Media
» Media
https://asiasociety.org/hong-kong/events/breathin-eddy-zheng-story
I’m super excited to partner with Asia Society in Hong Kong to show case the award winning documentary. Rudy Yang, Academy Award winning film maker will moderate our panel after the film. What an honor!
» News, Photos
Being sworn in by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Smiley as the Juvenile Justice Delinquent Prevention Commissioner. #schoolsnotprisons#AsianPrisonerSC #servetheyouth
» Audio, Media, Reflections, Videos
“We are always told by adults what it is to be good and or be bad; yet we don’t realize that the environment that we live in creates a lot of those narratives….When we place education second to incarceration; that is what feeds the system.â€
#FREEAMERICA is a multi-year campaign initiated by award-winning artist John Legend to amplify the growing movement to end mass incarceration.
As part of the #FREEAMERICA initiative, which will expand to include other artists and high-profile individuals committed to justice reform, John Legend will lead a listening and learning tour across the country visiting with incarcerated individuals, law enforcement, legislators, and experts who’ve been thinking critically about America’s prison problem.
Legend’s initiative will also seek to support and collaborate with the many pre-existing national and statewide coalitions and organizations committed to this work.
For more information on #FreeAmerica, click here.
» Engagements, Media
Colorlines writer Channing Kennedy and illustrator & comic artist Minnie Phan constructed a reported comic on CAAMFest 2016, which includes Director Ben Wang’s film Breathin’: The Eddy Zheng Story.
See below for their reported comic for the film.
To see more of their reported comic for CAAMFest 2016, click here.
Thanks, Channing and Minnie!
» Media, News
Happy new breath!
I’m excited to share that Breathin’: The Eddy Zheng Story won the CAAMFest Audience Award! Thank you to all those who watched the screenings and voted.
When I see you, I see me. Without you, there is no me. Thank you.
» Events, Media, Photos, Reflections
Happy new breath! Feeling so honored to premiere Breathin’ with so much community support at CAAMFest 2016.
Photos from CAAMFest 2016 at the Alamo Drafthouse at New Mission
Eddy Zheng and Director Ben Wang before the screening
Composer Scott “Chops” Jung signing the Breathin’ poster during our pre-screening meet-up/dinner
Cast and crew during Q&A
Eddy during Q&A post-premiere
Eddy poses with filmmaker Ben Wang, SF Police Commissioner Victor Hwang, SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi, and fellow activist Harrison Suega.
Breathin’ is given an Honorable Mention by CAAMFEST’s esteemed doc jury
» Videos
Watch Eddy Zheng share his story and his contributions with youth and community engagement on Bay Area Youth On-Air (BAYO)‘s “Superheroes of a New Origin” (S2E4).
» Action Items, Events, Media
![CAAMFest Press Conference 2016 at Alamo Drafthouse San Francisco](https://eddyzheng.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/12657430_10101749849958568_5238420740595611032_o-620x413.jpg)
CAAMFest Press Conference 2016 at Alamo Drafthouse San Francisco
Description:
Arrested at 16 and tried as an adult for kidnapping and robbery, Eddy Zheng served over 20 years in state prison. Ben Wang’s BREATHIN’: THE EDDY ZHENG STORY paints an intimate portrait of Eddy — the prisoner, the immigrant, the son, the activist — on his journey to freedom, rehabilitation and redemption.
BREATHIN’ moves with a deep, critical love, unafraid in confronting the hard truths of Eddy’s crime, the harsh realities of mass incarceration and the intertwined emotional hardships experienced by all involved. The film finds Eddy at many crossroads — in and out of parole hearings, organizing in the community, othered and at risk of deportation — his resilience and astounding compassion resounding throughout. In chronicling Eddy’s decades-long struggle for freedom, the film interrogates the complexities and hypocrisies of crime and punishment in the United States, raising the greater question: For whom are prisons for?
— Andrew Yeung
Co-presented by: Chinese for Affirmative Action & Asian Prisoner Support Committee
Credits
Director: Ben Wang
Producer: Christine Kwon, Ben Wang
Executive Producer: Deann Borshay Liem
Cinematographer: R.J. Lozada
Editor: Ken Schneider and Tina Nguyen
To purchase tickets, click here.
Dates & Times
March 11, 2016 6:30 pm at Alamo Drafthouse
March 19, 2016 8:10 pm at New Parkway Theater
» Articles, Events, Photos
My second trip of the year takes me to receive the Justice, Peace and Freedom Award from the 2016 AFL-CIO Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference. ‪#‎1uMLK‬ I feel humble and honor to sharing the stage with Dorsey Nunn, Rachel Bryan and the ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ Co-Founders Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, Patrisse Marie Cullors-Brignac and different labor leaders. I couldn’t have be in this space without my Asian Prisoner Support Committee family and ‪#‎AAPIsBeyondBars‬ Coalition. Thank you for your leadership and support.
