Winning against the odds

He started to learn English and some practical skills. After earning his GED, a high school equivalency diploma, he immediately got a better job that paid 23 cents an hour instead of 19. "Later I learned how to type and got 35 cents an hour," Zheng says.

Zheng credits generous and kindhearted volunteers, who were "progressive folks", for his ability to climb out of the hole he was in.

"They volunteered and went into the prison system to help support the prisoners. Through the process, I was able to engage scholars, professors and graduate students. When I engaged them, I was really inspired," Zheng says.

He turned to a fellow inmate with a PhD for advice on how to become well-read. The fellow inmate pointed to the classics section in the library: "You read from this aisle to that aisle, you will be well-read."

While he was reading Shakespeare, Plato and the like, it dawned on him that there were no books about Asian culture, history and philosophy. After 911 happened, he witnessed scapegoating was also going on inside the prison, where inmates of Middle Eastern descent were blamed as terrorists and accused of causing harm to America.

"I realized that they are not offered the opportunity to learn about each other's history and culture," says Zheng, adding that only by learning about the culture and history of others, would people be able to humanize each other.

He signed a proposal to advocate such learning and was put in solitary confinement for 11 months as a result.

As Zheng learned how to think critically, he wanted to understand why he committed the crime and how to move on. "Through the education process, I learned this idea of how to hold myself accountable for the harm I inflicted."

He wrote an apology letter to one of the victims. "Her embracing of my apologizing to her－it really demonstrates her true sense of humanity and compassion," Zheng says.

Zheng was released after serving 19 years in prison, but was immediately detained by the Homeland Security Department and served with a deportation order because he wasn't a US citizen. He was imprisoned for another two years. However, he kept fighting for his rights and eventually became a citizen in 2017.

Since gaining his freedom in 2007, Zheng has been active in various community and civil organizations. In that year, he published Other: An Asian and Pacific Islander Prisoners' Anthology to tell his story. A documentary film, Breathin'－The Eddy Zheng Story, was released in 2011.

In 2017, Zheng founded New Breath Foundation, a philanthropic organization offering services for Asian American and Pacific Islander immigrants, refugees, people impacted by incarceration and deportation, and survivors of violence.

Since its inception, the foundation has provided close to $3 million dollars for its causes.

"We have to address systemic racism, we have to address white supremacy, and we have to address the patriarchal society we live in that perpetuates harm on women or gender-nonconforming folks," Zheng says.

Zheng says he wants to use his experience to create alternatives to incarceration, alternatives to inflicting harm and alternative ways to address personal and public safety.

Contact the writer at mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com