Thank you for your support and partnership, we made it! We celebrated The Beat Within’s 27th anniversary of service and we made it through our hardest year ever, after the loss of my beloved husband and Beat Within founder, David Inocencio. I know he is proud to watch us from his angel perch and see that we have continued his legacy. The Beat goes on, just like he always said. David’s work this year expanded into Stanislaus and Vacaville, we are proud to share their stories and welcome them to our Beat Within family. Please continue to send us your
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Ed Note 28.47/48
Welcome back to another stellar issue of The Beat Within! We’re thrilled to have you with us to share the important and necessary mission of uplifting the voices of our incarcerated community around the country. As always, the writing in this issue is honest, critical, and deeply personal. Thank you, we are so impressed by the level of care and attention our writers bring to their work day in and day out. Now, we turn it over to two of our interns from Urban High School of San Francisco, Kaya and Noah, to share their reflections for our editorial section.
Continue ReadingEd Note 28.45/46
To our readers and writers far and wide, greetings from The Beat Within! The weather outside may be frightful, but the writing of this latest issue is oh-so-delightful. As you’ll see, it’s our pleasure to showcase a range of writing dedicated to extending gratitude to ourselves and to each other – writing that honors how we came to be here, what we’re working towards, and the people and places we take with us along the way. Joining us in our editorial section are two interns we hosted this fall from Urban High School of San Francisco, Vaani and Leili. Vaani
Continue ReadingEd Note 28.43/44
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
Continue ReadingEd 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
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