![12540652_10154528014314937_7095758685493286047_n](https://eddyzheng.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/12540652_10154528014314937_7095758685493286047_n-620x465.jpg)
Eddy with Co-Founder of #BlackLivesMatter, Alicia Garza
![12494803_10153422350872123_4617216155318555845_n](https://eddyzheng.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/12494803_10153422350872123_4617216155318555845_n-620x620.jpg)
Eddy, Executive Director of All of Us or None Dorsey Nunn, Community Liaison and International Representative of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Rachel Bryan and Executive Board Member and President of Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA)Â Johanna Hester
![12552668_10105205595237236_8844942427746399637_n](https://eddyzheng.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/12552668_10105205595237236_8844942427746399637_n-620x465.jpg)
Membership & Chapter Coordinator/Policy Analyst of APALA William Chiang, Eddy, Johanna Hester, and Executive Director of APALA Gregory Cendana
![12573738_10154528014339937_1582590193246044528_n](https://eddyzheng.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/12573738_10154528014339937_1582590193246044528_n-620x827.jpg)
Eddy with Dorsey Nunn and Executive Vice President of AFL-CIO Teferi Gebre
![12510310_10105205592118486_454366741637048786_n](https://eddyzheng.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/12510310_10105205592118486_454366741637048786_n-620x465.jpg)
Eddy with APALA crew
![12509864_10154528014409937_333849738391579806_n (1)](https://eddyzheng.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/12509864_10154528014409937_333849738391579806_n-1-620x465.jpg)
Eddy and William Chiang
![12540953_10154528014389937_4685931198760290572_n](https://eddyzheng.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/12540953_10154528014389937_4685931198760290572_n-620x465.jpg)
Eddy and Johanna Hester
» Articles
Eddy is the award recipient for the 2016 Justice Freedom Peace Award for his commitment and dedication to the advancement of civil rights and workers’ rights and for his exemplified service and work with the Asian Prisoner Support Committee.
» Videos
This documentary features the life of two formerly incarcerated men, Eddy Zheng & Harold Atkins, who consider themselves ordinary but are believed to be extraordinary by those they’ve inspired.
» Articles, Videos
http://www.sfbaysuperbowl.com/50-fund-playmaker-eddy-zheng-and-community-youth-center#2QHyMzFodk1jLVMY.97
Happy new breath! ‪#‎humble‬ ‪#‎honored‬ ‪#‎motivatingyouthtosucceed‬ ‪#‎cyc‬ https://t.co/pccBw1dZ8v
» Videos
» Articles
by Jon Brooks, with reporting by Kyung Jin Lee, KQED News Fix
( read excerpted article online here )
Community Activist, Ex-Con Eddy Zheng Faces Deportation
At issue, according to Kyung Jin Lee, KQED’s reporter at the hearing, is whether a Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision to remove Zheng considered positive factors in addition to his prison record. Zheng spent 19 years in prison stemming rom a robbery-kidnapping he took part in as a teen.
In addition to his job working with at-risk youth, Zheng has also become known for his poetry and prison blog.You may remember that his incarceration became a cause celebre in the late 1990s, after then-governor Gray Davis ignored a unanimous parole board vote in his favor, refusing to sign off on his release. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger finally granted Zheng parole in 2005, but because his imprisonment had prevented him from becoming a naturalized citizen, he was taken into custody by the Department of Homeland Security pending deportation proceedings. He was set free in 2007, but an immigration court eventually ordered that he be deported to China, where he lived as a boy. The appeal of that order was today.
» Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fPuY2wlBd4
About the Event
Facing deportation after 21 years behind bars, Eddy Zheng is grateful just to be breathin’. With music by DOSH and poetry by Paul Dosh, this artistic collaboration brings Eddy Zheng to the stage to tell the remarkable story of the movement he created that freed him from prison and now fights for the rights of Asian prisoners in California. A national advisory board member of the Asian American Law Journal, Eddy Zheng is the recipient of the Asian Law Students Outstanding Leadership Award and the Chinese World Journal Community Hero Award, the editor of Other: An Asian and Pacific Islander Prisoners’ Anthology, and now works for the San Francisco Community Youth Center.
