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Speaker 3: Let's go to the.
Speaker 2: Show, Dear listener, I hope you enjoyed the holiday with
Speaker 2: your loved ones. It's such a special time, but you know,
Speaker 2: many people simply can't do that, people like Mary Estrada,
Speaker 2: for example, and that's because Mary's husband, Robert, is in prison.
Speaker 2: And it's often women like Mary who carry the burden
Speaker 2: of taking care of their incarcerated loved ones. Since we
Speaker 2: first aired this story in twenty twenty three, Mary has
Speaker 2: suffered another loss.
Speaker 3: And I just got telling her, I'm here, Mom's here,
Speaker 3: How Mom's going to fix it? And I couldn't fix it.
Speaker 2: We'll tell you more about that and how Mary's doing
Speaker 2: today at the end of our show. From Fudro Media,
Speaker 2: It's Latino USA II Mariegnosa Today Mary's Journey, an intimate
Speaker 2: look at the financial and emotional burden that women carry
Speaker 2: when they have the loved one behind bars. One in
Speaker 2: four people in the United States have a family member
Speaker 2: behind bars, and those carrying this financial and emotional weight
Speaker 2: are disproportionately women who are not white.
Speaker 4: Good morning, How are you mat her thirty? That's fine.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't tell how early in the morning it is.
Speaker 1: By the way Mary Estrada looks, she has a perfect
Speaker 1: blowout with some waves framing her round, delicately made up face.
Speaker 3: It is cold, yeah, very cold.
Speaker 1: I can hardly see her dark eyes under the extra
Speaker 1: large eyelash extensions.
Speaker 3: So today is Sunday. It is six forty one in
Speaker 3: the morning. We're in Pomona, California, leaving my house to
Speaker 3: go visit my husband in San Diego at R. J.
Speaker 3: Donovan Prison.
Speaker 1: Mary is fifty seven years old and she's been with
Speaker 1: Robert Estrada since they were teenagers. She started visiting her
Speaker 1: husband in prison some forty years ago. Robert has been
Speaker 1: in and out of prison all of his adult life.
Speaker 1: This is what most weekends look like for Mary. On Saturdays,
Speaker 1: she gets on a video call with Robert. On Sundays,
Speaker 1: she drives one hundred and thirty five miles each way
Speaker 1: to see him in prison.
Speaker 3: So this is my ritual when I go see my husband,
Speaker 3: sect to get about three o'clock in the morning, just
Speaker 3: to make sure you get their own time. If there's
Speaker 3: no traffic, because I'm drive fast, I get there about
Speaker 3: I would say an hour and twenty minutes. But if
Speaker 3: I go with the speed limit, I'll get there in
Speaker 3: two hours. So today I'll go with the speed limit.
Speaker 1: Robert is currently being held at Richard J. Donovan Correctional
Speaker 1: Facility in San Diego, where he's serving a forty two
Speaker 1: year sentence involving the use of a gun during a
Speaker 1: robbery and voluntary manslaughter. We won't get into details about
Speaker 1: his case because that's not what this story is about.
Speaker 1: It isn't about the harsh experience of being incarcerated either,
Speaker 1: and we're not trying to undermine their reality or compare
Speaker 1: it with that of their partners outside. Robert has served
Speaker 1: eleven years so far, and he's expected to stay in
Speaker 1: prison until at least thirty seven. Mary is wearing what
Speaker 1: she calls her prison clothes. Dress code is very strict
Speaker 1: for prison visitors. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,
Speaker 1: or CDCR, advises to dress conservatively and modestly, which means
Speaker 1: no short skirts, no tight pants, no blue jeans or
Speaker 1: hair extensions. Mary wears an airy white dress with some
Speaker 1: embroidered flowers below the knee and a black V shaped sweater.
Speaker 1: On her chest hangs a silver crucifix. Her nails are
Speaker 1: extra long and Barbie pink with glitter butterflies on her
Speaker 1: ring fingers.
Speaker 3: Nails look great, Oh thank you. I took them off
Speaker 3: for like about two weeks and I couldn't even type.
Speaker 3: And I told my husband. I just said, oh, you're
Speaker 3: working on a car again. He calls my hands mechandicts
Speaker 3: when I don't have nails on. But yeah, I have
Speaker 3: to have my nails on. I think I'm a diva.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can't lose yourself to this life. It's
Speaker 3: like you still have to get up and get ready.
Speaker 1: After many years working as an accountant for private companies,
Speaker 1: Mary recently started working for the County of Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: She hasn't told her colleagues that Robert is in prison yet.
Speaker 1: For Mary, being able to take care of Robert was
Speaker 1: always above any job requirement.
Speaker 3: I've always told them during my interviews, I need to
Speaker 3: take phone calls when it comes in. There's no way
Speaker 3: can I miss those phone calls. And I have to
Speaker 3: take certain days off. And if you guys can't meet that,
Speaker 3: please let me know now, and I won't take the job.
Speaker 1: Mary says she turned down at least two jobs for
Speaker 1: that reason. Starty from the se Justice Group, a nonprofit
Speaker 1: supporting women with incarcerated loved ones, found that nearly half
Speaker 1: of the women who are taking care of someone in
Speaker 1: prison changed their personal plans and careers to support their
Speaker 1: loved ones needs. Many of them end up working more
Speaker 1: hours or switching jobs so that they can pick up
Speaker 1: their calls or visit them often. So tell me what
Speaker 1: are we looking at?
Speaker 3: So we're looking at my photo album.
Speaker 1: On the glass table in Pomona, where Mary lives with
Speaker 1: her sister and her dog. There are three fat photo albums.
Speaker 3: And these are pictures YouTube in the prison. Yes, and
Speaker 3: the visits. Oh my god, there's so much, so many.
Speaker 1: Mary was born in the Philippines, but she grew up
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. She went to high school with Robert's sister.
Speaker 1: Robert is two years younger than Mary. They were both
Speaker 1: teenagers when they started dating, but they would break up
Speaker 1: and get back together often.
