Jason Maldonado – Goldin Chicago Fellow

Jason Michael Maldonado

https://goldininstitute.org/team/jason-michael-maldonado/

Jason and I talked on the phone for about an hour a couple of days ago.  He was so easy and relaxed and shared openly, made me feel totally comfortable!  His Goldin profile was very short so I looked up the org he works with and his Facebook page in order to educate myself a bit and it turns out that we do have quite a bit of common ground!  We come from two completely different environments: I was protected, encouraged, and given assets.  He got into trouble when he was young and ended up serving 19 years in prison.  !!!  But, he found himself, educated himself and is now a leader in his community, using his experience to help others.  His achievements are impressive!

“He earned an Associate’s degree, Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree, and is a Certified Associate Addiction Professional (CAAP).”  I just have a Bachelor’s degree, so he is more advanced academically than me.  He projects a tough, “street” persona in how he talks and how he dresses (much more cool than me…  ) but I felt that he was totally present, interested, and making connections.  His Goldin profile did not mention that he is a talented artist and poet!  Here is one of his drawings:

“Cages to Creativity”

We talked about so many things!  I am very familiar with the neighborhood where he works as I worked there a long time ago, too.  It used to be mostly Mexican, abutting an African American neighborhood.  There used to be a lot of tension between the two because they competed for the same jobs… I asked him if he lived in the neighborhood and he said he had to move out of Chicago because housing has become so expensive and he commutes in.  He said that most low income houses have 20 or 30 people living there so that they can afford the rent.

His main focus is in working with released convicts.  He had a beautiful phrase he used, “returned citizens”.  This is soooo important because even after people serve their sentences here in the United States, they continue to be criminalized by society. They don’t have the right to vote, it’s very hard to get a good job or to get a loan to buy a car or a house.  The prison system in the US is rigged. It’s a shameful institution that is corrupt and that does not work.  A quick Google search gives this stat:

“Comparison of United States incarceration rate with other countries. In 2021, the United States had 1,767,200 inmates in adult facilities (prisons and jails). This left America with the highest prison population if China’s latest official number (2018) of 1,690,000 (sentenced prisoners only) were used.”

And, we are supposed to be the example for the world of what a healthy Democracy looks like…  This article gives a harrowing description of what is happening to minorities in our “justice” system:

https://www.justsecurity.org/86024/the-war-from-within-racial-injustice-in-the-us-prison-system/

Although I have had very little experience with jails and prisons, one of my earliest memories as a child was of watching my father cut tin cans and twirl the ends to make flowers. He was making samples for the inmates at our local jail in Brazil.  I was under 4 years old because we moved from there when I was 5.

I was so happy to find a similar piece on eBay, using the same technique, although this is much bigger!   My father was a pastor, a creative one, and he always had an ease in connecting with the dispossessed.  Jason has that same gift.

When I was in college, I spent my Junior year in South America, with the second semester at a Lutheran seminary in Brazil.  A friend of mine and I did some volunteer work at a local prison and the guys were always so excited to see us.  They were bored out of their minds….  I asked Jason if he knew of any programs here in the US that use art in the prisons and he said that there are many and it all depends on the security levels of the prisons.  (I found it wild that my father could take sharp metal cutters and pointy tools to his jail!)  There is a program in England that is absolutely wonderful, Fine Cell Work.  They teach inmates how to embroider and the proceeds of the sales go back to the artist.  Their blog has moving stories about how needlework has healed them:  https://finecellwork.co.uk/blogs/blog-events/tagged/prison-stories

So, Jason’s work is of the utmost importance in my view and it takes grit and a savvy personality to make the connections.  There is a magnetic charge in Chicago changemakers and I miss that so much!  I lived there for 20 years and with all of its problems, it is a City full of talent, life and excitement.

Jason told me about another project in his neighborhood that he thought I would like, The Firehouse Community Center.  Wow!  What an amazing place!  It was started and is run by a pastor, Phil Jackson, who is obviously pouring out his love on this community and getting it back with such success. This is the kind of work that makes so much sense to me!

Jason is passionate about Indigenous roots and rights.  I am, too, but I get tired of focusing on the past and of all the horrors that have been committed….  I also feel that all groups of people, whether Indigenous, African, Asian, etc. have the capacity for great violence against each other.  The Conquistadors were able to “take” the Americas because they successfully pitted indigenous groups against each other.  Yes, white people have a bloody track record of oppression in the history of the world, but if you take them out of the equation, there is plenty of violence between tribal groups who also committed massacres, took slaves and invaded territories.  These same peoples also have treasures in spirituality, healing, art, etc.  I think it’s important to understand the history, but even more important to visualize where we go from here, of how we can live in harmony with each other and with Nature.  I feel panicky about this because I don’t see much progress happening fast enough and climate change is going to affect all of us. Still, we did talk a bit about the NoDapl movement against the big oil companies and how wonderful it was to see Indigenous people around the world come together to protect the Lakota People’s access to clean water.

I asked Jason if he had seen John Leguizamo’s Latin History For Morons, a true masterpiece of Latin American history!  John’s performance is absolutely riveting. He is trying to build up his son’s pride in his history, finding heroes from the past, but it is all complicated and he carries off the challenges with pain and nuance.  I really need to watch it again!   John is Puerto Rican, by the way….

This is the energy that Jason has, just from my little contact with him.  It’s a language I will never have because I am white, of the Minnesota crop, (that is a Northern farming state with long winters) where people sit on their hands in church and don’t show a lot of emotion.  Even though I didn’t grow up there, my parents were from that stock and we just don’t have rhythm….

Jason has the beat.  In fact, he is a poet and uses the spoken word to express the angst.  Here is a snippet he posted on his Facebook page:

“They thought that they could bury us… They didn’t know that we are Seeds… We are not a conquered people or land this is momentary period, the Universe has a way of correcting itself. “

I asked him if he knew my friend, Marvin Tate.  Marvin is an artist, a poet and a musician.  He has been performing in Chicago for 30 years or so…  We’re getting old….  Jason did not recognize him and it excited me to help make the connection.  I do hope they meet as Marvin will love what Jason is doing and vice versa!

Marvin Tate

Here is one of his In-Your-Face spoken word performances:

The Gather Questions.  We were told to ask these:

• What is something you know about?

• What is something you care about?

• What do you love to do?

• What is one thing you are doing right now to strengthen your community?

We didn’t even look at them, just started talking and one thing led to another, but I think we got a sense of what the other is about and I, for one, would LOVE to meet Jason in person someday!  A part of my dream is to bring my Chicago connections to Paducah and have them share their talent with the community here. Maybe it will happen someday!