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.”

#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

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.

 

» 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

9th Circuit Appeal Hearing

» Articles

by Jon Brooks, with reporting by Kyung Jin Lee, KQED News Fix

( read excerpted article online here )

» Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fPuY2wlBd4

» Articles

from Sing Tao Daily

( read excerpted article online here )

日前在网上发动签名并获得很多加州各级官员、政要、社区人士大力支持的郑小飞，希望州长在离任前可以特赦他。昨日傍晚，他坦言还在等消息，只能抱持希望。他认为自己一直都表现良好，诚心改过，希望州长可以给予特赦。网上支持他获得特赦的签名已经超过2500个。

» Articles

from singtao.com

( read excerpted article online here )

郑小飞27日下午在他服务的“小区青年中心”内查看签名数字时说，他感到很意外，只有短短的两天，他透过网络就收集到949个支持签名。他原定的目标只有1000个签名，小区的热烈反应为他带来莫大的鼓舞，显示许多人支持他留在美国服务。

» 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

» Audio

Interviewed on KPFA’s APEX Express | audio link

» Videos

» Videos

Part 1:

(more…)

» 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

» 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.”

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.”

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.”

Assembly Majority Leader Wilma Chan,
Assemblywoman Judy Chu, Assemblywoman Carol Liu,
Assemblyman Leland Yee, Alameda County Supervisor Alice Lai-Bitker,
Letter to Board of Prison Terms, Sept. 15, 2003