New Blog Post – Reflections of “Daddy’s Home”—Arts Programming Within the Walls

On May 15, 2010, Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI) in Tracy, CA, experienced its first, and possibly last, theater arts performance in collaboration with the community organization Barrios Unidos. “Daddy’s Home” is a play written for inmates as a tool for family reunification, personal growth, and restoring hope.

On May 15, 2010, Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI) in Tracy, CA, experienced its first, and possibly last, theater arts performance in collaboration with the community organization Barrios Unidos. “Daddy’s Home” is a play written for inmates as a tool for family reunification, personal growth, and restoring hope. Higher education, civic responsibility, and positive change in general are topics also touched upon in the play. Based on the life of Valentin Pena, “Daddy’s Home” speaks of the impact prisons have on children, families, and communities plagued by unjust policy.

In our latest blog post, Angie Marie Espinoza, a former summer intern at NCCD, discusses how theater arts programming allows inmates to participate in activities that call for self-reflection and engagement with new individuals and communities, as well as the troubling decline in arts programming within California’s prisons.