» Articles
from Sing Tao Daily
( read excerpted article online here )
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» Articles
from singtao.com
( read excerpted article online here )
郑å°é£ž27日下åˆåœ¨ä»–æœåŠ¡çš„“å°åŒºé’å¹´ä¸å¿ƒâ€å†…查看ç¾åæ•°å—时说,他感到很æ„外,åªæœ‰çŸçŸçš„两天,他é€è¿‡ç½‘络就收集到949个支æŒç¾åã€‚ä»–åŽŸå®šçš„ç›®æ ‡åªæœ‰1000个ç¾å,å°åŒºçš„çƒçƒˆå应为他带æ¥èŽ«å¤§çš„鼓舞,显示许多人支æŒä»–留在美国æœåŠ¡ã€‚
» Articles
by ktvu.com
( read excerpted article online here )
“My work is here; my career. Everything that I invested in prison is here. So I want to make a difference in the community,” Zheng said.
Several prominent politicians and community leaders have joined in a petition drive to urge Governor Schwarzenegger pardon Zheng as one of his final acts before leaving office.
“I deserve a chance to be able to utilize the skills I have to stay in the United States with my family and to continue to service the community,” Zheng said.
» Audio
Interviewed on KPFA’s Letters to Washington | audio link
Letters to Washington
As Congress faces such burning issues as healthcare, global warming and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pacifica’s Mitch Jeserich hosts “Letters and Politics†a look at national politics from a progressive perspective.
» Audio
Interviewed on KPFA’s APEX Express | audio link
APEX Express
Apex Express comes to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view.
Apex has an ear and eye on the best community and cultural aspirations of a diverse Diaspora.
Every week, producers of Apex Express bring you an array of news, cultural events and issues by and about the Asian and Pacific Islander communities locally and abroad.
» Videos
About the Organization
The Community Response Network-Asian Pacific Islander (CRN-API) focuses on crisis response, case management services, and street level outreach to prevent and reduce violence incidents in San Francisco. They work together with six other community-based organizations to provide support, programs, and services in neighborhoods with a significant Asian Pacific Islander population presence.
» Videos
Part 1:
About the Event
“Other: Voices of Asian Prisoners”
Saturday, Sept. 27th, 2008
Critical Resistance Conference in Oakland, California
Panel workshop featuring Rico Riemedio, German Yambao, and Eddy Zheng. They discuss changes that have occurred in the Asian prison population over the past 20 years, concerns and struggles particular to Asian prisoners, and how Asian prisoners build community and resistance inside the Prison Industrial Complex. Organized by the Asian Prisoner Support Committee (APSC).
» Videos
» Articles
by Philip Martin, The Paly Voice
excerpt:
Eddy Zheng, a former felon from San Quentin Penitentiary, who was recently featured in the most recent edition of Verde, spoke to Paly students last Friday about his transformation in prison.
Zheng, who spent nearly 20 years in prison for kidnap and robbery, is now an educated poet with a GED credential and associate of arts degree. Even facing impending deportation to China, Zheng says he is still fighting to claim his rightful place in America.
After going to jail at 16, Zheng taught himself English and graduated from the college program at San Quentin.
“When I first went into prison, I had to learn survival skills.” Zheng said. “Once I learned those, I wanted to educate myself.”
( read full article online here )
» Articles
One teacher’s lasting friendship with a convicted felon and her involvement in his transformation from prisoner to poet
by Loretta Sheng and Zack Kousnetz, The Paly Voice
excerpt:
When Palo Alto High School teacher Jeanne Loh was a fourth grader living in Huntington Beach, Calif., then-16-year-old Oakland resident Eddy Zheng was committing armed robbery and kidnapping. Thirteen years after he was sentenced to seven-years-to-life, the two met in San Quentin State Prison where Loh was volunteering as a teacher’s assistant.
So began what would be an eight-year friendship that would see the two share hundreds of letters and her volunteering as the transcriber and caretaker of Zheng’s online blog. During this time, Zheng would emerge as one of the Bay Area’s most celebrated reformed convicts. A poet, published author and supporter of prisoners’ rights, Zheng converted himself — in part with Loh’s help — from a troubled teenage immigrant into a dedicated and selfless contributor to society.
The more Loh got to know Zheng, the more she believed in the strength of this transformation. “If you think about your own suffering there’s always someone else who’s suffered more than you,” Loh says.
( read full article online )
» Articles
by Kara Platoni, East Bay Express
excerpt:
Eddy Zheng has hundreds of supporters, an army of lawyers, the governor’s okay, and a new wife. So why does homeland security want to deport him?
