Six by Ten

by Mateo Hoke

  137. “Prisoners’ Demands,” Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, https://

  prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/education/the-prisoners-demands-2.

  Acknowledgments

  Our warmest thanks to everyone who shared their stories with us. We’re grateful to you for opening your lives, your hearts, your families, and your homes over the years it took to build this book.

  Endless gratitude to our managing editors for their navigation and patience. We couldn’t have done this without Dao X. Tran wrangling our calendars, offering advice, and tolerating endless bad jokes during weekly calls. Special fist bump to Luke Gerwe for believing in—and helping launch—this project. We’re grateful to the other members of the Voice of Witness team: Mimi Lok, Cliff Mayotte, Erin Vong, Claire Kiefer, Alexa Gelbard, and Dave Eggers for their dedication to human rights and education.

  Thank you to Amy Fettig, Jessica Sandoval, David Fathi, Bill Cobb, Udi Ofer, Adina Ellis, Alexandra Ringe, and everyone at the ACLU who supported this book.

  Thanks to Hope Metcalf, Sameer Jaywant, Steven Lance, Nell Gaither, Pete Martel, Susan Katz, Holly Cooper, Lois Henry, Sara Norman, Raha Jorjani, Susan Goodwillie, and Jennifer Parish. Your guidance, expertise, and perseverance helped us bring together a broad range of stories from across the country.

  We’re honored to work with Haymarket Books. Special thanks to Brian Baughan for his editorial eye and Dana Blanchard and the rest of the Haymarket Books team for helping bring the book out to the world.

  Thanks to the Voice of Witness volunteers who helped make this book possible: Victoria Alexander, Pablo Baeza, Corey Barr, Emma Cogan, Brittany Collins, Charlotte Edelstein, Katie Fiegenbaum, Justine Hall, Miriam Hwang-Carlos, Mary Beth Melso, Ariela Rosa, Barbara Sheffels, Lucy Wallitsch, Berman Zhigalko, and Kaye Herranen.

  Thanks to Cate Malek for her friendship through yet another project, to Sean Havey for traveling to film stories with our narrators, to Adam Hochschild, Heather Ann Thompson, and Eli Feldman for your support and kind words. To Brad Andalman, Michael Hoke, Trevor Gardner, Lisa Guenther, Gus Johnson, Vivian Pendergrass, Paul Skenazy, Joe Stephens, and Leyla Vural for your insightful comments and keen eyes.

  Special thanks to Erica Pollack, Elliot and Asher Pendergrass, Nikol Elaine, the Hoke and Pendergrass families, and the McKennas. Your support means more than you know.

  About the Editors

  Taylor Pendergrass has been gathering stories about the US criminal justice system for more than a decade. As a civil rights lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, Taylor has been counsel in major cases challenging “stop and frisk” policies, deceptive police interrogations, broken indigent defense systems, and degrading jail and prison conditions. His work includes advocating for reforms to solitary confinement and other practices in the New York City jails on Rikers Island. He currently works as strategist for the ACLU’s Campaign for Smart Justice, which is dedicated to reducing the US prison population by 50 percent and eradicating racial disparities in the criminal justice system. He lives in Denver.

  Mateo Hoke is a writer, oral historian, and mixed-media journalist. He previously spent four years interviewing and researching throughout the West Bank and Gaza for the Voice of Witness book Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life under Occupation, which he coedited with Cate Malek. His work often explores human rights and poverty, though he also enjoys writing about plants, books, and consciousness. His work has appeared in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Rolling Stone, Pacific Standard, Lucky Peach, McSweeney’s, and Guernica, among other outlets. He lives in Oakland.

  About VOICE OF WITNESS

  Voice of Witness is a nonprofit that advances human rights by amplifying the voices of people impacted by injustice. We foster empathy-based dialogue and actions that advance human rights through our two core programs: our oral history book series, which illuminates firsthand accounts of injustice, and our education program, which brings these stories, as well as ethics-driven storytelling, to classrooms and communities across the United States and abroad. Visit voiceofwitness.org for more information.

  EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Mimi Lok

  MANAGING EDITOR: Dao X. Tran

  EDUCATION PROGRAM DIRECTOR: Cliff Mayotte

  EDUCATION PROGRAM ASSOCIATE: Erin Vong

  CURRICULUM SPECIALIST: Claire Kiefer

  COMMUNICATIONS & OUTREACH MANAGER: Alexa Gelbard

  Donor Relationship MANAGER: Elisa Perez-Selsky

  COFOUNDERS

  DAVE EGGERS

  Founding Editor, Voice of Witness; cofounder of 826 National; founder of McSweeney’s Publishing

  MIMI LOK

  Cofounder, Executive Director & Executive Editor, Voice of Witness

  LOLA VOLLEN

  Founding Editor, Voice of Witness; Founder & Executive Director, The Life After Exoneration Program

