Author: Latif Torres-Robinson

“Gracias señor!” a middle age woman said to a Cuban native. The American journalist, who was tall with long blonde hair, had stopped to buy a cold drink from a concession stand. While keeping herself hydrated, she resumed her search for a good story, taking pictures with her camera and making notes of the country’s […]

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! were my mother’s words as she shook my motionless body. I was asleep on my queen-sized bed. When I opened my eyes, a blurry image of my mother was hunched over me with a pleasant smile. As I sluggishly sat up, my mother quickly sat down beside me. “What’s […]

One morning in the summer of 2003, I lounged in the cozy family room of my parents’ house. While my mother, stepfather, and older brother were all at work, I inherited my parents’ Church Hill residence until after 4 pm. Smoking marijuana, listening to loud hip hop music, and watching BET videos on the big […]

Alone, in fear, I hid under the kitchen table in my mother’s Mosby Court project in Richmond, Virginia. It’s a memorable event that I’ll never forget. I was 2-years-old sitting shirtless on the cold tile floor in a diaper. I don’t remember how I got there, but I was under the table because I was […]

In 2013, I sat in prison serving a lengthy sentence with no outside support–no visits, no phone calls, and no money for commissary–only monthly letters from my brother, who was also incarcerated. Without love from family and friends, I had started to lose hope and my heart began to turn cold.

In the final hours of January 26, 2020, the lights were dim in a triangular unit at State Correctional Center. The mood was relatively normal despite the abnormalities of confinement. From smacking cards on cold steel to making 20-minute collect calls, incarcerated men were passing time the best way they knew how. As a pair […]

On December 25, 2020, I woke up on my top bunk drenched in sweat. “Chow time!” the corrections officer shouted. He stood outside the opened cell door with two breakfast trays in his hands. Listening to my institutionalized instinct, I rose halfway before I quickly realized that my achy body wasn’t going to comply. I […]