The skinny, money-obsessed kid was one of three teenagers who committed an intensely frightening robbery-kidnap as clumsy as it was horrific. All three young men were caught immediately. Zheng received the maximum sentence — seven years to life — and his attorneys expected him to serve eight or nine years.
By the late ’90s, Zheng already had served twice that. He’d also made a stunning transformation from junior hoodlum to star pupil at San Quentin. He taught himself English, and earned a GED and an associate of arts degree. He developed a deep love of poetry, self-publishing his own zines and organizing the prison’s first poetry slam. He worked with “scared straight” programs, urging teenagers to avoid his fate. He carried on a torrential correspondence with civic leaders and literary luminaries in the outside world, who were attracted by his intellectual voracity and his evident desire to atone for the past. He avoided drugs and eschewed gangs. He didn’t just do time; he did it well.
( read full article online here )
» Articles
Eddy Zheng got a 7-years-to-life prison sentence, served 19 years, and now faces deportation – a case study in our wasteful approach to punishing immigrants
by Momo Chang, San Francisco Bay Guardian
excerpt:
California has spent an estimated half a million dollars imprisoning and rehabilitating Xiao Fei “Eddy” Zheng, presumably with the goal of his successful reentry into society. And now that he’s finally been paroled, the government wants to deport him to China, a country he barely knows anymore.
Zheng is like the 45,000 other noncitizen inmates each year who are released from prison only to be passed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. Yet unlike many others, he has a good lawyer and numerous Bay Area supporters who are challenging the almost automatic practice of deporting noncitizens – including legal residents like Zheng – who have committed crimes.
( read full article online here )
» Photos
Photos by Malcolm Yeung
- Supporters Victor Hwang, Rev. Norman Fong and others
- Supporters at March 2005 Hearing
- Supporters at March 2005 Hearing
- Supporters at March 2005 Hearing
- Supporters at March 2005 Hearing
- Family and Supporters at March 2005 Hearing
- Supportive family, after March 2005 bond hearing
- Supporters outside SF Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, 03/16/2005 Hearing
- Support to Free Eddy
» Articles
Prisons have become the primary institutional interface for more and more youth, informing everything from pop culture to worldview and life expectations.
by Dan Hoyle, AlterNet
excerpt:
If so many young people are growing up in prison, what exactly are they being taught?
“In prison, you learn to talk less, listen more, and observe — and you learn patience,” says Eddy Zheng from a pay phone in Solano State Prison in Vacaville, CA. In 1982, when he was 12 years old, Zheng came to America from Canton, China, with his family. His parents worked full time — “my Dad worked at McDonalds; all he memorized was how to say ‘mayonaise, lettuce, tomatoes.'” Zheng didn’t adjust well. In 1986 he was convicted of kidnapping with intent to commit robbery, and was charged as an adult at the age of 16. “I grew up in prison,” admits Zheng. Still learning English when he was admitted, Zheng took ESL classes and got his GED, and then went on to receive an Associate Degree of Arts through extension classes at San Quentin State Prison (he has since been relocated to Solano State). He plans on starting a youth guidance center for new immigrants when he is released. Zheng realizes his story is unusual and praises the “huge support from family and friends beyond the community of incarceration” that have helped him make the most of his time in prison.
( read full article online here )
» Testimonials
“[Zheng’s] commitment to counseling at-risk youth by teaching them alternatives to violence should not only be commended, but awarded with the acknowledgement of his ability to live a productive and positive lifestyle…
Mr. Zheng’s accomplishments serve as an example of criminal rehabilitation that should not go unnoticed…
Mr. Zheng is the ideal example of a young man who has turned his life around and is worthy of parole.”
Senate Majority Leader Don Perata,
Letter to Board of Prison Terms, Sept. 26, 2003
» Testimonials
“Mr. Zheng is exceptionally suitable for parole. I strongly encourage the Board to find that he is suitable and give him an opportunity to continue to redeem himself through continued service to the community as a productive member of society.â€
Senate President Pro Tem John Burton,
letter to Board of Prison Terms, Sept. 22, 2003
» Testimonials
“[Zheng’s] commendable behavior in prison… clearly indicates that Mr. Zheng has the potential of becoming a contributing member of society. He has acknowledged his mistakes, expressed remorse for his crime, and has served his sentence.â€
Assemblywoman Loni Hancock,
Letter to Board of Prison Terms, Sept. 17, 2003
» Testimonials
“Mr. Zheng has made a personal transformation and maturation in the last 17 years… Upon his parole, Mr. Zheng has indicated a strong interest in helping prevent troubled young people from following a path to prison.â€