PRESS RELEASE: Author Jimmy Santiago Baca to Visit San Francisco Juvenile Hall
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—March 22, 2007—City Youth Now is pleased to announce a collaboration with Alameda County librarian, Amy Cheney. On Friday, May 8th City Youth Now will be co-sponsoring a visit by author Jimmy Santiago Baca to the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center. He will be spending two and a half hours split between the Maximum Security and the older boys units. Baca's presentations will focus on themes of addiction, education, community, love, and injustice.
In preparation for his visit, the detained youth are being encouraged to read Baca's memoir A Place to Stand. The novel truthfully displays his life in prison and the transformative affect writing had on his life. Baca says, "Language placed my life experiences in a new context, freeing me for the moment to become with air as air, with clouds as clouds, from which new associations arose to engage me in present life in a more purposeful way." Baca has devoted his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship. He has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities throughout the country.
Born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was abandoned by his parents at the age of two, raised by his grandmother, and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison that he began to turn his life around: he learned to read and write, and found a passion for poetry. Instead of becoming a hardened criminal, Baca emerged from prison as a poet. The year he was released from prison, his first book of poetry, Immigrants in Our Own Land, was published. Since the publication of that book, Baca has gone on to publish several collections of poems, and has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award, an NEA Fellowship, and, for his memoir, A Place to Stand, the prestigious International Award.
About City Youth Now:
City Youth Now supports youth in the San Francisco foster care and juvenile justice systems by providing funds for services and programs that promote stability and personal growth. www.cityyouthnow.org
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Press Contact:
Brittany Jarabek
Executive Director
City Youth Now
brittany@cityyouthnow.org