Speaker 3: I was a troubled child, rebellious. I didn't complete high school.
Speaker 3: I was molested, and it just took a lot out
Speaker 3: of me.
Speaker 1: Mary started drinking when she was twelve years old. At
Speaker 1: the same age, a family member introduced her to drugs.
Speaker 1: She smoked PCP or angel dust. She also did cocaine,
Speaker 1: acid snorted heroin. She spent two nights in jail for
Speaker 1: the first time at the age of eighteen for stealing
Speaker 1: clothes at them all.
Speaker 3: I think with the drugs, I just buried my pain
Speaker 3: in there, and every time I thought of my childhood,
Speaker 3: it just, you know, it ripped me apart, and it
Speaker 3: still does.
Speaker 1: Robert's childhood wasn't easy either. He grew up in the
Speaker 1: San Fernando Valley, a majority Latino area. His mother is Mexican,
Speaker 1: his father is Italian Mexican.
Speaker 3: His mother, she had custody of him, but she wasn't nurturing.
Speaker 3: His father introduced him to drugs at the age of ten.
Speaker 3: So my husband was like a throwaway kid, and he
Speaker 3: just he grew up in the streets just doing drugs.
Speaker 3: So everybody could tell me, why are you with him,
Speaker 3: He's bad news. Leave him. I didn't see that in him.
Speaker 3: I saw a kind gentleman.
Speaker 1: Robert joined a gang, he started selling drugs, doing carjack strawberries.
Speaker 1: When he was eighteen, he went to prison for the
Speaker 1: first time as an adult. He ended up in solitary
Speaker 1: confinement for about a week, so they couldn't talk, and
Speaker 1: Mary missed him. She says that's the moment she realized
Speaker 1: she was in love with him. I've never not had
Speaker 1: a boyfriend, and with him, it was just so different.
Speaker 1: There was a connection that I can't even explain. It's
Speaker 1: like this guy took my heart.
Speaker 3: I knew that I was going to be with him
Speaker 3: for the rest of my life, whether he was out
Speaker 3: here or in there.
Speaker 1: Mary started spending most of her weekends as an adult
Speaker 1: visiting Robert in prison. She would go wherever he was
Speaker 1: being held, like Sacramento, which was a nine hour drive
Speaker 1: for Mary.
Speaker 4: What would your family.
Speaker 3: Or your friends say that I was stupid for doing
Speaker 3: this journey, for visiting him. They said that I could
Speaker 3: do better, But he can't control what your heart feels,
Speaker 3: and this is who my heart wanted.
Speaker 1: Mary's family would organize trips every once in a while
Speaker 1: to Hawaii to Memphis to visit Graceland Elvis's house, but
Speaker 1: Mary refused to join them.
Speaker 3: Because I didn't want to leave my husband behind. He
Speaker 3: can't go, So if he can't go, then why am
Speaker 3: I going to go. I'm not gonna have fun. I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna think about him. So I'd rather be here
Speaker 3: with him where I could visit him. Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Speaker 3: and Sunday.
Speaker 1: Mary was working three jobs at the time, and she
Speaker 1: would juggle her schedules around so that she could leave early.
Speaker 3: It was always on his schedule. It was about him.
Speaker 3: And you know what, ninety nine percent of the prison
Speaker 3: community with the wives and the girlfriends, are the same way.
Speaker 3: We have to get those phone calls, we have to
Speaker 3: get those appointments, we have to see them.
Speaker 1: Flipping through the albums, I see a photo where Mary
Speaker 1: and Robert are kissing.
Speaker 3: Oh that one. Yeah, that's when kissing was allowed and
Speaker 3: now they don't allow it. It's not here's one of us.
Speaker 3: Here's one of us making out. Oh who uses that word? God,
Speaker 3: it was so long. This is in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 3: November ninety two. That's his writing, his nice penmanship. This
Speaker 3: when I was pregnant.
Speaker 1: Mary had her daughter Samantha at twenty five years old,
Speaker 1: and she gave birth on her own. California is one
Speaker 1: of only four states that still allow conjugal visits. For Samantha,
Speaker 1: growing up while her dad was in prison was tough.
Speaker 1: All she remembers is going to visit him there.
Speaker 3: She because you stole my childhood away from me, and
Speaker 3: I felt bad. I felt bad. She didn't have a
Speaker 3: relationship with her dad for a long time. She hated him.
Speaker 3: She wouldn't speak to him because of what he's put
Speaker 3: me through.
Speaker 1: The year nineteen ninety six was a turning point for Mary.
Speaker 1: She spent four months in jail on drug charges. Mary
Speaker 1: felt the only way she could work on herself and
Speaker 1: get sober was to leave Robert, who was still using drugs.
Speaker 1: They were apart for ten years, then in two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, she visited him in prison and decided to
Speaker 1: get back together. Things got better over time with Samantha
Speaker 1: as well. She has three children, and Mary says they
Speaker 1: visit Robert in prison when they're in California.
Speaker 3: Everybody tells me it's you put your life on hold,
Speaker 3: and it's still on hold. When are you gonna live?
Speaker 3: But this is living for me. I can't see my
Speaker 3: life without him. Speak of the devil.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm talking to Mary in her home. She gets
Speaker 1: one of those phone calls that puts everything on hold. Hello,
Speaker 1: you have from Robert and Mary chat about the problems
Speaker 1: with the food sold by the prison cafe. Families could
Speaker 1: only buy their fresh foods for their overnight visits also
Speaker 1: known as family visits. From one bender.
Speaker 4: You can't be.
Speaker 2: I'm taking great Here.
Speaker 3: We go.
Speaker 1: Married team tap with several other women to complain about
Speaker 1: the food vender. They say he was selling them rotten
Speaker 1: and expired food. They also point out that his prices
Speaker 1: are higher than at regular source.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Robert tells Mary that the news about the food complaints
Speaker 1: have spread inside Donovan as well.
