Greetings to our Beat Within community! It’s a pleasure to welcome you back to another stellar issue of writing and artwork from the inside and beyond. For this issue, our community delves into the complicated feelings that can arise with returning home, what it means to live a healthy life, who we celebrate during this year’s Day of the Dead, how “responsibility” shows up in our life, quotes from John Lennon and Toni Morrison, and much, much more. The weather outside may be getting cold, but the writing in The Beat remains as fire as ever. As many of you
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Ed Note 28.41/42
A big hello, and a warm welcome to our readers and writers near and far. We’re back with another double issue, celebrating the brilliant testimonies of our incarcerated youth and their allies from across the country. There are few celebrations we’d like to mention, we’ve been honored to begin The Beat Within workshops in Stanislaus County. Led by Marian Martino, the voices of Stanislaus County have been published in a handful of our previous issues, and we welcome them to the TBW family and look forward to sharing their voices. Another huge milestone, The Beat Within celebrates 27 of service!
Continue ReadingEd Note 28.39/40
Hello Beat readers and writers, far and wide! Welcome back to another double-issue of The Beat Within, 28.39/40. We’re always so inspired by each and every one of the pieces we publish, and the writing here is no exception. For this issue’s editorial note, we turn it over to Omar Turcios, to talk about what it means to fight the good fight. Omar, take it away! It’s OT, reporting live from Managua, Nicaragua, from the land the quakes, shakes, and under this hot sun we all get baked! I want to extend a warm embrace to all of our
Continue ReadingEd Note 28.37/38
Welcome, readers and writers of The Beat Within! We’re back with another double-issue featuring your recent reflections, testimonies, and opinions on our weekly topics. You also may notice that this issue contains writing from earlier this summer, before we took a break from programming and publication to grieve the loss of our founder, David Inocencio. If you’ve been waiting to see your piece published, please know that it’s not lost! We’re working hard to make sure that we publish everything we received in June and July, and are aiming to get caught up to speed within the next couple issues.
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Editor’s Note
In July, The Beat Within announced with great sadness the passing of its founder and executive director, David Inocencio. Over the past six weeks, our Beat Within team has worked tirelessly to publish a special tribute issue of The Beat Within Magazine. In this issue, youth, David’s colleagues, former and current TBW participants, and community leaders shared their reflections on the impact of The Beat Within, David Inocencio, and the topic of grief. The issue was empowering and almost therapeutic, rallying our team to stand up and ensure that the beat goes on, as David always said. With passing the
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From The Beat: Community Announcement
To our community, It is with great sadness, and a heavy heart to share with you that our founder and director, David Inocencio, lost his battle with cancer this past weekend. Over the past few weeks, David was surrounded by his family, colleagues, and close friends, as we celebrated his life and his many incredible accomplishments. For the past twenty-seven years, David has anchored our collective strive toward liberation through the power of testimony. He was—and still remains—loved and cherished across the nation for his leadership. The profound influence that David had on all of us reaches far beyond life itself. For
Continue ReadingEd Note 28.21/22
Welcome back to our Beat Within readers, writers, colleagues, and teachers. For this issue, we’re bringing you reflections from Camillia and Daisy, two of our interns at Urban High School in San Francisco, CA. It’s been such a pleasure to continue fostering this partnership, where the students of Urban have made a huge impact on The Beat over the course of their spring semester, transcribing the wide range of writing that becomes published in our pages. Thank you, Camillia and Daisy, for your time, your dedication, and for sharing our mission to uplift the voices of incarcerated youth and their
Continue ReadingEd Note 28.19/20
Greetings to our Beat writers, readers, and community members. We’re thrilled as always to bring you our latest publication of The Beat Within. Every other week when our issue goes to print, we’re in awe of the writing and testimony that comes forth from each person we have the privilege to publish. This issue brings lots of great writing on tough times, dealing with stress, how we define justice, finding hope, and honoring the special women in our lives. Our editorial note for this issue comes from our Managing Editor, Simone Zapata, who has been connected with The Beat for
Continue ReadingEd Note 28.17/18
Hello to our Beat Within readers, writers, and community members. We’re here with another stellar issue of this publication, made possible by the hard work and passion of the many writers, volunteers, and editors that we’re blessed to know and collaborate with. We’re always in awe of the depth, vitality, and authenticity we encounter each week by engaging with the work of our youth. This issue’s editorial note comes from our Program Associate, Alyssa Maanao, who has hosted workshops all over California, and currently is the lead facilitator for Sacramento County, as well as does many other things to keep
Continue ReadingEd Note 28.15/16
Greetings friends! Forgive the delay with this latest issue, as we welcome you to the latest Beat issue 28.15/16! Yes, we had a couple of glitches over the last couple of weeks, but we are now working to get back on track. This latest 76-pager is full of great writing and we tip our cap to many of you solid contributors who step up each week in our weekly workshops to share your truths, your art, and all your ideas that give hope and inspiration. Speaking of inspiration, big props to you writers who have earned the privilege to have
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