Having escaped persecution from El Salvador with his mother as a child, Edwin E. Chavez (born 1975) tried to survive the similarly violent street gangs of Los Angeles by joining a gang himself. This gang life led to Chavez being incarcerated as a teenager in the California prison system for decades. However, upon being transferred to San Quentin (SQ) in 2018, he began a new direction and explored opportunities through restorative justice platforms, and began helping create a safe and inclusive platform for other marginalized communities. Through this transformative journey with the support from the SQ administration in the San Francisco archdiocese (SFAC) in 2025, Chavez expanded his service: He organized the Fiesta of San Salvador in 2025&2026, where SAC’s restorative justice honored the pillars of the SQ Rehabilitation Centre, including Warden Andes Chance, Lieutenant Berry, alongside volunteers like Amanda Weiteman and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who have been instrumental in facilitating multiple self-help programs for the incarcerated population. Chavez is also a Co-founder of Back To The Start, a trauma-informative organization that also lobbies for policy changes in California. He is also a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and a writer of news articles in both English and Spanish, essays, short stories, poems, and on injustice and discrimination with over 200 published articles. Besides the San Quentin News, which won the American Penal Press award for best prison newspaper (2025), where Chavez is the Spanish Journalism Guild Chair for San Quentin news. Chavez’s work can also be seen in Davis Vanguard’s Prison Journalism Project, California Prison Focus, Brothers In Pen, Solitary Watch, and The Los Angeles Times. His accomplishments are all the more noteworthy because during his time in prison, he self-taught himself how to read and write, earned his G.E.D.,

(2013), then graduated with honors from Coastline Community College earning his first AA degree in Social Behavioral Science (2016), and subsequently he earned three additional AA degrees: American Studies, Art and Humanity, and General Business (2017). He has also earned vocational traits in Plumbing, Optical Lab, and Computer Literacy Lab. in 2025. Chavez received the American Penal Press Award for second place for local coverage of 60 residents committed to stopping domestic violence and healing in the process and in 2021, the California News Publishers Associations, Incarcerated Youth suffer, psychologically during COVID-19 award. With the support and guidance of creative writing peers and instructor Zoe Mullery. He is working on two books, Sharing the Box, which is an anthology of personal essays, and his memoir Grounded -4- Life, and his un Xiled initiative is being opted for an ‘acumentary series.

See Additional Stories at: LA Times & Davis Vanguard