Every successful person has a story about their journey to their present state. In most cases, their lives are characterized by struggles, disappointments, and sorrow. However, there are turning points along the journey where someone attains new insights and grasps the available opportunities to eventually become who they are. Jimmy Santiago Baca, a former prison inmate, encounters moments that change his perceptions and perspectives on life, turning him into a successful writer after serving his sentence. Baca’s memoir, A Place to Stand, recounts his dramatic life from a chaotic childhood to stable adulthood and in between, showing how his life transformed.
Baca’s early experience of prison life was unenviable. He had suffered from beatings, and his body ached so much. Prison wardens cursed and threatened him all the time. Baca could barely stand a few weeks after his admission to jail, and “His legs bruised blue from being hit with batons and [his] heels whacked by leather straps” (Baca chap. 5: 3). The intense pain he had and the traumatizing experience he had in the hands of the detectives caused him to despair.
However, the new information that Baca received while in jail is what changed him. One, he called his sister seeking financial assistance to finance his lawyer’s air ticket. However, she declined, and he believed she had chosen to distance herself from him. Secondly, his girlfriend, Lonnie, had fallen in love with Carey. He realized just how his sister, Lonnie, and Carey “had all been there when they wanted something but had turned their backs on [him] now” (Baca chap. 5:2). He, therefore, decided to forget about them and focus on his life in prison. In fact, he chose to plead guilty, having resigned to whatever lay ahead of him.
Even though Jimmy’s experience in prison is harrowing, he devises a plan that could help him cope with the difficult circumstances surrounding him: He has to dwell in the past as a matter of urgency. He realizes that his “need to revisit the past was stronger than ever, and [his] memories were saving [him] from becoming a zombie in this place with no color, no stimulation, and nothing to feed [his] senses” (Baca chap. 7: 10). He has to “kill time” (chap. 7:10). Therefore he purposefully drifts into the past whenever he is alone. This strategy allows him to relax and also feel happy despite what he is going through.
Jimmy’s educational process while in jail is spectacular. He receives a letter from a pen pal who inspires him to write and use the dictionary to learn vocabulary and spelling. His pen pal also encourages him to be optimistic in life, expressing hope that he (Jimmy) can change and “make a better human being of [himself].” (Baca chap. 9: 7) He spends many hours creating meaningful sentences, at times looking up words from the dictionary and writing. Even though the entire process was tiresome, Jimmy realizes “how words electrified [him].” (Baca chap. 9: 5) Besides, he also spends a lot of time copying text into his spiral notebook that his pen pal had gifted him, thus learning how to write.
In the course of his reading and writing, Jimmy realizes he can become a poet. He learned how each new word conjured up multiple words and memories, filling his “head with things [he] wanted to say but couldn’t put [his] finger on exactly.” (Baca chap. 9: 7). His first poem he writes is addressed to Theresa. He achieves this feat after continuously reading and re-reading texts and “sounding out words…to make sure they made sense” (Baca chap. 9:7). Jimmy’s desire to change and learn how to read and write transforms him into a budding poet by the end of the ninth chapter of the memoir.
Jimmy’s transformation is spectacular, owing to his life experiences. His troubled childhood robs him of a ‘normal’ early life. His early adulthood sees him join crime, hence earning himself a five-year jail term. It is during his tenure in jail that Jimmy learns he is on his own, and in order to survive, he must adjust his life accordingly. He changes his mindset and also learns to write and read, employing his literacy skills to write poems.
Work Cited
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. A Place to Stand. Grove Atlantic. 2007. Pdf.
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