“We pray that you strengthen our relationship and that you help us to understand each other and to love each other. Amen.”

This is how Iris and Genea Richardson begin every morning — hand in hand, and Ricky Ricardo (their rescue dog) in lap — with a prayer, together. But for the last 18 years of their lives, they prayed alone.

At the age of 17, Genea was sentenced to 26-years-to-life in prison for robbery and first-degree murder. During this time, her mother Iris was left battling depression, had attempted to commit suicide four times, experienced the death of her fiancé, and was homeless for four years.

Separated by metal bars and distance, the two still prayed every morning.

Genea spent the first six years of her time in county jail. There, her contact with her mother was limited to choppy phone calls and occasional in-person visits. But all contact was lost when Genea was moved to Central California Women’s Facility — where she lived in a cell with seven other women for the next 12 years. During Genea’s time in the prison, a friend who was being released made her a promise: to find her mother. They successfully reconnected months after.

Genea had also filed an appeal in her case. And in the summer of 2020, she was released.

“We don’t have much experience through those years [in prison] to get a real picture of what life may look like. So it’s kind of shocking when you come home and things are a little different from what you envisioned,” Genea said.

After time behind bars, it can be overwhelming to reenter society — especially when imprisoned at the age of adolescence. Many previously incarcerated individuals report feeling frustrated with adapting to technology, finding a job, paying taxes or even using social media. So much can change over the span of just five to ten years that it can feel like one is entering into an entirely different world once they are released.

“When you’re at your lowest point, they incarcerate you and they separate you from society. They separate you from experiences,” Genea said. “So, you’re broken and you’re hurting, and you’re at your lowest point. This cannot possibly be conducive to any type of growth or healing in your life.”

Genea turned to poetry to process her emotions while adjusting to life in prison.

“I remember feeling so much despair and hopelessness. I was numb. I felt like my life was over,” Genea said. “But poetry allowed me to feel. It helped me to paint my picture from the inside out. And once I paint that picture, I get clarity. Poetry brought my color back.”

Poetry also helped Genea to see more than just herself. She began to understand the troubles that her actions were putting upon others, like her mother.

“I would think about my mom and the burden that came to her because of me. I didn’t see this before, but I now see that my mom is the face of so many mothers and the burdens they carry. I see the tears of many mothers in my mom’s tears. I see the heartache of many mothers in my mom’s heart,” Genea said.

Returning to her mother after nearly two decades of being apart, Genea says they are making up for the lost years with Sunday dinners, Christmas movies, trips to the grocery store, and even with the bickering. “When she went in, she was a child. She’s come out as a woman and that’s kind of hard to accept because I still consider her as my child,” Iris said.

At times, Genea says she feels the stereotypical mother-daughter roles have been reversed because both were deprived of tenderness and care for so long. As a 39-year-old woman, Genea is relearning what a healthy mother-daughter relationship looks like.

“I went into prison during one stage of my life, and I came out at a very different stage and age. We didn’t have the opportunity to fully develop our relationship together so there’s a lot that’s missing,” Genea said. “How much should my mother be doing for me? How much should she not be doing for me? We’re just trying to pick up the pieces and learn our roles.”

Genea now strives to be a voice for women’s reentry. She does this through her work with Huma House — a nonprofit reentry program that works to give a voice back to previously incarcerated individuals. As the Director of Gardening, she leads soil therapy programs, restorative justice classes and radical listening workshops.

“The goal is to empower women in these gardening and landscaping experiences to get them to the core of themselves, to get them to the soul of themselves by putting their hands into the soil and hoping that they receive healing,” Genea said. “We correlate that healing with the garden — that’s our soul. We are gardening our souls.”

Genea and Iris currently live together in a 500 square foot Los Angeles studio apartment—one that is not much bigger than the prison cell Genea spent so much of her life in. But their humble space is a reflection of their growth during this new chapter in their lives.

Freedom is something Vicki Wong has been fighting for her whole life.

In 1977, she fled Vietnam with her family, including her one-year-old baby boy, Sonny. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the ethnic Chinese minority she belongs to was systematically persecuted. As a result, over a million “boat people,” as they came to be known, escaped via the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea.

Thousands perished.

After the chaos of a Malaysian refugee camp, they migrated to the United States in 1979 and started building a new life in the Los Angeles area. Sonny was three years old at the time.

“He was often bullied at school,” Vicki recalls. Her husband was in and out of the hospital over the years, suffering from increasing medical complications.

She was also diagnosed with Hepatitis C and high blood pressure, and since developed cirrhosis of the liver.

Despite their hardships, they settled into their new life in the US. Sonny would grow up and graduate from college to become the main breadwinner of the family.

But at 22, the same age his mom had been when in the Malaysian camp, Sonny was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Sonny’s baby sister, Vivian, was just 3 months old when he and four others were convicted in the murder of Yi Chen (Eric) Liu.

