Winning against the odds

Former inmate's journey from cell to helping others is inspirational, May Zhou reports in Austin, Texas.

Invited by SXSW to speak at its conference held from March 11-20 in Austin, Texas, Eddy Zheng, founder and president of New Breath Foundation, could easily be taken as yet another successful Asian American among many.

Spending 19 years in prison for a home invasion crime he committed when he was a teen, Zheng is anything but a stereotypical model Asian American－well-educated, with a good job and good pay.

Zheng immigrated with his family to the United States from Guangzhou and settled in Oakland, California, in 1982 when he was 12.His parents were busy making a living, and he became a latchkey kid, mostly alone with limited English.

"It was challenging. I didn't understand what the teacher was talking about. There was nothing to help me adjust to the culture and education system," Zheng says.

As a teenager who left a familiar environment and all his connections, he needed to find a place to belong and fell in with other delinquent immigrant kids who also didn't conform with mainstream society.

At 16, he and a few other teenagers committed a home-invasion crime against an Asian American family. The crime escalated and turned into a kidnapping and robbery. He was caught, charged and tried as an adult.

Without much understanding of the American penal system, he admitted to his crime following his parents' advice, assuming that, by doing so, he would get a lighter sentence. After just three and a half years in the US, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

In the prison system, Zheng noticed the segregation of incarcerated Asian Americans. "It doesn't matter where we come from, if we don't fit into the category of white, black or Hispanic, we are just lumped as 'others'. The over representation of black and brown in the prison system overshadows any other smaller minority," he says.

When he first entered prison, he focused on how to navigate the system and survive. "I had no idea of the ripple effect of my actions on the victims, myself, my family and the community," Zheng says.

Fortunately, the importance of education, one of the core values shared by many Asian Americans, was drilled into Zheng by his parents and grandparents. It ended up saving him from his situation.