Speaker 3: Okay good.
Speaker 1: Mary is the one leading this movement, as she calls it.
Speaker 1: Advocacy is a big part of Mary's life. She manages
Speaker 1: several Facebook groups for families of the incarcerated in California,
Speaker 1: and two of them are dedicated to R. J. Donovan,
Speaker 1: the San Diego prison. Mary says there are more than
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty people in the Donovan group and
Speaker 1: they're all well.
Speaker 3: That has to change as well, because the food is
Speaker 3: rotten in there, and then like when you guys have
Speaker 3: power outages, those machines go down, so all that melted
Speaker 3: ice cream is still sitting there, and then we're purchasing it.
Speaker 3: Why do you think I never eat the ice cream?
Speaker 3: I tell you to stop eating it.
Speaker 1: Mary created a food committee with six other women from
Speaker 1: her Facebook group. They reached out to the Department of
Speaker 1: Corrections and other agencies to complain about the vendor and
Speaker 1: ask if he was authorized to sell fresh food to families,
Speaker 1: among other issues. It's not the first time Mary's being
Speaker 1: vocal about the problems at Donovan. She's organized protests in
Speaker 1: front of the prison and talked to the media about
Speaker 1: Donovan's mismanagement during the pandemic. She has served as a
Speaker 1: family representative at the prison, and she speaks regularly with
Speaker 1: see the headquarters, and all of that affects Robert too.
Speaker 1: But Robert is very proud of Mary and her advocacy
Speaker 1: for the families. He says Mary is the only good
Speaker 1: thing that's ever happened to him, and that men at
Speaker 1: Donovan want their wives to be more like Mary, the
Speaker 1: way she's always there for him and fighting to make
Speaker 1: things better. Last Christmas Robert painted a portrait of Mary
Speaker 1: as a gift for her. In the painting, Mary wears
Speaker 1: a white hat with a blue ribbon that reads masterpiece.
Speaker 3: And I'm sorry because I know that this also puts you,
Speaker 3: like in a position. I'm not trying to get anybody
Speaker 3: in trouble. I just want what's right.
Speaker 1: You had six.
Speaker 3: I love you, all right, Yeah, I'm fine.
Speaker 5: Dark at the picture.
Speaker 3: Shut up with you in your stupid picture. I know,
Speaker 3: I think I love you. I love you, God, bless you, bye,
Speaker 3: honey God. I hate that prison always something. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I just get so passionate about it. You can call
Speaker 3: it puppy love. But he is my true love. He's
Speaker 3: my best friend. Even though he's in there, I can
Speaker 3: depend on him for anything. He's my backbone. He really is.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get try.
Speaker 2: Coming up on Latino, USA, we continue our journey with
Speaker 2: Mary to our J. Donovan Correctional facility, and along the
Speaker 2: way we meet another woman who's learning the ropes of
Speaker 2: being married to someone in prison. Stay with us, hey,
Speaker 2: we're back. Before the break. We began our journey to
Speaker 2: accompany Mary Estrada in one of her visits to R. J.
Speaker 2: Donovan that's the prison in San Diego where her husband,
Speaker 2: Robert is being held. Mary's been visiting and taking care
Speaker 2: of Robert in prison for forty years. Latino USA Senior
Speaker 2: producer Marta Martinez is back in the car with Mary.
Speaker 3: And we're going to join them now.
Speaker 1: Next to her car seat, Mary has a tiny plastic
Speaker 1: purse full of meds and doctor's notes. One of those notes,
Speaker 1: for example, states that she needs a special diet which
Speaker 1: allows her to bring her own food for family visits.
Speaker 1: Several women from Mary's Facebook group have doctor's notes too.
Speaker 3: How cones of heart failure six seven months ago. I
Speaker 3: went to go visit him and I felt really off.
Speaker 3: So when I got to my visit, my husband was
Speaker 3: worried because I kept dozing off. Then I ended up
Speaker 3: my visit earlier, but I couldn't even drive out, So
Speaker 3: when I went to the doctor, it showed that I
Speaker 3: had a mild heart attack.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: Having a loved one in prison damagist women's emotional and
Speaker 1: physical health. According to a study by the sy Justice Group,
Speaker 1: more than ninety percent of the way whose partners are
Speaker 1: incarcerated reported feeling anxiety, depression, migraines, insomnia, fatigue, and all
Speaker 1: of that can lead to more serious conditions in the
Speaker 1: long term too.
Speaker 3: I tell everybody this journey is not easy. Evaluate or
Speaker 3: reevaluate your lives before you do this journey, because there's
Speaker 3: no going back. It's time consuming, it's expensive.
Speaker 1: Mary says she makes seventy thousand dollars a year. It
Speaker 1: took her years to get out of debt keeping up
Speaker 1: with the costs of supporting Robert. A third of families
Speaker 1: who have a loved one in prison go into debt
Speaker 1: when they support them financially, according to a report of
Speaker 1: the Elebaker Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit group that
Speaker 1: focuses on organizing black, brown and low income people.
Speaker 3: He goes full store, it's two forty a month.
Speaker 1: Every month, Mary puts two hundred and forty dollars in
Speaker 1: Robert's commissary account so that he can buy additional food
Speaker 1: like soups, tortillas, packaged meat, to keys, and hygiene products.
Speaker 1: Mary says food serve that the prison is not enough
Speaker 1: and it's often unhealthy. No fresh fruits or vegetables, sometimes
Speaker 1: even expired or rotten. So many incarcerated people rely on
Speaker 1: commissary food for their diets. Mary worries about Robert sayet
Speaker 1: a lot because she says he has stage four cirrhosis
Speaker 1: and stage three kidney failure.
Speaker 3: I buy his quarterly packages.
Speaker 1: Families can send care packages whenever they want. They can
Speaker 1: only do that every three months, but there's a catch.
