"On Father’s Day, as I sweated with a group of Native inmates in a Monroe prison sweat lodge for the Summer Change of Seasons, I thought of my father, and how he had emerged from prison with a broken spirit.

I thought of Christmas 1975, when my mom was six months pregnant with me, and my dad was in the county jail, and headed to serve time in the Walla Walla State Penitentiary. He was released, a bitter version of his former self, when I was 1. In prison, the pain he suffered from a childhood of abuse and neglect and the animosity he felt towards the state fermented into a full-blown self-destructive personality, which prevented my parents from being together, and me from meeting him until I was 8.

I realized that although my dad and I grew to become friends, we were never truly father and son. He passed on three years ago, at 56, from liver cirrhosis.

I also thought of my mom, who followed my dad’s correctional path over 20 years later, serving two stints in the Purdy women’s prison from 1998 – 2000. Her hitch corresponded with my three years of law school. I remembered when, after I graduated, she was released into my custody because Clallam County wouldn’t have her back. Now, 10 years on, I am her legal guardian. She is 60, but suffers from schizophrenia and depression caused by more than 40 years of self-medication.

Neither my dad nor my mom nurtured their spiritual selves in prison. They found no peace in prison, and they left the system with broken spirits.

As I sweated with men who had already served far longer than my mom or dad, I realized that my parents’ years in prison – especially my fathers’ – forever changed my path, for the better. Even more profoundly, as the inmates around me sang and prayed, I knew that I had been called to Monroe that day to complete the circle; by helping them defend and advance their cultural and religious rights so that unlike my parents they might come out of prison with a chance at spiritual well-being."

Get the Story:
Gabe Galanda: Completing the circle: Advancing Native inmate religious rights (Indian Country Today 9/8)