“When my brother’s conviction occurred,” says Vivian, “it was like reliving that trauma of being a refugee for my mom, especially living in the refugee camps and not knowing what’s going to happen next – you’re always fearful, all the time.”

Vicki breaks down in tears as she sits among countless pages of case evidence affixed to every visible surface of her small house, recounting her struggles over the past 22 years.

“Seeing my mom crying almost daily while reading these documents, it was hard for me to bear,” says Vivian. “It took me a while to actually express that I have an incarcerated loved one because of the stigma. I feel like we’re always ostracized from society.”

Vicki, who spoke little English at the time, went to her son’s court hearings with her baby, and struggled to follow what was happening. She felt helpless when the court was unable to provide her with a translator.

The family is adamant that Sonny was wrongfully convicted.

Since then, the family has been fighting for his freedom every day of their lives maintaining his innocence. In addition to spending countless hours studying case documents, they spent all their money on investigators and lawyers.

When their money ran out, Vicki improved her English with the help of a dictionary to meticulously go through thousands of case pages, looking for any opportunity to free her son. They believe they have found evidence of collusion that can help prove Sonny’s innocence.

But the family feels like it is running out of time.

On August 18, 2020, Vicki’s husband died.

“He had to be hospitalized during the pandemic for 2 weeks after a surgery and contracted COVID-19 from a nurse. My father passed away a week before my senior year of college,” Vivian struggles to say out loud.

The following year, Vivian’s grandmother (Vicki’s mother) also passed away and Sonny contracted COVID-19 during an outbreak at Lancaster Prison.

The experience of losing her husband has made Vicki fearful of going to the hospital. Recent blood tests have shown that Vicki’s white blood cell count is low, making her particularly vulnerable to infection.

“There were times when the doctors told my mom she doesn’t have long to live,” says Vivian.

Except for buying food at the grocery store and going to the doctor, Vicki’s existence is confined to the four small rooms of her house where she religiously studies Sonny’s case documents. She and Vivian share a small room where she’s created a makeshift table out of an ironing board to be able to work at any time, even from her bed.

Vivian, who has never known life without an incarcerated sibling, feels the responsibility is now shifting solely onto her.

Ever since she can remember, Vivian has wanted to become a lawyer to help her family.

As a teenager, she built a website showcasing the vast documentation they’ve analyzed about her brother’s case, explaining their beliefs on how the justice system failed him.

“It was more of a case of my career choosing me,” said Vivian, who wants to not only to help her brother, but others like him.

Last December, all of her hard work at school and studying for the LSAT paid off.

Vivian, now 22, was accepted to law school with a full scholarship.

Their only wish today is for Sonny to be reunited with them – to have his name cleared and see him freed.

Until then, Vicki and Vivian keep fighting.

To learn more about Sonny’s case visit their website and Instagram.

Gernay Quinnie has the same goal every day.

From helping teens get their driver’s license to being there at a person’s lowest moment, he wants to make his community in South Los Angeles better.

Incarcerated at the age of 14, the journey back to his community was not easy. After spending more than two decades in prison, he is determined to be an inspiration for the youth in his community and offer guidance.

“What’s motivating me is the disparity,” Quinnie said. “Until I see things balanced out where I see people getting the help or receiving the help that they need, the motivation is a conscious thing where I can’t really ignore it.”

Quinnie’s primary work is in gang intervention prevention through his work with the R.A.C.E. organization, which stands for Reclaiming America’s Communities through Empowerment. This organization works within the community to reduce gang violence and the trauma it causes.

Today he runs the R.A.C.E. House, a community center that acts as a safe space for those in his community and is used to run anything from workshops to weekly Friday brunches.

“I’m trying to make sure that we’re out there, pushing those morals pushing those different codes and things like that,” Quinnie explained. “[We] can probably grab some of these guys that are entering into that life and give them something that they can hold [on] to that can prevent somebody killing.”

As someone who knows these communities intimately, Quinnie is working on reforming the language used to educate and speak to youth. By sharing moral codes that instill a family-oriented philosophy within gang culture, he is trying to prevent killings and other tragedies. At the same time, he also hopes that these lessons can show youth that they can even achieve purpose and belonging outside of a gang as well.

Quinnie also works as a community intervention worker for Soledad Enrichment Action (SEA), part of the L.A. Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD). His job is to be in the community, identifying what the youth and families need, and utilizing his SEA resources to provide aid wherever possible. This could be hosting impact sessions, conducting family interventions, or providing basic needs, like clothing.

He also regularly frequents neighborhood areas known for violent hotspots to break up fights around schools. To Quinnie the job is 24 hours — it’s all about being someone who is alert, aware, and attentive to any potential problems that could arise in the community.

In times of gang-related tragedies, Quinnie provides a safe passage for grieving family members to cross gang territory and properly mourn their loved ones who’ve lost their lives. He acts as someone in the community who can secure these passes from local gangs to prevent any conflicts from happening.