Speaker 1: These packages can only be bought through third party vendors
Speaker 1: authorized by the prison. Through them, families are allowed to
Speaker 1: buy essentials like pre good foods and hygien products, but
Speaker 1: also clothes, electronics, and even wedding rings. But the items
Speaker 1: in these catalogs are often more expensive than they would
Speaker 1: be at a regular supermarket, sometimes even double like the
Speaker 1: pre cooked Spanish rise Robert Blakesweet, Mary and other women
Speaker 1: told me they spend between two hundred and four hundred
Speaker 1: dollars on each quarterly package.
Speaker 3: And then you have to pay for the phone calls.
Speaker 3: Before it was just straight collect calls, so when he
Speaker 3: was in County jail, a fifteen minute phone call would
Speaker 3: be like almost twenty five dollars for me.
Speaker 1: Phone calls are one of the biggest money drains for
Speaker 1: families in California. At the start of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: phone calls became free of charge for people incarcerated in
Speaker 1: state prisons. Before then, families were paying an estimated sixty
Speaker 1: eight million a year in prison phone calls. California is
Speaker 1: only one of four states in the country which have
Speaker 1: made state prison calls free. The Prison Policy Initiative, a
Speaker 1: nonprofit research group, estimated that families across the US spend
Speaker 1: nearly three billion dollars yes with a B every year
Speaker 1: in commissary fees and phone calls. And then of course
Speaker 1: Mary has to pay for the gas to go visit
Speaker 1: Robert every weekend, and the food she'll get from the
Speaker 1: vending machine there because they aren't allowed to bring their
Speaker 1: own food. A hamburger, for example, is eight.
Speaker 3: Dollars, So on an average a month, I would spend
Speaker 3: maybe like a little over fifteen hundred, plus I have
Speaker 3: to pay what I have here, so it's been hard.
Speaker 1: Mary lives with her sister. They own the house in Pomona,
Speaker 1: so she doesn't have to pay rent, but she still
Speaker 1: has to pay for her own expenses, her car, her dog,
Speaker 1: all of that, making seventy thousand dollars a year. For
Speaker 1: a long time, Mary also took care of their daughter, Samantha.
Speaker 1: Seventy percent of women who have incarcerated loved ones are
Speaker 1: the only breadwinners in their families.
Speaker 3: And there were times where I couldn't go because I
Speaker 3: didn't have any money, and he would just tell me,
Speaker 3: I don't have to eat, just come and see me
Speaker 3: because I want to see you. So we would do that.
Speaker 1: If that wasn't enough. In the majority of cases, it's
Speaker 1: women who end up paying for their loved ones restitution.
Speaker 3: Restituition is no joke.
Speaker 1: Restitution is the money convicted people have to pay back
Speaker 1: for the damage they caused, both to the victims and
Speaker 1: to the state. The way California collects that money is
Speaker 1: that they take fifty percent of the money family's food
Speaker 1: in the incarcerated person's account, like the money they use
Speaker 1: for the prison store or commissary.
Speaker 3: So I would have to put five hundred dollars every
Speaker 3: three weeks for him to get full store. So a
Speaker 3: lot of the families couldn't afford that. That's highway robbery.
Speaker 3: It took me, I want to say, six years to
Speaker 3: pay off his restitution.
Speaker 1: Robert's restitution was ten thousand dollars. The average dead families
Speaker 1: end up with for court related fines and fees is
Speaker 1: close to fourteen thousand dollars. Mary would often max out
Speaker 1: her credit cards without telling Robert.
Speaker 3: But all the money that I put into my husband
Speaker 3: from the age of eighteen till now, I'd be a
Speaker 3: multi millionaire.
Speaker 1: Family visits are another expensive piece of the relationship puzzle,
Speaker 1: but also one of the most coveted because it's the
Speaker 1: only time spouses can be together with their family members
Speaker 1: for two days and nights without supervision. Mary says she
Speaker 1: usually spends more than five hundred dollars on a family visit,
Speaker 1: the food, the gas, and she has them every three
Speaker 1: months or so.
Speaker 3: But what are we going to do? Because we want
Speaker 3: to be there and the families will pay that price.
Speaker 1: Less than an hour after starting our drive south, we
Speaker 1: take an exit into another suburban area.
Speaker 3: We're also on the way to pick up my carpooler
Speaker 3: who is also going to RG Donovan. Her name's Yvette.
Speaker 1: Yvette Carrion is also a member of Mary's Facebook group
Speaker 1: and one of the youngest wives in it. She's thirty
Speaker 1: five years old.
Speaker 3: She is I hae it.
Speaker 1: She's a second generation Latina. Her family is from the
Speaker 1: Mexican state of Sinaloa.
Speaker 5: Okay, So I'm trying there's new growndy marys, so you know,
Speaker 5: just in case. Okay, Well it's wireless, but it has
Speaker 5: the pastic clips around the straps.
Speaker 4: Yes, will it set off teller?
Speaker 5: No, A lot of girls wear on home.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: As soon as she gets in the car. This is
Speaker 1: the first thing Yvette asks Mary about her bra.
Speaker 3: Okay, that dress code at the prison is it's crazy.
Speaker 3: You have to be with their guidelines.
Speaker 4: Like you can't wear regular bra no because of the wires, yep,
Speaker 4: and the buckles. I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I hadn't realized how intimately prison rules these women's lives
Speaker 1: down to their underwear.
Speaker 5: It's still grady you to say. I feel like they
Speaker 5: treat us the way like they treat them. They don't
Speaker 5: view us any differently. We're like inmates on time out.
Speaker 1: We reached out to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Speaker 1: about this. In a statement, they said that they recommend
Speaker 1: visitors to arrive at least one hour early for processing.
Speaker 1: That's when anyone who enters the facility is searched for
Speaker 1: potential contraband. Prison officials say it is a necessary step
Speaker 1: to ensure the safety of incarcerated individuals and that they
Speaker 1: follow the same rules at each prison.
Speaker 4: I need to be married.
Speaker 5: Do you remember the first time I see Mary, she
Speaker 5: was pissed off sitting in that lobby, and I was
Speaker 5: just like what I was looking at her?
