Deborah Jiang-Stein’s early years were marred with uncertainty. She always knew she was adopted, but the details surrounding her birth were left a mystery. That is, until curiosity got the best of the adoptee, who eventually stumbled upon a shocking letter from her adoptive mother when she was 12 years old. Her birth mother requested that her birth certificate to be altered, so that she wouldn't have any knowledge that she was born in a Virginia prison to a heroin-addicted mother.

Discovering the story of her birth sent Jiang-Stein down a self-destructive path that found her deep in the same lifestyle that eventually claimed the life of her birth mother. After getting caught up in violent street life and drug abuse herself, Jiang-Stein cleaned up her act and revisited the prison she called home for the first year of her life—and life hasn't been the same since.

Through volunteer work at prisons, Deborah saw an opportunity to share her story to inspire hope in other women. She launched the unPrison Project in 2012, a non-profit organization that offers mentorship to women and girls in prison and promotes literacy. Deborah's work with the unPrison Project was recognized by L'Oréal, who honored the activist at the 2017 Women of Worth ceremony and awarded Deborah with a grant of $10,000 to further her initiative.

Below, we spoke with Jiang-Stein to talk about overcoming her troubled upbringing, the unPrison Project, and what other initiatives are on the horizon.

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How did finding out about your true birth story affect you as a young girl?

I knew I was adopted but when I found out, it kind of rocked my whole world and sent me over the cliff. I ended up using drugs and running drugs and followed [my birth mother's] footsteps. I didn’t tell anybody about my story instead, kept it in me. I heard that kids have “traumatic amnesia” so I think I had something like that.

I was a quiet kid, anyway, but I started having periods of muteness. In my family I was really quiet and gentle, but in public I was violent and joined a gang. I left home at 17 and I hit the streets. I’m lucky I’m alive. I had a gun, I was running up and down from Mexico to California to Canada, smuggling drugs, some petty crimes, and some not so petty. When I meet with women today, it’s not only about my story. I’ve done a lot of what they’ve done.

Did you ever get a chance to speak with your mother?

I didn’t actually. All I knew was I felt like I loved this woman even though I didn’t even know her. There was nothing wrong with my [adopted] family but I had a story before I came to them. After I cleaned up, I learned that she had died from throat cancer—she was serving sentence after sentence, in and out, and tried to clean up. I met my birth family and they said my birth mother died. It’s one of those things that I wish could’ve happened but it’s better off it didn’t.

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When did you start embracing your background?

I didn't do it consciously. I was doing writing workshops in prison, that was the first place I started talking about [my story]. Then, some of it was financial. I needed some work and a group of professional social workers asked me to tell my story. So they had to coach me, and I got paid for it. For someone who used to be mute, it was hard to speak in front of 200 people. But, what I recognized right before I wrote my book [Prison Baby] is that everyone has a secret, so that made it easier for me because it was really about opening up about this deep stigma.

What made you want to launch the unPrison Project?

I would go into these prisons, carrying a message of hope and then I started recognizing that one of the things that I could be doing is teaching life skills and talking to them about why am I out here and not sitting in a folding chair in jail with them. We got the 501 (c)3 status maybe six years ago and people were donating.

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When you launched the unPrison Project, what was your mission?

In the beginning, it was just to raise awareness. I would go in and collect these stories and talk about them. Then, I saw there was a need for more services—more than reading, writing, and computer skills. They wanted to talk about forgiveness, managing anger, and how to clean up after getting out of prison. That's when I started working with people in education and building a curriculum around that because they do need job skills. That’s another thing: I’m promoting education. The work is to pass on wellness and life skills so that when they get out [of prison], they don’t go back again.

When you met with these women, what were some stories that stuck out?

There’s a prison in Washington state that has a nursery, and I met three generations of women – there’s a woman in her 60s, then her daughter in her 40s, who had a baby that was born in there. But, there was also a fourth—her older daughter—who was also in prison. So, being around three generations of women in prison couldn’t be more of a reminder that we have to change something. For both of them, it was some kind of drug charge.

"The work is to pass life skills so that when they get out [of prison], they don’t go back again."

Why is it important to you to give these women your resources?

Mass incarceration is a crisis—so is poverty and racism. It’s all tied together, we can’t act like it’s just about crime and criminal justice. The average reading level is fourth or fifth grade. With an education, it opens up more job opportunities and with literacy, there are opportunities to obtain housing. The big difference I see between outside [prison] and inside, is the education level and who gets what in this world. Many of the women I meet weren’t necessarily encouraged to get an education or couldn’t just because of being mothers, lack of resources, or poverty. It feels like a luxury just to get an education. Education really, really matters.

Where do you see the unPrison Project in the five years?

One of the things we're headed towards is global work. Sometimes the women are in for the same thing—poverty, domestic abuse, some kind of substance abuse—so it’s interesting that globally, the issues are pretty similar. I’ve been invited to bring our work to Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ghana, as well as Canada, so we will go global but I want to do more work here first.

For the 13th year, Women of Worth is calling for nominations, so a woman you know might be able to receive a grant. The nominations are open through May 31st.









Nerisha Penrose Assistant Editor Nerisha is the assistant editor at ELLE.com, covering all things beauty and fashion.

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