So Santa Cruz yard put on a talent show. I’d seen the fliers up for a
couple of weeks (yes, with the word ‘gots’ in big letters!) and I wasn’t
sure quite what to expect. But a couple of my tutoring students were
performing so, of course, I was in the front row the night of the show.
There were the usual karaoke numbers, but then one of my students sang a
song she wrote herself- acapella! Not only does that take some serious
guts, but she totally nailed it. The song was so beautiful she had
people crying. I was so proud of her. Then there was a girl who did a
rap song all about her life. Now I’m personally not a big fan of rap,
but she brought the house down. It was a sad song for sure because
she’s been locked up in prison since she was 15 years old, doing 25
years or some such heartbreaking number.
The act that was the most fun though was a group of five, 1 girl all
done up and a quartet of 4 ‘boys’ (meaning girls who are boy wannabes).
They came out complete with buzz cuts, baggy pants, hats on backward
and sunglasses and lipsynced and danced to “My Girl”. Creative and very
entertaining. After all the acts were over, the sound equipment was
still set up and playing music, so naturally, everybody started dancing.
It got a little wild and out of hand and soon there were 15 officers
doing ‘crowd control’, trying to keep 200 plus inmates from getting
their party on.
In the meantime, all of C Yard (the maximum custody yard) was watching
through the fence, hooting, dancing and hollering (who knows, probably
throwing up gang signs too). The inmates from max are required to stay
behind the fence but I suppose the cops thought they might rush the
fence! A great time was had by all but of course, we paid a price for
it. They took away our yearly cancer fund-raising event because we were
‘too rowdy’. Sad, because last year on Piestewa the women raised and
donated over $5,000 to cancer research and cancer patients and their
families. Piestewa houses less than 250 inmates and Cruz has over
1,000. It’s a real shame but this may have been both the first- and
last Santa Cruz talent show.