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, dang, she really is me.
Speaker 5: And then I finally introduced myself to her, and then
Speaker 5: we just started talking more and then carpulling together. I
Speaker 5: appreciate Mary because I would be so lost with this
Speaker 5: whole journey because there's a lot of things we don't know,
Speaker 5: not even tell my husband sometimes, like like, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: ask Mary, and he's like, you always ask Mary.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, yeah, she knows a lot. I'm like
Speaker 4: new to all this.
Speaker 1: Yvette and Jonathan went to high school together, but back
Speaker 1: then they were just friends. Jonathan went to prison and
Speaker 1: when he was eighteen. He's been in there for twenty years.
Speaker 1: Yvette had four children with another partner, then separated. She
Speaker 1: reconnected with Jonathan and they started talking on the phone
Speaker 1: more and more often. Four years ago, she started visiting
Speaker 1: him in prison.
Speaker 5: I never came to visit anyone in prison. I ended
Speaker 5: up coming with him, and then I fall in love
Speaker 5: with my husband and we got married.
Speaker 1: Yvette says she spends close to one thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: month to support Jonathan. She's also a full time mom
Speaker 1: to four children under the age of nineteen, and she's
Speaker 1: finishing her bachelor's degree in social work. She recently started
Speaker 1: a new job as a social worker working with children.
Speaker 4: That's one thing, he said.
Speaker 5: He never wants to get in the way of my career,
Speaker 5: and he loves that I care about kids the way
Speaker 5: I do, he says, that's one thing he admires about me.
Speaker 1: Yvette hasn't told many of her colleagues that her husband
Speaker 1: is in prison.
Speaker 5: Not everyone knows because right when I started, I felt
Speaker 5: like I was judged right away, just by the way
Speaker 5: I look my makeup.
Speaker 1: If it has several tattoos on her arms and her chest.
Speaker 1: On the base of her right thumb there's a rose
Speaker 1: and growing from its petals up to her knuckles, it
Speaker 1: says Jonathan.
Speaker 5: I don't want them to feel like me be married
Speaker 5: to him is gonna get in the way of my job,
Speaker 5: because I see how they talk about parents that are incarcerated.
Speaker 4: It's like they just look down on them.
Speaker 1: If it actually sees her experience as something that makes
Speaker 1: her better at her job, because she can see both
Speaker 1: sides in a situation.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like you have a double life.
Speaker 3: It is a double life. We have this life and
Speaker 3: then we have our outside life. And especially with work,
Speaker 3: you don't want to bring that out because you don't
Speaker 3: know what they're gonna say or think. It's like a
Speaker 3: big secret.
Speaker 4: People.
Speaker 3: They need to stop labeling others. Just like with us.
Speaker 3: We are educated and I'm happy with what I have.
Speaker 3: I may not make a lot of money, but I've
Speaker 3: accomplished a lot.
Speaker 1: Mary isn't afraid to face it. Institution like the California
Speaker 1: Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or CDCR. There are more
Speaker 1: than one hundred thousand people incarcerated in California, the highest
Speaker 1: number in the country after Texas.
Speaker 3: Like with these women, I push them. I always thought,
Speaker 3: exercise your Amendment rights. If you're not sure of it,
Speaker 3: look it up. Don't let them deter you from doing
Speaker 3: what you think is right. That's what advocacy is. If
Speaker 3: you feel that they're in the wrong, call them out
Speaker 3: on it. But before you call them out on it,
Speaker 3: make sure you have.
Speaker 4: Proof, you have facts.
Speaker 3: This journey's not easy, and especially when you're new to it,
Speaker 3: because you're blindsided by a lot of stuff, and you
Speaker 3: want that one person that does know it to help you.
Speaker 4: And that's Mary for a lot of us.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Because sometimes your regular friends are family, they don't really understand,
Speaker 5: so it's hard to talk to them when you're going
Speaker 5: through something and you need to because a lot of
Speaker 5: times you're just going to be judgmental and say negative
Speaker 5: things that you don't really want to hear. So it's
Speaker 5: helpful to have a friend that's another prison wife because
Speaker 5: they understand what you're going through.
Speaker 1: Yvette is also part of the food committee that Mary
Speaker 1: created from her Facebook group. Remember the complaints the women
Speaker 1: had about the vendor, who they say was selling them
Speaker 1: rotten food for their family visits and had no option
Speaker 1: but to buy from him. It's been over a month
Speaker 1: at this point since they started mobilizing around it. The
Speaker 1: women flagged over thirty complaints that families had been posting
Speaker 1: in the Facebook group over the last year and a
Speaker 1: half and sent them to CDCR. The women also called
Speaker 1: the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration and found
Speaker 1: out that the vendor didn't have a seller's permit.
Speaker 3: Now he can't sell to the families anymore. Because he
Speaker 3: doesn't have a seller's permit and he's only contracted to
Speaker 3: sell to the staff.
Speaker 1: We've tried to figure out who's responsible for vetting and
Speaker 1: approving the food vendor, but it's complicated. There are several
Speaker 1: state agencies and intermediaries involved. In this case, it was
Speaker 1: the Department of Rehabilitation, which is different from the Department
Speaker 1: of Corrections, who hired the food vendor to run Donovan's cafe.
Speaker 1: We were able to look at an agreement with the
Speaker 1: food vendor signed in two thousand and seven, where their
Speaker 1: signatures from both the Department of Rehabilitation and the Department
Speaker 1: of Corrections. We reached out to the food vendor for comment,
Speaker 1: but he referred us to the Department of Corrections or
Speaker 1: CDCR for any questions. We reached out to CDCR to
Speaker 1: ask who authorized the food vendor to sell fresh food
Speaker 1: to the families for their overnight visits, but they didn't
Speaker 1: provide any specific answers. They did confirm that the vendor
Speaker 1: has not provided any services to the incarcerated population or
Speaker 1: visitors since February twenty twenty three, that's the month when
Speaker 1: I accompanied Mary to the prison. In any case, it
Speaker 1: wasn't until the women investigated on on their own and
Speaker 1: found out that the vendor wasn't allowed to sell fresh
Speaker 1: food to families for their overnight visits. That state agencies
Speaker 1: finally took action.
