Cambria resident Juan Luzuriaga is more than just a dog trainer and treat provider in San Luis Obispo County. Twice a week, he helps inmates of the California Men’s Colony hone their creative writing skills as part of the rehabilitative process.
“I have family members that have spent a long time in prison, and I’ve always been interested in the rehabilitation aspects,” he said. “I believe in rehabilitation as an avenue to stop recidivism, you know, in individuals coming back into prison.”
With an academic background in neuroscience and English, Luzuriaga taps into his writing prowess to give back to the community.
Since 2022, when he lived in Merced, he’s worked in the field of restorative justice through a nonprofit called the We Heart Art Academy. It employs local trained teachers to implement visual, literary, and performing arts programs for incarcerated people within local California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation institutions. A professor at UC Merced approached Luzuriaga and recommended teaching in prisons. Soon enough, he connected with We Heart Art Academy.
Every Saturday after a week of university classes, Luzuriaga would drive an hour to Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown and spend five hours teaching inmates how to express themselves through prose and poetry.
“I had to work with two groups. They separated them to maximum security and common population,” he said. “But for Williams James Association, which is the one that I work with now, I just see one big group, essentially.”
Luzuriaga was keen to continue his prison-teaching practice even after moving to SLO County. He’s now part of the long line of instructors belonging to the William James Association’s 47-year-old Prison Arts Project. The project sponsors arts programs that help prepare the incarcerated to successfully rejoin their communities. As of 2017, all of California’s 35 prisons have fine arts programs that serve its prisoners.
The William James Association didn’t respond to New Times‘ request for comment.
At the California Men’s Colony, roughly 30 inmates from ages 18 to 80 meet Luzuriaga on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. What started out as poetry classes blossomed into songwriting, prose composition, and memoir writing based on feedback from the students. They dabble in short story writing, learning about formatting and literary devices, writing techniques, and finding their narrative voices.
“The biggest part of the class is that we share the pieces that we write, and we read them out loud,” Luzuriaga said. “One of the most important things is to learn how to handle criticism, right? We learn how to work with our emotions.”
He added that the restorative justice aspect of writing examines the cause and effect of crimes that the students committed without delving into the details of the criminal activities. Rather, the focus is on the impacts of the crimes, ways to repair them, and find accountability.
“There was another student that didn’t even say a word at the beginning. I was like, ‘Maybe, they don’t speak,'” Luzuriaga said. “Later on, they just started talking, and now this is one of the most active people in the classroom.”
Tolerance has been the most eye-catching result of Luzuriaga’s creative writing classes. Students who were restless, disruptive, and rude at the beginning of the program appeared calmer and more interactive as they continued to show up, he said.
“People are developing new friendships, and, you know, they’re looking at each other differently,” Luzuriga said. “Somebody was talking about religion, and then I mentioned we all can have different religions. It doesn’t mean that we’re enemies. It’s just we believe different things, and that’s OK.”
While Luzuriaga never trained to specifically teach creative writing in prisons, he polishes his skills by frequently attending conferences and workshops. This year, he was a panelist at the Central Coast Writers Conference and will be attending the San Francisco Writers Conference in 2025.
Working as a teacher threw some learning curves for Luzuriaga, too. He had to embrace an overarching theme of prison: working with what you have.
“For example, I want to put on a performance next week. We can’t do that,” he said. “We have to go through the proper channels and everything, which is understandable. … Now, I have to kind of shift to see how [to] do that.”
Still, Luzuriaga credits the Men’s Colony staff with being an accommodating and positive group. He told New Times that the William James Association originally wasn’t interested in setting up another writing program, this time in SLO County. But Men’s Colony Community Resource Manager Mike Flores became an advocate for the program after Luzuriaga spoke to him, prompting the association to bring it to fruition. Flores didn’t reply to New Times‘ request for comment.
The William James Association also pays Luzuriaga for his services, even offering him supplies for his classes and acting as a resource for when he has questions.
Luzuriaga’s students unearthed writing as a powerful tool thanks to his classes. Several inmates, he said, informed him that the knowledge they gained would have helped them in the past.
“For the most part, the inmates don’t have a voice,” Luzuriaga said. “It’s not like they’re out in the world putting things on social media. I kind of wanted to hear about those silenced voices.” Δ
Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Nov 14-24, 2024.