner, upstate New York