Speaker 3: So this is the exit to get off to go
Speaker 3: to the prison.
Speaker 1: On the left side of the freeway. There are two
Speaker 1: big Amazon warehouses behind them, some impressive dark green mountains
Speaker 1: contrast with the dry planes were driving on.
Speaker 3: So it's super close.
Speaker 1: To the border.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Donovan is literally an exit away from the border.
Speaker 1: A group of concrete cubes emerges on the yellow plane,
Speaker 1: all circled with barbed wire. They're all two stories high,
Speaker 1: their windows long and unnecessarily narrow, like slacks on a
Speaker 1: wood floor.
Speaker 3: It just seems like I've been driving all day.
Speaker 1: Two hours after leaving Pomona, we have arrived at RJ.
Speaker 1: Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. We're inside the car
Speaker 1: approaching the entrance cabin where a guard is standing. Recording
Speaker 1: isn't allowed on the premises.
Speaker 4: You had to put your microphone. Yeah, this is r.
Speaker 2: Coming up on Latino USA. We find out how Mary
Speaker 2: and Yvette's visits with their husbands went, and during that visit,
Speaker 2: women get some unexpected news from the prison. Stay with us, Hey,
Speaker 2: we're back. Before the break, we were in the car
Speaker 2: driving with Mary Estrada and Yvette Carrion on their way
Speaker 2: to RJ. Donovan. That's the prison in San Diego where
Speaker 2: their husbands are incarcerated. We also learned about how Mary,
Speaker 2: Yvette and other women mobilized to complain about the food
Speaker 2: vendor who was serving for the family visits. They say
Speaker 2: this person was selling them rotten food. But will California's
Speaker 2: Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation take any action in response?
Speaker 2: Latino Usay senior producer Marta Martinez is going to pick
Speaker 2: up the story from here.
Speaker 1: It's almost nine am when we passed by the entrance.
Speaker 1: Five women and one child are lined up waiting to
Speaker 1: get in for their visits. Donovan didn't allow me to
Speaker 1: go inside the prison because I wasn't an approved visitor
Speaker 1: and recording audio isn't allowed inside the prison anyway, So
Speaker 1: I waited for Mary and Divette at a nearby cafe. Okay,
Speaker 1: more than four hours later, past one thirty pm, I
Speaker 1: jump back into Mary's car and just to hear about
Speaker 1: how their visits went. Maybe like there definitely know, but
Speaker 1: Mary is already on a call with the women from
Speaker 1: the Food Committee. While Mary and Yvette were inside visiting
Speaker 1: their husbands, Archie Donovan issued a new food menu for
Speaker 1: family visits.
Speaker 3: Yeah like you got its stop Yeah, all orange juice
Speaker 3: like those of beverages.
Speaker 1: Since the previous vendor can't sell food to families anymore
Speaker 1: because the women's complaints revealed that he didn't have a permit.
Speaker 1: Now Donovan has come up with a new menu, a
Speaker 1: very limited one.
Speaker 5: Or they had like frozen bags with chicken tenders and
Speaker 5: stuff like that.
Speaker 1: The new menu only has five items families can purchase
Speaker 1: for their two days days. Bananas a twenty five cents apiece,
Speaker 1: apples at fifty cents each, greenmel peppers at fifty cents apiece,
Speaker 1: bag salad for five dollars, and eggs six dollars for
Speaker 1: a dozen. That's all the fresh food families can eat
Speaker 1: for two days.
Speaker 3: We need to sit down with Donovan to discuss the
Speaker 3: prices and also the selections. And we can't throw out
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff out there because they're going to
Speaker 3: reject it.
Speaker 1: It's clear who the leader is. Mary jokes about how
Speaker 1: much officers at Donovan love her.
Speaker 5: I love you because you're here.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad that you guys were working while we
Speaker 3: weren't visiting.
Speaker 4: You guys are easy all the time. It never ends, it's.
Speaker 1: Always The women are very upset about the new food
Speaker 1: menu and how limited it is. Mary worries about the
Speaker 1: families who don't have doctor's notes like she does, and
Speaker 1: who now might have fewer fresh food options than they
Speaker 1: did before. This is an unexpected consequence of their advocacy.
Speaker 1: But Mary, he still thinks they did the right thing
Speaker 1: by exposing the vendor. They've been fighting for what they
Speaker 1: think is right to be treated with dignity, and now
Speaker 1: maybe some families will have it worse, or we'll get
Speaker 1: more doctor's notes. It seems that whatever the women are
Speaker 1: fighting to improve at Donovan, the outcome is never what
Speaker 1: they envisioned. So they pick up the next fight with
Speaker 1: a prison system that punishes them too. And it's exhausting.
Speaker 3: So tell me America did the visico this morning was
Speaker 3: hard and processing because they delayed me forty minutes. But
Speaker 3: other than that, after I got to the visiting yard,
Speaker 3: it was good. After seeing my husband, we talked about
Speaker 3: our family visit. What I was going to order for
Speaker 3: our food, and then we talked about our grandkids and
Speaker 3: how he wants to see them. I said, in the
Speaker 3: summer and they'll come. And then we talked about Yvette
Speaker 3: and her husband and that was about it.
Speaker 4: So you bet, can you tell me about how you're.
Speaker 5: In the beginning, it was bad because I waited for
Speaker 5: an hour for him to come out, and then when
Speaker 5: he did, I was just so upset. So I wasted
Speaker 5: another like twenty thirty minutes just be mad at him
Speaker 5: and arguing with him instead of enjoying my visit. What
Speaker 5: happened He decided to wait last minute to take a shower,
Speaker 5: And I think I need to be more understanding because
Speaker 5: he does really have ocdu when it comes to his hygiene.
