The first TRUST-sponsored Spanish-speaking anger management graduation was held in San Quentin’s Catholic chapel. The ceremony is one of only a few programs exclusively dedicated to the Spanish speakers at San Quentin.
The celebration was nothing like the average self-help graduation that numerous groups put on within the walled city. There was no food, no drinks, and no deluge of musical performances or acceptance speeches. Instead, a soft, soothing prayer by retired probation officer (and outside sponsor and instructor) Erich Plate Montes filled the surrounding space as he and his co-instructor, Arnold Chaves, D. Ed., joined hands in circle fashion with their graduating class.
The calm, quiet atmosphere created by the chapel’s vacant pews, an altar, and relief sculpture of Christ’s crucified body — symbols that normally contribute to the church’s serenity — was analogous to what the men learned during the 12-week course curriculum.
The program was geared to help the men learn “acceptable ways of expressing anger by gaining a better understanding of self,” said Chaves. The men also learned “stress tips” like the “3-second rule,” a self-talk strategy designed to challenge a decision before an action. The program also focused on the importance of communicating and understanding “war words versus win words,” added Chaves.
But the peace and tranquility that both the chapel and Montes’ prayer provided at the ceremony’s start was quickly filled with laughter and smiles as the men, both young and old from different parts of Latin America, relished their accomplishments.
Pablo Ramirez from Guerrero, Mexico, who is currently serving a 34-to-life sentence for attempted murder, said, “I learned that there are four different styles of communication: aggressive, assertive, passive and passive-aggressive. I was passive. I let people walk all over me. I held in my feelings until one day, I exploded.” Ramirez finished by saying, “Through the program I now better understand what caused me to commit the crime that led me to prison.”
Toward the ceremony’s end, Chaves reminded the men of the importance of effective communication and said, “Remember the story of the little girl and her father.” As it was told, a girl had two big, shiny red apples that her little hands could barely manage. Her father asked for one and before she gave one over, she bit into both, whereupon she was quickly criticized for being a greedy spoiled brat. Turns out, all she wanted was to give her father the sweetest one. Effective communication is key and an important concept the 19 graduates learned in the program.
Graduate Manuel Murillo has spent 30 years behind California prison walls — the last three at San Quentin. During these three years, he has been involved in more programs at San Quentin than he was able to during the 27 years he spent at other prisons. And yet, though he learned much through the 12-week process, he thinks there’s still a problem. “There are a limited number of programs offered to the Spanish-speaking community,” Murillo said. “I learned enough English to get involved in other programs, but the rest of the Spanish speakers are left out.”
There’s no doubt that the program was a tremendous help to the graduating men. But given the considerable percentage of the prison population whose first language is not English, the shortage of programs for them creates great difficulty when they have to face the Board of Prison Terms with little to no self-help programming.
These 19 graduates were “hungry to learn” said Chaves. And they gained the tools to “process anger before anger turns violent,” added Miguel Saldana, another incarcerated graduate striving to be a better person and ultimately, a freed one, in a pro-programming institution that has yet to break the language barrier.
