Enrique's Journey Essay

Many emotions and thoughts were elicited in me while reading Enrique’s Journey and attending class. I felt empathetic, intrigued, and frustrated because of the systematic oppression that works against people of color. I also enjoyed learning about the resiliency and strength that people must overcome strenuous obstacles to succeed. Currently, I have been learning about the effect of mass incarceration and how previous policies have continued to oppress and criminalize the most vulnerable populations: people from a lower socioeconomic status and people of color. The mass incarceration system has continuously oppressed, used, and devalued people of color since the era of slavery. Slavery started when there was a demand in labor to aid the production

of crops such as tobacco, and African slaves were brought over to the United States. This is where the evolution began behind the concept of race, and the idea around white supremacy began to spread. In 1865, the thirteenth amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. By law, African Americans were “free” but were still inferior to white people. The birth of Jim Crow laws started in 1865, and implemented the state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern states. In the 1950’s and 60’s, the civil rights movement led to the demand for equality and ending of segregation. The movement was monumental, but the institutional racism was still prevalent in America. It is important to understand the connection between slavery and mass incarceration, but African American’s are not the only people of color who are victims of the systematic oppression, Latino’s are as well. According to the U.S. Census from 2010, 64% of the people in the United States are Latino, and 39% of them are currently incarcerated. Latinos are four times more likely than white people to end up in prison.
In the 1970’s when the War on Drugs was declared, and considered to be the “biggest” problem in America, the actuality of the message could not have been farther from the truth. This became a war on poor people. The people who were poor were typically people of color and they were the ones to blame for this “drug epidemic.” Nixon declared that crack was the root of the problem. Crack cocaine was cheap and used in “inner” cities, while powdered cocaine was more expensive and used in residential areas. Money was given to the government to find the people selling or using these drugs. Over the next few decades, incarceration continued to increase. The people who were getting arrested were mainly African Americans and Latinos, and instead of receiving help for their addiction or for employment, they were thrown into jail and sentenced extensive amounts of years in the system. The concept behind the deserving and undeserving is strongly prevalent when it comes to the system. For centuries, society has felt that it is easier to blame and reprimand the poor and inferior, rather than finding ways to help bring them up. White people “deserve” to be given a chance, while people of color are “undeserving” of the same treatment.
I am currently interning at the Puerto Rican Family Institute Clinic in Brooklyn and out of the 15 patients I see weekly, 14 of them are Latino.

There is a prevalent history of drug and alcohol abuse in the household with each Latino client that I serve, except for one. Whether they were the ones struggling with the addiction or they were the spouse or child of the abusers, addiction runs deep within the Latino culture. This was also highlighted in the novel, Enrique’s Journey, when we read about the intimate struggle that Enrique faced with drugs and alcohol. Addressing and providing appropriate treatment for the addiction that people suffer with would be a more effective way to help the issue with mass incarceration. With Enrique’s story, his addiction became a way for him to escape the reality that he was living in and helped him cope with the loss and abandonment of people in his life. Although his story and poverty from his childhood took place in a different country, these are similar struggles that many people of color face in the United States. There is so much trauma that can take place when a person is living in poverty that it is incredibly hard to rise above it without the proper resources and support. The law is restricting the freedom and opportunity for African Americans and Latinos in the U.S. They are set up to go into the system because they are racially profiled, given harsher sentences, and given no support to rise above the

oppression.
A recent policy that is trying to pass nationwide is to cut sentences for people with low-level drug crimes and non-violent offense. The current U.S. prison system is overflowing with people who have been handed mandatory-minimum sentences because of the law that was strongly enforced during the 1994 federal crime bill. It has been over a decade since that bill passed, and many people have suffered long enough because of it. This policy could give people the opportunity to change their lives, and help them escape from the restrictions that society traps them in. I previously worked in an employment program that helped people on parole obtain employment. Many of my clients were African American and Latino, and had committed crimes as an adolescent. A few of my clients disclosed that they did not have the proper guidance as an adolescent, and felt that things would have been different if they had some support. Aguilar (2015) explored the connection between the educational system and the prison industry, as well as the internalized oppression that African American and Latinos face in their lives. Internalized oppression blames the oppressed and is harmful to the growth of individuals and communities of color. It is interesting to consider that if African American or Latino students are influenced and supported at a young age, through school or at home, they may have a different outcome in their future. Not only does the judicial system harm and limit the opportunities for a person of color, but so can the educational system as well. Many of the systems and policies that are implemented in the U.S. are set to lift the privileged, and suppress the poor. Even with the policies and funding that assist and aid people from a lower socioeconomic background, it is still not enough to keep people out of poverty and enough support to help them thrive.
When thinking of policies that play a factor in mass incarceration, it is important to consider the laws and regulations that surround immigration. By law, if you are not a citizen or resident here in the U.S., you are considered “illegal” by the government and you are breaking the law. Deportations began to increase in 1997 when Congress passed two laws: The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform. These laws required mandatory detention of “illegal” people and were allocated more funds for immigration law enforcement. As read in Enrique’s Journey, Enrique was later caught and detained in a detention facility for over fourteen months and was barely escaped deportation. Deportations have massively increased over the past decade, and are predicted to increase in future years. Golash-Boza (2016) describes how mass deportation has not affected all communities evenly and how it parallels with the systematic issues of mass incarceration. The article articulates that mass deportation is more of a racialized and gendered tool of oppression because most deportees are men from Latin America and the Caribbean. The common factors that mass incarceration and deportation are the structured systematic oppression by mainly consisting and targeting the African American and Latino population, as well as providing no supportive support or solution to help this marginalized population. Many people who get deported, try to come back. Instead of detaining people in a detention center that is a jail-like environment, they should aid them in obtaining citizenship or assist them in escaping poverty. Instead of pushing them down, they need help to be brought back up.
There are a lot of contributing factors to the oppression and marginalization that the African American and Latino population face. It is also important to highlight the strength and fortitude that these people must overcome the greatest of obstacles. That is what I enjoyed the most from class as well, providing an anti-oppressive lens when working with the Latino population and learning how to recognize and acknowledge the strengths they have. When reflecting on mass incarceration, I am reminded of all the movements that are trying to bring light and justice to people of color during the current political climate. Change needs to happen in this country and I remain hopeful that it will happen one day to benefit people of color, especially African Americans and Latinos.