Survivor Chronicles: Free Them All
Welcome to Survivor Chronicles: Free Them All, a podcast by Survived & Punished NY. We are a collective by and for survivors, organizing for the abolition of prisons and policing with the understanding these systems do not protect survivors, but further endanger them. Since 2017, we’ve been organizing with criminalized survivors in NY State prisons.
This podcast is part of our mass clemency campaign. Survivors who were criminalized for their acts of survival are now banding together to demand clemency from Governor Kathy Hochul, who can free anyone she wants with the stroke of a pen. Despite proclaiming herself pro-survivor, she refuses to grant them clemency, offering survivors nothing but policing and cages.
Together, we're saying: enough. These are the stories of survivors and their loved ones who have been abandoned and betrayed by the state of New York. These are also stories of resistance, resilience, connection across prison walls, and of refusing the logic of disposability underlying the US prison system.
Throughout the season, we’ll put calls to action in our show notes as episodes come out. We want you to learn about the harms of the carceral system and the re-victimization survivors are subject to, but we also want you to join us in the fight. Please look out for ways to get involved and follow our campaign on Instagram and Twitter at survivepunishny, or visit www.survivedandpunishedny.org/. Survivor Chronicles was made possible by the support of NYC Connect and Focus for Health. Writing and producing by Jade Abdul-Malik. Podcast art by Mon M.
Survivor Chronicles: Free Them All
Survivor Chronicles: Assia's Story
This is Assia Serrano's story.
Assia is a mother, an immigrant, and a criminalized survivor who served 17 years for her survival actions. She was resentenced and released under the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, only for New York to hand her off to ICE for deportation to Panama. She needs a pardon to reunite with her family in the US. As this story makes clear, she has consistently put her family first, fighting to show up for them in every way she can—even from behind bars and even after her deportation. In the meantime, she advocates for and organizes with survivors facing criminalization, immigrant survivors, and mothers behind bars.
Assia's story reveals how the immigration system often imposes a second punishment on survivors, after their criminal punishment is complete. In Assia's case, this second punishment was in some ways more devastating, because it meant she couldn't be around her family—maybe permanently. But Assia will never give up fighting to be there for her two kids, her mom, and everyone else who counts on her. So we shouldn't either.
- Read more about Assia's story here.
- Read Assia's analysis of how her experience illustrates the failures of the laws meant to protect survivors—at least when it comes to the specific needs of immigrant survivors—here.
- Read the letter from 36 lawmakers demanding Hochul grant her a pardon.
- Sign her pardon petition.
If you enjoy this episode, please like and subscribe. We'll be releasing episodes bi-weekly about survivors in our mass clemency campaign, and we'll have occasional episodes stepping back for history and context from organizers and leaders fighting the criminalization of survival.
Writing and producing by Jade Abdul-Malik. Episode artwork photography by Sara Bennett (pictured: Assia with her children and her dog in Panama when her children first visited her, more than 3 years after her deportation. From left to write: Giovanni, Assia, and Omar. Assia's dog Bella is in the front).