Intro: Gone to school, found poetry, made correspondence with outside writer –has been sent to segregation unit of prison for continued insubordination.

1. Places of Struggle

1. The Dungeon: Poetry & War

1. Correspondence: developing voice and outlet for expression –a community to identify with, both in literature and in life.
2. God of the Moment (fight with Boxer): violence as an immediate expression of power –momentary healing.

1. Nut Run

1. Medicated Control (Autonomy lost): "cooperation" through dulled mind –read: co-opting of his will.
2. The Need to Speak (metaphor and act): expression of resistance = resistance –the line between the two blurs.

1. Chelo

1. Tattooed History: meaning of symbols – identity as resistance

1. Outside World: rebellion, criminality, devalued personal worth
2. "Inside" World: defiant reminder of cultural history, of roots, of self broadly writ across generations "I wear my culture on my skin. They want to make me forget who I am, the beauty of my people and my heritage, but to do it they got to peel my skin off…once they make you forget the language and history, they’ve killed you anyway." (p.223)

1. Healing Earthquakes:

1. Culture and Survival of the Mind/Person: viability and represented worth of one’s culture reflects in the integrity of individual self-respect –"I’d grown up in an American society filled with stereotypical labels that discredited my people as inferior and lesser in moral character." (p. 225)
2. Rebuilding sense of Self through cultural awareness: membership is a function of identity, understanding anew one’s group(s) affects one’s identity and the possibilities for one’s identity, c.f. Anzaldua. –"Chelo went back to the beginnings…I began to see who I was in a new context…" (p. 225, emphasis added)
3. A Place to Stand: an altered and improved sense of membership carries along a new sense of dignity and a new sense of one’s obligations to one’s people –"…with a deeper sense of responsibility and love for my people." "He wrote me back a kite saying he was already doing life and wanted to spare me the same. He wrote that I didn’t belong in prison, that I needed to be out there writing for people like him, telling the truth…After he saved me, I wrote three poems dedicated to him." (p.255)

1. Final Challenge

1. The Mind’s Weakness: hope, anticipation, expectation are mixed in with the source of the Mind’s existence –and what makes it vulnerable. –"…it was growing harder to do time because I was counting down the days as my release date got closer and closer." (p.252)
2. Hits

1. First hit: release date comes and goes with no freedom.
2. Second hit: after date, parole board considers the warden’s order superseding the court’s sentence.

1. Broken

1. Final hit sweeps hope away
2. Considers things "normally" wouldn’t –things outside the boundaries of possibility for his Self
3. Accepting one’s given/imposed place

1. Breakthrough: luck, friends, and animal strength last.