AAS 2 - A02
May 17, 2015
Week 8
Mike Ngo is not your average political activist, writer and intellectual. Mike Ngo is also a political prisoner in San Quentin. And by using the most sophisticated prose, Ngo describes in detail the happenings of his day -- including the nightmare that would awake him that morning, to his job as a clerk, and to when his parents visit him during visiting hours. But even the most worldly set of words cannot hide the pain and anguish Ngo must feel as he serves a life sentence. An anguish best painted by the visions that haunt him as he sits alone in his cell. Images of his encounters with a rival gang while at a liquor store where a nickel-plated revolver has him envisioning his coffin. But these images are replaced later by the reality that Ngo was a soldier during the Vietnam war and his nightmare mirrors that of when his team was ambushed by Vietnamese soldiers and Ngo was shot in the chest.
In the end, Ngo's story serves to reveal the fact that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 2 million people in either jail, prison or a detention center and over three thousand sitting in death row. Some of these prisoners include political prisoners and activists from various movements throughout the last 50 years. Ngo offers insight into progressive critiques on radical democracy and revolutionary struggle and the high price it takes to pay.
Why has there been a recent growing interest in literature from incarceration sites or "prison writing."?
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