When rituals leave us full—and then empty
Leaving the jailhouse graduation, I wondered, Where have I felt like this before?
(Illustration by Jamiel Law)
My introduction to York Alternative High School came rather unexpectedly a few weeks ago. Someone sent me a Facebook message, and after a brief phone call to verify the request, I was set to be the school’s commencement speaker. This made me both excited and nervous. The school—named after Consuella B. York, a prison chaplain and one of Chicago’s lesser-known saint mothers—is located inside Cook County Jail. Yes, inside.
Few people even know that York exists, much less that its students earn a diploma with the same standing as one from any of Chicago’s top magnet schools. Or that we should call them “students” (for all the ways language around incarceration is changing, this one is easy). And if you’re wondering: yes, they go to class on a nearly year-round basis, and then go “home” to a cell.
As you can imagine, this is a complex space. After being cleared to enter, I go into a gymnasium that has been decorated to resemble a “normal graduation.” The staff tells me as much, and it’s clear they’ve done a good job. The place is colorful, loud, and full of the energy of anticipation as people run around making last-minute adjustments. It is altogether familiar and unremarkable, save a few details: staples are not allowed, anywhere, so the error someone has made is being quickly corrected with freshly glued programs. And the teachers I’m sitting with—fully licensed, real teachers—are joined in the room by another, more authoritative presence: correctional officers. I recognize one of the officers as someone I went to school with, and we shake hands. After the officers give the thumbs up, the students enter, resplendent in caps and gowns, all 60 of them, with the same khaki pants and white shoes showing underneath.
