For the past two decades, Eddy Zheng has dedicated himself to championing the voices of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) people who are currently in prison, or who have served time in prison. His leadership has had a profound impact on hundreds of people with whom he’s worked.
It was in 1982 when Zheng, then just 12, immigrated to Oakland from Guangdong, China. Suddenly immersed in a new country and a new school, he felt lost. His parents were working hard to survive, too. His dad worked at the local Burger King while his mom worked as a live-in nanny for another family. Before long, Zheng got caught up with friends who were committing petty – and eventually more serious – crimes. At 16, he was sentenced to a seven years-to-life term in prison.
At San Quentin State Prison, Zheng found himself amongst a small but growing population of AANHPIs behind bars. AANHPIs make up a small percent of the prison population in the US, though accurate data is hard to come by, since AANHPIs are often categorized as “other.” “People have told me that they didn’t know Asian Americans were in prison,” Zheng says.
While incarcerated at San Quentin, Zheng enrolled in the prison’s college program. Hungry for courses that taught a broader perspective on American society, he and a diverse group of prisoners advocated for the program to offer courses in Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies. His advocacy, which involved circulating a petition to other prisoners, came at a brutal cost: he ended up spending 11 months in solitary confinement.
But Zheng did not give up. When he wasn’t doing mandatory labor or attending his college courses, he spent what little free time he had in the library, where he was able to learn about people like Yuri Kochiyama, a career activist who advocated for the rights of incarcerated people of all backgrounds. He eventually earned an associate’s degree, and when he was released in 2007 – after 21 years in prison – he vowed to make a difference in the community.
After his release, Zheng was hired as an outreach worker and case manager at Community Youth Center, a nonprofit in San Francisco. His own experience being caught in the wrong crowd made him want to advocate for youth and provide the guidance that he needed when he was in their shoes. Before long, he helped the organization open an office in San Francisco’s Bayview, a predominantly Black neighborhood. It was 2010, and tensions were rising between the Black and growing Chinese population following several violent crimes. To promote racial solidarity, Zheng brought together Black, Latinx, and Chinese American communities in the Bayview and formed the area’s first multicultural youth leadership program.
But he wanted to do even more for the community. Recognizing the ongoing lack of services for AANHPI people in prison, Zheng co-led the Asian Prisoner Support Committee where he co-founded ROOTS, the first ethnic studies program in San Quentin, focusing on AANHPIs.
Zheng has always pushed to build bridges across races with an understanding that oppression is intersectional, impacting people of all backgrounds. He established a racial solidarity walking tour that initially took Chinese American elders to historic sites to learn about the Great Migration during World War II, redlining, and gentrification of San Francisco’s southeastern neighborhoods. Later, the tour expanded to Black and Latinx participants. He also partnered with the Bayview YMCA to start an annual Lunar New Year and Black History Month joint celebration, which, 15 years later, is still going strong.
Then in 2017, he created his own foundation, the New Breath Foundation, a national organization which partners with grassroots organizations across the country that are fighting at the intersection of the criminal justice and immigration systems. The foundation’s name, Zheng says, is a nod to the idea of living in every moment and new beginnings.
As the inaugural winner of SFF’s Joe Brooks Community Leadership Award, named after the late community leader and longtime SFF staff member, Zheng says he feels especially honored to be recognized for his racial solidarity work – and in particular, bringing together Black and Asian American communities. Zheng met Brooks on a trip to Cuba in 2017, where they participated in a health conference. “Even after retirement, he understood the importance of investing to empower the next generation,” Zheng says about Brooks. He notes that while there are other elders who work with younger generations, there are simply not enough people like Brooks who reach across generations.
Zheng embodies the path from incarceration and voicelessness to transformation. Today, while continuing to serve as the president of New Breath Foundation, he also publishes poetry, is a sought-after public speaker who has graced the TEDx stage, and in 2016 became the subject of a documentary* that chronicled his inspiring story.
“We are never separated from the self, family and community,” says Zheng. “I will continue to pay it forward until the day I inhale my last breath.”
By Momo Chang, SFF consultant
*Note: this writer was a story consultant on the documentary.