Hope in Action

By Carolina Soto

When I landed in prison, hope was not in my vocabulary. Although I had it easier than many, being manhandled by the Federal system was excruciating. I had a sentence of eighteen months with a guaranteed two months of time off for good behavior. None of that made sense or mattered. After registration, squat and cough, personal property seized, temporary clothing and blanket issued, assigned to an unfriendly dorm, called to the Admission and Orientation (A&O), orientation to services, policies, and procedures of that facility (yawn), they finally assigned me to pick up cigarette butts. The first moment I was alone outside, I walked directly to a big rock with some mint growing around it, threw myself on the ground, and cried my eyes out. I was in a Federal Prison Camp, where they allowed us some unsupervised outside recreation. 

My mom was dying, and I could not be by my father's side to help him cope. I felt utterly ashamed. Deeply in love for the past three years, I felt like a plant ripped out by the roots and tossed into a compressing garbage truck. Nothing made sense. Hope? What the hell was that? Time? Doing time? Something I couldn't grasp, just like being unable to gasp for air in between big heaving sobs. 

A soft Latinx voice pierced through the sobbing. The woman who sat down next to me on the ground, Lali had married young. Her marriage had been a nightmare, her husband was abusive. When she left her husband, her daughter was one. A friend offered her the "opportunity" to make a one-time drop off of a car filled with cocaine to a destination near a bus station in West Virginia. She would drive there from New Jersey, take the bus home, and collect ten thousand dollars. 

I tried to quiet down and listen.

After the court proceedings, her husband came and collected their child, almost four, promising that she would never see her daughter again. She said she was lucky. A coconspirator told the police they deceived her into making the run and that she did not know there were drugs in the car. She plea-bargained for ten years. All Lali wanted was to provide a good life for her daughter. She was in her fifth year of prison, still hanging on to the hope that she could sue to get custody or visiting rights of the child. She hoped she would renew that special bond again with her daughter once out. She tangibly loved her child in her every spoken word.

Lali said, "You see, we all have a story. They are all bad, but together we can make it to a better place. That is how things work here. We make the best of it. Time goes by, and hopefully, we get out and live our lives."

She came the following morning to my dorm and gave me shower shoes, a hair tie, a comb, shampoo, and conditioner. She had heard me speaking Spanish, and now that I was a bit more composed, she joked with me.

“Cuando mi hija tenía dos años yo le decía que ‘si vieras lo fea que tienes la cara ahora no llorarías!’” 

“When my daughter was two, I would tell her, ‘if you could see how ugly your face is right now, you wouldn't cry.’"

She giggled, referring to us newbies saying, "Hinchadas y feas, todas!" 

"Everyone is swollen and ugly!"

Seeing a smile definitely gave me hope. Time might pass, I would find kindness, and who knows what?

The Latinx community (The Spanish Mommies) began to accept me. I worked with Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, and Puerto Rican solidarity organizations. My lover then, now husband, is Dominican. I felt better having a connection with whom I was on the outside, a continuance.

I began thinking about hope. Is it something you have or something you do?

For me, it is a little of both. I hold hope in my heart that I am loved and accepted. That is the basic human need. The human social network that helps make up our self-worth and security is devastatingly damaged whenever that hope is damaged. I could see that the system I was enmeshed in was trying to destroy that value and worth I hold as a functioning human being. That means I have to act to maintain hope, belonging, being part of something. Doing things that allow me to be the best human being possible in whatever circumstances.

I began to teach yoga. It was a way to communicate with people both spiritually and physically. Teaching allowed me to turn my energy into a positive path and enhance my practice. I loved the guided meditation at the end of class, tightening and relaxing each body part, telling the body to relax, and telling the body it is relaxed. When people were truly quiet, except Helima, who was usually snoring at this point, I told people they were free. There are no barriers, no guards, only sunshine, warmth, and a fully expanded free mind. Hope.

When I left prison, I joined a Youth Arts New York project called Hibakusha Stories. We brought atomic bomb survivors, Hibakusha in Japanese, to the New York City school system, reaching over fifty thousand students over ten years. The Hibakusha told their personal stories of surviving the atomic bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. If you can have an atomic bomb dropped on you and remain compassionate, loving and full of hope for a nuclear free world, anyone can have hope. Two spectacular activists, Robert Croonquist and Kathleen Sullivan, headed the project. Joanna Macy, author of many books, notably here, Active Hope, introduced them and urged them to work together.

I was privileged to accompany Joanna for several days when she took part in Hibakusha Stories programming. She was delightful, playful; and extremely bright. Joanna would suddenly turn to you and ask, 

"What your definition of hope? Which is more dangerous, climate chaos, nuclear war, or the deadening of our response to it?" 

She expected you to think and answer,

For Joanna Macy, active hope is defined as a practice like yoga or gardening. A process that demands a clear view of reality, a decision about the direction to take, and the values we want. She asks what concrete steps we can take in the direction we want to go?

I told her that hope was working shoulder to shoulder with like-minded people. She clapped her hands loudly and said, that's it! 

I believed that there could be a world without nuclear weapons and no matter what anyone says, I know we can make it happen. I was working with brilliant people, dedicated to changing the world.

We laughed and talked and talked.

Martin Luther King said: “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.” Some people have interpreted this to mean that we should reserve judgment on someone. Instead, we should always be prepared to give them a chance to change their ways. We should have infinite hope… hope that never dies… that people can change. Even if they appear incapable of it. 

I practice infinite hope with Re/Creation where everyday people prove to be better and better people regardless of the mistakes they made in the past. Working with this organization also allows me to practice active hope as we work closely together to dismantle the unjust, inhumane carceral state.  I believe we can make it happen. Four years ago, abolition was not even on the table. Today, many people understand that people have been kept in solitary confinement for forty years. This is torture. Thousands of parole-eligible New Yorkers are repeatedly denied release and thousands more aren’t eligible for a parole hearing at all. The United Startes doles out the longest sentences of any country in the world.The tables are more than stacked against people of color, they are inseparable from slavery. That elder parole has not yet passed is a national shame. We must practice active hope together. Contact your state senator, one bill is not going to change the world but it will make a difference to many lives. Let´s close Rikers! Let´s stop sentencing people to death by COVID. We can make things change! 

One of “the real women of Orange Is the New Black,” Carolina Soto is one of the founding members of the Re/Creation writing workshop at Restoration Plaza. Unlike the fictionalized Yoga Jones, Carolina has a long history of work in social justice and advocacy, and is a seasoned painter and visual artist. Since beginning her work in the Re/Creation writing workshop at Restoration Plaza in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Carolina has increased her confidence and aptitude with both the written and spoken word, composing speeches and essays for her advocacy work and as well as written memoir. In particular, her essays and memoirs illustrate her vast capacity for empathy in her descriptions of people with whom she shared time inside. She now splits her time between living in New York City and the Dominican Republic.