The last time was one of the most fun for me. My group was talking constantly and was bothering me with questions about how my life was, and how my life was in Greece wishes generally about ourselves, and they told me how much they wanted to leave and continue their schooling. One of them told me how she got stabbed in his forehead because of a fight he got in and the other one told me how he struggled in his childhood going from place to place. Overall, though they were laughing a lot with their own responses and I think that’s a coping mechanism because of their traumas.
Month: February 2024 Page 1 of 4
Today is the last day to go to the Detention Center. Inside, there is no longer the excitement that I felt when I went there for the first time, but a calm heart and a slightly lingering, peaceful state of mind.
Let’s start with something I have noticed before but didn’t mention: the Detention Center in Richmond only has a uniform requirement for clothing – that is, gray clothing – but no requirement for shoes. The juvenile offenders we saw on our visits were all wearing a variety of designer shoes, and if you didn’t look at their clothes, they seemed no different than kids who go to school outside of Richmond.
Back to the topic. This time we discussed two topics: one was “What is your favorite food?” and the other was about favorite music and relate it to our own experiences. This time my group was a little less cooperative with me. When it came to the topic of music, because I hadn’t learned about the artists they were talking about, my group members just started talking with each others – it was obvious that they were very interested in the music, but they refused to answer the questions and share their own experiences in the form of a chat. They even joked to me about their favorite food being cockroaches when talking about food.
Interestingly, one of them also said today that he would love to visit China and I shared with him some of the famous Chinese food and Chinese table customs. They were interested in the low prices in China and I told them that making money in the US and spending it in China is the best way to save money.
During our third visit to the detention center, I was paired up with Mitch and two other story partners. It was clear that the two other partners knew each other, which helped conversation flow naturally. We told stories about helping people out or being helped ourselves to start before moving into stories about our happy places. One major theme that cropped up in our group was that of family. It was clear that to everyone involved, family was very important. This was especially clear when we were telling stories about our happy places. An interesting thing I noticed was the precedence of “found families”, or a group of people that aren’t biologically related to you but treat you like family anyway. My partners from the detention center and myself both shared stories of this sort of found family dynamic. One of my story partners chose this story of found family to be the one he dictated to me to type up. It seems to me that family, biological or not, was a big motivator for my story partners to get there lives back on track. I felt like these similar experiences helped me understand more about the people I was sharing stories with, and a little more about myself as well.
Today, I was paired with the same person as last week but just by myself. What I noticed was that after I told my story, which was about falling on the school playground and hurting my knee, followed by my friend helping me, my story partner told me a very similar story of him falling and hurting his knee while playing football at school. He talked about how he and his friend got into a fight playing football and then later when he got hurt, his friend helped him and they made up. I found it interesting that both of our stories had to do with knee injuries while playing outside during school, and that both of our friends helped us. Both stories took place when we were in elementary school too. I think the effect of telling these stories was that it took us to a conversation about drifting apart from childhood friends and the power of friendship itself. For the second story, we each talked about our happy places being at home and spending time with family, especially watching movies and just hanging out.
When we didn’t talk about stories, we went on tangents about what we like to do with our families outside the home. My partner told me he and his family would go out to eat, go bowling, see movies, etc. I talked about how I liked going to the mall with my mom and sister. We also talked about riding bikes because that came up and we both acknowledged how scary it is to ride bikes downhill. And we bonded over being close with our sisters. I did notice that he was fidgeting again this session. He instinctively grabbed a nearby book at the desk and started flipping pages randomly, but I think this was just a way for him to focus on telling his story. It’s like an outlet like the way we play with stress toys for example. I noticed that it was a bit harder to carry the conversation by myself since I’m not very good at it, but I appreciated it when my partner did a lot of the talking answering my questions. He was also helpful retelling his favorite story so I could write it down on paper and listened to when I retold it to make sure it was accurate. At the end, I was happy when another person sitting at the same table reached out shook my hand, and then my story partner did too. It was a nice little farewell until next week.
In comparison to the first week, week two was significantly more smooth and organized. Walking into the detention center with a plan that we knew we would stick to made things much less stressful. I also enjoyed the fact that we were all in the same room for this week. For week one, it was a weird sense that the kids were extremely comfortable in the space since they live here but we had just visited for the first time and were uncomfortable. It made it that much worse when we split up and not only were in this place for the first time but also on our own. For week two, being together in a familiar room where we had been the previous week while also all being together made things much more relaxed.
One interesting thing I noticed was the kids’ relationships with the staff at the detention center. In conversation, they are typically friendly and lighthearted, joking with each other and being loose. However, this week while I was sharing stories with my partner he was laughing and he lightly backhanded the staff member on the arm as he was laughing. The staff member, who previously was also laughing, immediately became very serious and said, “What did I tell you about putting your hands on me.” It was weird to see that immediately flip of a switch and go from joking around to being dead serious.