  VOICE OF WITNESS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

  IPEK S. BURNETT

  Author; depth psychologist

  SARA FELDMAN

  Ready California Project Director, Immigrant Legal Resource Center

  NICOLE JANISIEWICZ

  Attorney, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

  KRISTINE LEJA

  Executive Director, Summer Search

  MIMI LOK

  Cofounder, Executive Director & Executive Editor, Voice of Witness

  LUPE POBLANO

  Co-Executive Director, CompassPoint

  JILL STAUFFER

  Associate Professor of Philosophy; Director of Peace, Justice, and Human Rights Concentration, Haverford College

  TREVOR STORDAHL

  Senior Counsel, VIZ Media; intellectual property attorney

  The VOICE OF WITNESS SERIES

  The Voice of Witness nonprofit book series amplifies the seldom-heard voices of people affected by contemporary injustice. We also work with impacted communities to create curricular and training support for educators. Using oral history as a foundation, the series depicts human rights issues in the United States and around the world. Say It Forward: A Guide to Social Justice Storytelling is forthcoming in 2019. Six by Ten: Stories from Solitary is the sixteenth book in the series. Other titles include:

  SURVIVING JUSTICE

  America’s Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated

  Compiled and edited by Lola Vollen and Dave Eggers

  Foreword by Scott Turow

  “Real, raw, terrifying tales of ‘justice.’” —Star Tribune

  VOICES FROM THE STORM

  The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath

  Compiled and edited by Chris Ying and Lola Vollen

  “Voices from the Storm uses oral history to let those who survived the hurricane tell their (sometimes surprising) stories.” —Independent UK

  UNDERGROUND AMERICA

  Narratives of Undocumented Lives

  Compiled and edited by Peter Orner

  Foreword by Luis Alberto Urrea

  “No less than revelatory.” —Publishers Weekly

  OUT OF EXILE

  Narratives from the Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan

  Compiled and edited by Craig Walzer

  Additional interviews and an introduction by Dave Eggers

  and Valentino Achak Deng

  “Riveting.” —School Library Journal

  HOPE DEFERRED

  Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives

  Compiled and edited by Peter Orner and Annie Holmes

  Foreword by Brian Chikwava

  “Hope Deferred might be the most important publication to have come out of Zimbabwe in the last thirty years.” —Harper’s Magazine

  NOWHERE TO BE HOME

  Narratives from Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime

&nbs
p; Compiled and edited by Maggie Lemere and Zoë West

  Foreword by Mary Robinson

  “Extraordinary.” —Asia Society

  PATRIOT ACTS

  Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice

  Compiled and edited by Alia Malek

  Foreword by Karen Korematsu

  “Important and timely.” —Reza Aslan

  INSIDE THIS PLACE, NOT OF IT

  Narratives from Women’s Prisons

  Compiled and edited by Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi

  Foreword by Michelle Alexander

  “Essential reading.” —Piper Kerman

  THROWING STONES AT THE MOON

  Narratives from Colombians Displaced by Violence

  Compiled and edited by Sibylla Brodzinsky and Max Schoening

  Foreword by Íngrid Betancourt

  “Both sad and inspiring.” —Publishers Weekly

  REFUGEE HOTEL

  Photographed by Gabriele Stabile and edited by Juliet Linderman

  “There is no other book like Refugee Hotel on your shelf.” —SF Weekly

  HIGH RISE STORIES

  Voices from Chicago Public Housing

  Compiled and edited by Audrey Petty

  Foreword by Alex Kotlowitz

  “Joyful, novelistic, and deeply moving.” —George Saunders

  INVISIBLE HANDS

  Voices from the Global Economy

  Compiled and edited by Corinne Goria

  Foreword by Kalpona Akter

  “Powerful and revealing testimony.” —Kirkus

  PALESTINE SPEAKS

  Narratives of Life under Occupation

  Compiled and edited by Cate Malek and Mateo Hoke

  “Heartrending stories.” —New York Review of Books

  THE VOICE OF WITNESS READER

  Ten Years of Amplifying Unheard Voices

  Edited and with an introduction by Dave Eggers

  THE POWER OF THE STORY

  The Voice of Witness Teacher’s Guide to Oral History

  Compiled and edited by Cliff Mayotte

  Foreword by William Ayers and Richard Ayers

  “A rich source of provocations to engage with human dramas throughout the world.” —Rethinking Schools Magazine

  LAVIL

  Life, Love, and Death in Port-Au-Prince

  Edited by Peter Orner and Evan Lyon

  Foreword by Edwidge Danticat

  “Lavil is a powerful collection of testimonies, which include tales of violence, poverty, and instability but also joy, hustle, and the indomitable will to survive.” —Vice

  CHASING THE HARVEST

  Migrant Workers in California Agriculture

  Edited by Gabriel Thompson

  “The voices are defiant and nuanced, aware of the human complexities that spill across bureaucratic categories and arbitrary borders.” —The Baffler