Speaker 5: Sometimes I just feel like he just doesn't value my
Speaker 5: effort in my time sometimes, like I get it he
Speaker 5: cares about his looks and all that, but at the
Speaker 5: same time, we only get limited hours to be together
Speaker 5: during visits, so I just feel like they shouldn't be wasted,
Speaker 5: and I feel like sometimes he just takes that for granted,
Speaker 5: and I think that's pretty selfish.
Speaker 4: And yes I did when they be saying.
Speaker 5: That I need to be more understanding that he can't
Speaker 5: control everything, and he's always reminding me that he's in
Speaker 5: prison and there's rules. They don't get to just do
Speaker 5: whatever they want when they want.
Speaker 3: But then he.
Speaker 5: Apologized, and then I apologized, and we finished our visit
Speaker 5: really good. I'm just sitting there and talking about our
Speaker 5: upcoming family visit.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna work on being.
Speaker 5: More understanding and patient because I know sometimes I could
Speaker 5: be impatient as well.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to understand these women's unwavering commitment.
Speaker 1: I tell them, I don't think a lot of people
Speaker 1: could do it. They're also very open about their frustrations
Speaker 1: with their husbands, yet here they are most weekends.
Speaker 4: It's a big commitment. Yeah, it is very good. So
Speaker 4: why keep doing that? Why keep coming? Why keep taking
Speaker 4: care of him? Because I love him?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm in love with him, so I don't mind
Speaker 5: doing it. We can't help we and yes, like our
Speaker 5: loved ones, had made mistakes, but people do change, and
Speaker 5: not everyone in those walls are bad people. They're human,
Speaker 5: just like us, and everyone makes mistakes.
Speaker 1: Mary hents me a photo she took with Robert in
Speaker 1: the morning during her visit. When she gets home, Mary's
Speaker 1: gonna place the photo in one of her many albums
Speaker 1: that is also part of her ritual. Both Mary and
Speaker 1: Davette are already planning and saving for the family visit
Speaker 1: next month. They'll be spending two days and two nights
Speaker 1: inside Donovan Prison, on the other side of the barbed wire.
Speaker 1: I tell them that in a way, even when they're
Speaker 1: out here, it's like they're in prison too.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, believe me. When I fight with my husband,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I tell him, you think you're the
Speaker 3: fucking only one doing this journey. I said, I'm the
Speaker 3: one incarcerated with the financial burdens. You have it easy.
Speaker 3: And he gets all quiet because he knows it's true.
Speaker 1: Evening, so traffic is getting heavier on the never ending freeway.
Speaker 1: Mary decides to take a shortcut and drives through some
Speaker 1: secondary roads and then about an hour later we arrive
Speaker 1: at the wall or parking lot to drop off your bed.
Speaker 3: See, and your car is still hear you be and Mary,
Speaker 3: we gotta like really to protest because yes.
Speaker 5: They're annoying already. Bananas and pepper and eggs.
Speaker 3: That's hilarious.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, be careful.
Speaker 3: You see we left in the dark and we're coming
Speaker 3: back in the dark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty crazy. As the sky turns dark and
Speaker 1: the traffic gets heavier, the freeway becomes a strip of
Speaker 1: dancing white and red lights. Mary's face melts into the
Speaker 1: night as she drives, and then it gets illuminated again
Speaker 1: by the phone screen hanging below the rear mirror. The
Speaker 1: faces of three women appear on the screen. It's another
Speaker 1: impromptu meeting of the food committee.
Speaker 5: What menu, diarrhea, eggs and lettuce.
Speaker 1: The conversation makes the long journey back home more palatable.
Speaker 1: The questions for Mary keep coming, but so do the laughs,
Speaker 1: and there's also a sense of community. They're not doing
Speaker 1: this journey alone. Mary has found her calling. Mary says
Speaker 1: she's very proud of the women in her committee. It's
Speaker 1: the best committee she's ever had. The women are smart and.
Speaker 3: Fears Virginia, Jen Jasmine, Lisa, Yvette, Wanica. You know, they're
Speaker 3: all strong and they believe in the fighting, and that's
Speaker 3: what I need. I can't fight for everybody. They have
Speaker 3: to fight for themselves and for their loved ones. And
Speaker 3: it's hard to come across women that are one hundred
Speaker 3: percent and the prison life. The majority of the visitors
Speaker 3: are women. Then I had a conversation with my husband
Speaker 3: about that two weeks ago, and I told him I've
Speaker 3: had to put my life on hold all these years,
Speaker 3: so when is it going to be my chain to live?
Speaker 3: And his answer to me was, well, you knew what
Speaker 3: you were getting yourself into, which was a cheap shot.
Speaker 3: And I told him, you know, I don't have to
Speaker 3: be here. I choose to be here because I love you.
Speaker 3: But let's not get it twisted. Keep pushing me and
Speaker 3: you can do your journey by yourself. This is all
Speaker 3: I really know is how to be a prison wife,
Speaker 3: how to advocate for your rights. But as to having
Speaker 3: another relationship, I wouldn't even know how to deal with that,
Speaker 3: and I don't want to.
Speaker 1: At the end of the cul a Sac, we finally
Speaker 1: see Mary's house with its well kept long It's almost
Speaker 1: seven pm. It's been more than twelve hours since we
Speaker 1: started disturbed.
Speaker 3: Oh it's good to be home. Yeah I made it.
Speaker 4: Yes, Oh thank god.
Speaker 1: Once Mary gets inside, she's going to have to make
Speaker 1: more calls, answer more messages from her Facebook group, and
Speaker 1: then hopefully Robert will call to say good night. Luckily,
Speaker 1: tomorrow is President's Day, so she'll be able to rest
Speaker 1: a bit, but most weekends she won't be able to
Speaker 1: do that. She'll just go straight back to work, back
Speaker 1: to her other life.
