A new literary anthology, Arriving: Freedom Writings by Asian and Pacific Islanders, highlights powerful stories from individuals impacted by incarceration—including nine current and former Mount Tamalpais College (MTC) students. Published by the Asian Prisoner Support Committee (APSC), the collection features work by MTC alumni John Lam, Ke Lam, Chanthon Bun, Eusebio Gonzalez, Hieu Nguyen, Phoeun You, Nou Phang Thao, Si Dang, and current student Kamsan Suon.
The anthology includes contributions from more than 30 individuals of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) descent, exploring themes of identity, memory, and freedom. Many of them contributed to the anthology while incarcerated at San Quentin while participating in a multi-year writing, editing, and mentorship process.
John Lam, an MTC alumnus and lead organizer of the project at APSC, spoke with MTC about the journey of bringing Arriving to life—and the deep connection between this literary effort and the educational foundation provided by Mount Tamalpais College.
“The book offers really diverse perspectives of how people are doing time,” Lam shared. “How they’re capturing memory, how they are holding their family remembrance, and the yearning for life when they get out, in terms of what freedom looks like.”
According to Lam, the anthology is also a testament to the power of higher education.
“Mount Tam gave [the alumni contributors] the tools, in a lot of ways, to express the thoughts and feelings that they shared in this book,” he said. “Two of them pursued graduate studies after MTC—one is currently at UC Berkeley, and the other earned a Master’s in Social Work from San Jose State.”
Founded in 2002 by MTC alumni Eddie Zhang, Viet Mike Ngo, and Rico Riemedio, the Asian Prisoner Support Committee emerged from an urgent call for ethnic studies programming at San Quentin. Despite major institutional barriers, the group’s advocacy laid the foundation for what would become APSC: an organization dedicated to supporting incarcerated API communities through anti-deportation advocacy, reentry services, and cultural education.
In 2013, APSC launched ROOTS (Restoring Our Original True Selves), an Ethnic Studies program designed specifically for incarcerated API individuals. Now in its tenth cohort, ROOTS brings together outside professors and community facilitators with incarcerated participants in a collaborative learning model. With many participants also enrolled in MTC courses, the program complements the college’s academic offerings while creating a vital space for cultural education, identity exploration, and community-building.
As part of APSC’s ongoing commitment to supporting and uplifting the voices of incarcerated API individuals, Arriving serves as a follow-up to an earlier anthology published nearly 20 years ago—one of the group’s first major efforts to document and share the lived experiences of API communities inside. Bringing the second anthology to life took four years of collaboration between incarcerated contributors and outside mentors.
Lam hopes Arriving will allow readers to connect with the humanity of those behind and beyond bars.
“It’s really an arc of transformation,” he said. “You’ve got individuals who are still serving decades in prison, and then you’ve got folks who contributed to the book and are now out. It really captures the different phases of humanity.”
To learn more about Arriving: Freedom Writings by Asian and Pacific Islanders and the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, visit www.asianprisonersupport.com.