This week’s visit was great, and it made me very happy to see some kids return and come again. When we first got to the site I noticed that the staff was completely different from those who have been there the past two weeks. The difference between the energy the kids have with certain staff versus the staff there this week is like night and day. The kids seemed more reserved and less relaxed. When we got into the gym area with our group, we started by talking about the different books and movies that we liked. I’ve noticed over the past couple of weeks that many of the boys enjoy gangster movies such as Menace to Society because it teaches people the consequences of being involved in that lifestyle. I also noticed that everyone mostly likes superhero and science fiction movies/books because they are interesting to them.
When we divided into pairs, I worked with the same girl that I worked with last week. She was happy to see me and she told me that she had thought a little about stories over the past week and that she had told a couple of her friends who are at the juvenile center as well. She was a lot more talkative this week than she was last week, which made it easier for me as well. A boy joined our group as well, and he has been there every time we have visited the center. The first week we went, he sat in the back with staff and didn’t participate much. Over the past couple of weeks, I haven’t worked with him but I noticed that he was interacting more. Yesterday I finally got to work with him and he was a lot more talkative than I expected. He even shared a couple personal details. When I gave them the prompt of a time that they helped someone who was sick, he shared about his mother being sick. He told me that growing up they didn’t have a lot of food at home, and that he would steal canned chicken noodle soup for his mother and his siblings. We eventually got back to the topic of superheroes and they told me which were their favorites.
The third time I went to the Detention Center, there was still some excitement in my heart, but the nervousness had disappeared and I was more calm and comfortable. There were two new children today – even though the people changed, they still gave me a similar feeling. They were both people of color and both had distinct accents. One of them, like the guy I met last week, also loves to sing, and both of them love China and want to travel there.
The two people in my group today were almost the same as every time, one was more outgoing and the other more shy. The former one told me that although he loves music and writes his own music, he knows that it doesn’t make any money and can only be used as his side business. When I asked them what industry they wanted to get into, they didn’t have an exact goal, just have the idea of “making a lot of money” – they lacked a clear plan for the future.
I tried to motivate them during the process, pushing them to tell me more and to practice their storytelling skills. I noticed that they liked to use very short sentences to summarize a story that could have had a lot of details, and their storytelling lacked organization. So I contributed a lot of my own stories and my ideas for the future in the process.
It was interesting to note that both men were very interested in China and the Chinese language. They asked me a lot about my experiences of going to school in China, and in particular they asked me if I could write Chinese and if I could understand the meaning of each character. They were almost simultaneously surprised when I answered in the affirmative, as perhaps Chinese was something difficult and unfamiliar to them.
Overall, my experience today has given me a greater awareness and deeper understanding of a segment of American society.
Our second week at the detention center ran very smoothly. I felt much more comfortable walking into the building than last week. The first thing I noticed walking into the classroom were all the basketball shoe drawings covered on the wall. They added a lot of personality to the room, making it more welcoming. I talked to the guy who took our IDs (I forgot his name) and he shared how the kids loved the activity. To them, it’s a tradition.
I loved the activities we did for class. I worked with J. and we connected very well with one another. The activity was also very engaging for us. As one of the other students said, sharing our future dreams through storytelling makes it come to life. It opens up the possibility. J. told me that his superpowers would be similar to Superman. He wanted to use his powers to help others, whether it be fixing buildings or catching the bad guys. When it came to his dreams, he imagined gaining new perspectives by traveling around the world, one location being Hong Kong. He dreamed of being at the top of a mountain looking over the trees and the horizon. One aspect that both of our stories share is having a family. J. wants to have a family, and then become a grandfather playing with his grandchildren.
Writing this a little bit later than I would have liked, as it had slipped my mind over the weekend. This week’s experience was much better than the first week, and I think a significant component of the experience was a much more individualized process. The folks who we ended up working within the Post D program ended up being some of the kids I had the first week, namely J, J, and another, while I met a new student named R.
I ended up working with R with Kristine through the discussion and getting to know him was much easier and much richer. It became clear through our discussion that he very much loved his family, his sisters, and his nephews especially whom he pretty much equates to his own kids in a sense of closeness. He tells about the car crash he was in, and he expresses regret over the “stupid” decisions that he made that brought him here, but he also seems to have many hopes and dreams and plans for when he gets out.
He discussed how he wanted to go to college, possibly for engineering — and how he wanted to also go to trade school, how he wanted to fix cars. When he envisioned his future, he pictured a happy family with three kids, many cars, an amazing man cave, and a career as an athlete. His superpower was to Rewind Time, which would essentially give him all the time in the world to make his dreams come true.
He was quite friendly, and he seemed pretty invested in the storytelling component. He had some difficulties in terms of a train of thought, often repeating certain lines that he had already stated, and I learned in the aftermath that he has certain difficulties in terms of writing that will require assistance from the teachers as he goes through the project, but I really like him. He is a friendly kid, and he talks about starting a clothes-selling business once he graduates.
Even though it was a bit different from last week, I still enjoyed talking with the students there. I’m glad the not-too-serious atmosphere is still there, and everyone else seemed to enjoy the arrangement of it as well.
I am sad that none of the students I worked with last week were there, because I had told them I’d see them again next week, but that’s okay. This group had a very similar vibe; laid back, genuine, and funny. I’m looking forward to next visit!