With the pandemic, it has been difficult to have large gatherings, but Quinnie hopes to continue the mission of the R.A.C.E. House and bring the people in his community together.

After the Vietnam war, Tin Thang’s family fled to China. He was practically a newborn, as his parents made the long journey—sometimes on a bus, but oftentimes on foot. Thang’s earliest memory is from a Hong Kong refugee camp where his family lived for over five years before making the journey to Los Angeles in 1985, when he was eight years old.

A few years later, Thang fell in with the wrong crowd. He got involved with a gang, and before the age of 18, he found himself sentenced to two life sentences in prison.

“I committed a horrible crime. I take full responsibility,” he says. “I can’t justify the crimes I did when I was a juvenile.”

In 2013, California enacted SB260, providing parole hearings to youth offenders who had served at least 15 years of their sentence. Thang followed the process and petitioned successfully. But just before he was about to be released, he received a letter from ICE saying he would be detained because he is not a U.S. citizen.

As soon as he was released from prison on Aug. 22, 2017, Thang was immediately detained by ICE. Comparing it with prison, Thang says the ICE facility is a lot worse. He describes a haphazard intake process with no real psychological or medical evaluation.

“You don’t know if people may have some disease or mental issue,” he says. “But they just put anybody, random people in a cell with you.”

Thang remained in ICE custody for over seven months before finally being released on April 9, 2018. But his immigration status remains in limbo.

Though his family arrived in the country legally, Thang never applied for a green card. And so long as he has a criminal record, he can’t.

To remain in the U.S., he must go every six months for an interview at an ICE office in Los Angeles. He’s been doing that for four years now. The only way Thang can hope to break the cycle and get a green card requires a pardon from the governor.

“I’m working on that petition right now,” he says.

Thang currently makes his living as a tattoo artist. He just opened his own shop in El Monte, California, with a grand opening celebration on April 17, 2022.

Speaking out about his previous missteps and his experiences with immigration, he hopes to inspire others who might be facing similar challenges in their lives.

“I’ve been sharing my story,” says Thang. “I’m trying to advocate for change, for me, for all of us.”

“[That day] stands out as a pivotal day that signaled the beginning of the end of a cycle of violence that had infected the fabric of my family for generations,” said Samuel Lazalde, who spent years in and out of juvenile detention centers because of his gang involvement.

On October 23, 2009, Lazalde, who grew up in Pacoima, CA, and his friend were parked a few blocks from his home, when a man ran up to his vehicle and fired nine rounds through the window.

A bullet fragment was shot through Lazalde’s face, exiting his head behind his left ear, while several other fragments shattered his jaw bone, salivary gland and other muscles, ligaments and tendons. His friend in the passenger was also shot multiple times.

Two weeks later, Lazalde awoke from a coma with his jaw wired shut and held together by a mouth full of screws.

In a system where youth in poorer communities are overlooked and use gangs as an outlet to feel a sense of belonging, Lazalde felt he had no choice but to resume his previous life involved in criminal activity once discharged from the hospital.

He went back to his gang-related friends.

“While the behavior of the gang offers dysfunction and danger, on another level it offers a place to belong and be recognized,” Lazalde said. “Unfortunately, the current system lacks the insight and fortitude to offer solutions that counter the inevitability of entering the prison system.”

Months after being shot, 22-year-old Lazalde – surrounded by his younger, teenage friends – felt overwhelmed realizing the boys were heading in the same direction, continuing the cycle of at-risk youth going down the wrong path.

“I knew that the only reason those boys were there with me was because I was there,” Lazalde said. “I understood my place in their lives and realized the power that I had to move their lives in a different direction than where they were going.”

After that moment of clarity, he concluded that education was necessary to finally break the cycle that has engulfed his community for decades.

Lazalde received a degree from California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and found a full-time job as a case manager at the Gang Reduction Youth Development center (GRYD). At CSUN, Lazalde joined the boxing team and represented the university at the United States Intercollegiate Boxing Association (USIBA), where he received the All-American title.

After graduating, Lazalde enrolled in the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work in order to pursue his goal to assist youth in finding outlets and refraining from getting involved in violence.

Today, he serves as the Director of Programs for Neutral Ground, a company Pastor Nati Alvarado started in Santa Ana, CA.

Neutral Ground offers services in prevention, intervention and mediation for students and families. It also provides boxing classes.

Lazalde uses his past experiences to help young teens from getting pulled into the school-to-prison pipeline. He employs restorative practices to create an open space for students and provide an outlet for those in communities impacted by gang activity.

“I have been a catalyst for change, actively working to strengthen community resiliency to the influence of gangs and gang violence,” Lazalde said. “Learning how to change the social fulcrum to bring about critical changes on a local, state and national level feels like the direction to which I’ve been called and where I can make the biggest difference in the lives of those who can most benefit from it.”