Voice of Witness

We are currently looking for help translating Korean interviews. If you are bilingual in Korean and English, or can recommend someone who is, please contact us at letters_at_voiceofwitness_dot_com

This month, California Northern Magazine features the narrative of Victoria Sanchez, from our latest title Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons.

About Victoria: In 1995, Victoria was arrested for a murder she was involved in three years earlier, when she was sixteen years old. Although she was a minor at the time of the murder, she was tried as an adult, and was subsequently sentenced to life without parole. Victoria talks about her painful separation from her four-month old son Ethan upon her arrest, and how she tried to cope with this in prison by adopting several of the cottontail rabbits that roam the prison grounds. “I raised one for three years, potty trained and all. I became its mom.” Victoria also describes …

In light of Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to Burma, we wanted to share the stories of three men and women from Burma—Ma Su Mon, Aye Maung and Hla Min. Their full stories can be found in Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma’s Military Regime, the seventh book in the Voice of Witness series.

Click here to read these powerful excerpts from Nowhere to Be Home,  an eye-opening collection of oral histories exposing the realities of life under military rule. In their own words, men and women from Burma describe their lives in the country that Human Rights Watch has called “the textbook example of a police state.”

This crucial work wouldn’t be possible without your support. Thank you for making Nowhere to Be Home, and the other …

This has been an incredible year for Voice of Witness, and we couldn’t have done it without you. From all of us– thank you. We’re honored to have you as a supporter, reader, audience member, and ally. It is our pleasure to share our success with you, and we hope that you’ll continue to support us by making a year-end donation to Voice of Witness today.

Click here to make a year end gift, or read on to learn what a significant impact your support has made on our work.

Your support for Voice of Witness helps share the stories of people like Lorena, whose moving narrative from Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives, can be read here. She left her home in Puebla, Mexico at the age of six, walking across the desert with her mother, stepfather, and two brothers. When asked about why she shared her story, Lorena explained:

“Being able to tell my story has provided me with a sense of existence that I didn’t have before. I’ve lived my life hoping I could inspire or motivate just one person. Having my story published has ensured that my experiences, struggles, and most importantly, victories are testaments about the power each person possesses within.”

Click here to read Lorena’s Story.

For more information …

This week, Inside This Place, Not of It editors Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi published a powerful piece on the Daily Beast, exploring the realities behind life inside U.S. women’s prisons. “Shackles, sexual violence, humiliation.” they write, “Sounds like a medieval torture chamber, but it’s modern life for many women in prisons across America.” To read the full article, click here.

To order our latest title, Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons, click here.

Join editor Robin Levi and legendary human rights activist Angela Davis in conversation at the Hammer Museum

Event Details:

December 1st, 7:00 pm

The Hammer Museum

10899 Wilshire, Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024

Join Robin Levi, co-editor of Inside This Place, Not of It and Human Rights Director of Justice Now in conversation with activist Angela Davis. Davis’ recent work has focused on incarceration and the criminalization of communities that are most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. Her recent books are Abolition Democracy: Beyond Incarceration, Torture and Empire and Are Prisons Obsolete? For more information on this free event, click here.

This week, the Huffington Post featured a review of our latest title Inside This Place, Not of It, edited by Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi and created in partnership with Justice Now.

In it, author Meg Waite Clayton writes:

“These narratives are incredibly compelling. To me, they are a reminder of how thin the line is between those of us who thrive and those of us who struggle, and how much our lives can be changed as a result of bad circumstances, bad choices, or bad luck.” Click here to read the full review.

Last weekend, Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi, editors of Inside This Place, Not of It were interviewed by bestselling author Caroline Leavitt (Pictures of You) about the origins and process of creating this groundbreaking new book. They discuss the roadblocks to conducting interviews inside prisons, the perseverance and strength of the narrators, and more.

To see why Caroline called Inside This Place, Not of It, “nothing short of extraordinary”, click here.

In light of the immigration crackdown in Alabama this fall,  Susan Straight has written an article for the Los Angeles Times, Immigration: For the sake of the children, about the sacrifices made by parents to secure better futures for their children.

“This is what I learned in Mexico: that parents will make any sacrifice for their children. Why do so many come across the border illegally? If you told me that one of my daughters would die young after stepping on a nail in a village without a doctor, or that my girls would have to leave school because they were needed to work and support the family, or that they would be in danger every day from drug …