Speaker 2: That was Mary's story as we aired it back in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. But our producer Marta recently caught up
Speaker 2: with Mary because well, she's been through a lot over
Speaker 2: the past couple of years, and there's some dramatic updates.
Speaker 1: Here's Martha again. Mary, it's so good to see you.
Speaker 3: Same here, really very very good to see you, and
Speaker 3: you look super beautiful. Oh thank you. That's very sweet.
Speaker 1: But I do notice that you've lost quite a lot
Speaker 1: of weight.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I've lost seventy three pounds to be exact.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. So yeah, can you tell us what happened.
Speaker 3: My daughter, Samantha, she was going through a lot, she
Speaker 3: got divorced. You met this guy. He was physically abusing
Speaker 3: her and probably abusing her. But then I had said
Speaker 3: to her, what is it going to take for you
Speaker 3: to leave him? He's going to kill you, right, So
Speaker 3: her boyfriend took her away for the weekend Chattanooga, and
Speaker 3: I guess they started doing drugs and she overdosed on Pentanol,
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. Thank you.
Speaker 1: You got to see Samantha at the hospital.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. The minute got to the hospital and I
Speaker 3: saw her laying there and she was connected to the tubes.
Speaker 3: I just like, I don't remember if I fell to
Speaker 3: my knees, but I know that I was crying and
Speaker 3: I was telling her to wake up. And then she
Speaker 3: opened up her eyes and was just like looking at me.
Speaker 3: But I knew it wasn't her. It was just a reflex,
Speaker 3: but just to see her brown eyes open, and I
Speaker 3: just got telling her, I'm here, Mom's here, My Mom's
Speaker 3: going to fix it. And I couldn't fix it, Marta.
Speaker 3: I couldn't fix it.
Speaker 1: You can't do everything. Mary, You couldn't do anything about it. No,
Speaker 1: Samantha was your only.
Speaker 3: Daughter, My only daughter, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the daughter you had with Robert. What was it
Speaker 1: like for Robert.
Speaker 3: The day that it happened. I couldn't tell him. I
Speaker 3: was on the phone with him, and it was the
Speaker 3: hardest thing for me to even bring up. And I
Speaker 3: waited till the next morning because I had to like
Speaker 3: tell him in a soft way so he wouldn't, you know,
Speaker 3: go off and get in trouble. And so The next morning,
Speaker 3: he called me and he was just like, what's wrong?
Speaker 3: And I told him, I said, Samantha passed away, and
Speaker 3: he saw, what do you mean she passed away? And
Speaker 3: telling him, I kept breaking down. It was so hard, Marda,
Speaker 3: so hard. Yeah, so he cries a lot. I just
Speaker 3: feel like I'm I just walk around here like chicken
Speaker 3: without a head. Hmmm. I don't have a will to live,
Speaker 3: but I have to live. So I have my grandkids.
Speaker 1: So is that what gives you hope?
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially Cassie, the oldest one, because Samantha is me
Speaker 3: and Cassie is Samantha, so she's she's like this little
Speaker 3: diva and she cracks me up because I always ask her,
Speaker 3: I said, why do you call me girl? And she goes,
Speaker 3: because you're my girl.
Speaker 1: I hope you and Robert at least can comfort each
Speaker 1: other and you still have your family visits, right.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah. As a matter of fact, I got a phone
Speaker 3: call from a prison wife. If she's a mother, she
Speaker 3: has family visits a Thursday, and she has cancer. So
Speaker 3: the new family visiting coordinator told her that she cannot
Speaker 3: bring her doctor's note. That's not allowed anymore. And I said,
Speaker 3: she can't implement that. So I swore up and down
Speaker 3: that I was not going to do a movement, and
Speaker 3: I'm getting ready to do a movement.
Speaker 1: Look at that. Why am I not surprised? And not
Speaker 1: only that, you are also part of this class action
Speaker 1: lawsuit against some of the guards at Richard J. Donovan Prison.
Speaker 1: You and other people who were visiting family members, were
Speaker 1: required to undergo an inclothed search. Yes, without any real,
Speaker 1: quote unquote reasonable suspicion that you would commit any kind
Speaker 1: of illegal action like smuggling things into the prison. And
Speaker 1: you won. We won. In twenty twenty four, you reached
Speaker 1: a settlement agreement. Yeah, and the defendants will have to
Speaker 1: pay a total amount of three point five million dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is a big win too. It was a
Speaker 3: very big win. And I don't want to sound greedy,
Speaker 3: but it came at the right time because I was
Speaker 3: able to have her cremate it and brought home to me.
Speaker 3: I mean, last year I almost filed for bankruptcy and
Speaker 3: then this came in at the right time. And it's
Speaker 3: like every day last year I was crying, like I
Speaker 3: can't take this baby, Why do I have to suffer?
Speaker 3: I guess I was having a pity party and he
Speaker 3: saw you better stop. That's not my wife.
Speaker 1: I feel like you just can't help it. You're always
Speaker 1: going to be fighting for something, Mary, I think so.
Speaker 3: I think I was put on this earth for that.
Speaker 3: But we'll see.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Mary for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you, You're very welcome. Take care.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Marta Martinez. It was edited
Speaker 2: by Daisy Contreras. It was mixed by Stephanie Lebau and
Speaker 2: Julia Caruso. In fact checking for this episode by Monica Morales. Garcia.
Speaker 2: Fernanda Echavari is our managing editor. The Latino USA team
Speaker 2: also includes Roxanna Guire, Jessica Elis, Rebecca, Bara Rinaldo, Leanos Junior,
Speaker 2: Luis Luna Doloriman Marquez, Jugeta Martinelli, Balo Marperez, jj Carube,
Speaker 2: Annelo Reuez, and Nancy Truquillo. Pemile Ramirez and I are
Speaker 2: executive producers. I'm Your Host Marie no Josa. Latino USA
Speaker 2: is part of Iheart's Michael Duda podcast Network. Executive producers
Speaker 2: at iHeart are Leo Gomes and Arlene Santana. Join us
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