If someone tells you they have “been away,” the first thing that probably comes to mind is they were on vacation. Yet in poor African-American and Latino communities where incarceration rates are sky high, the term is often a euphemism for jail or prison.

“In East Oakland, we know many people of color who are ‘away’ or on parole or probation at any given time,” says Oakland poet Linda Norton.

Norton has had personal experience with the penal system. She had a mentally ill family member who was incarcerated, and she knows how stressful it is to maintain contact with loved ones serving time in faraway prisons.

Norton, a senior editor for the Bancroft Library’s Regional Oral History Office at UC Berkeley, has teamed up with Peralta Hacienda Historical Park in Oakland on a project to raise awareness about the community impact of mass imprisonment.

“Home and Away, Oakland California Prisons and the Geography of the Heart” is an exhibit at Peralta Hacienda, a neighborhood museum tucked away in Fruitvale, coupled with a series of public events. The project was funded by the California Arts Council and the Zellerbach Foundation.

The exhibit consists of collages of historical photos made by Norton and various Oakland residents along with written excerpts from audio interviews recorded by the poet and Peralta Hacienda Executive Director Holly Alonso.

Eventually, visitors to the museum will be able to listen to interviews from people such as Oakland librarian Dorothy Lazard, who talks about how libraries have become one of the few refuges for formerly incarcerated people because they are safe places where no one is using drugs and people can get free access to the Internet. Gwen Jackson, a Fruitvale resident, describes how when she was unable to find legal work, she turned to prostitution — which landed her in jail.

“People who don’t have that direct experience of prison need to understand what it is doing to other people’s lives,” says Alonso.

Over the summer, Darris Young, a community organizer from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, came to Peralta Hacienda to talk to three dozen middle school students about his experience of being incarcerated for 17 years.

“One of the kids in the question-and-answer session said, ‘You know, my dad is in prison right now, and I have a hard time with it because I think it’s my fault,'” Young said. “I told him not to let that be a reflection of how he feels about himself, and that it’s just a reminder not to get involved in negative things like drugs that can impact the rest of your life.”

On Saturday at 1:30 p.m., actor Norman Gee will talk about how he uses drama in his work in juvenile detention centers through Each One Reach One, an innovative program that teaches incarcerated youth to write and perform plays that reflect their experiences.

“Part of what we’re doing is to try to help people not feel invisible,” Gee says of the “Home and Away” project. “This is part of a larger effort not to just lock all these people up but to recognize how it affects those left at home.”

Meanwhile, Norton is writing a book of poetry in connection with the exhibit. It will include information from her blog that might come as a surprise to many people. There are actually reviews of prisons on Yelp — which merely goes to underscore just how interwoven into the fabric of our society mass incarceration has become.

The “Home and Away” project is a great concept. Yet there will have to be a lot more involvement from people in the community who have had a direct experience with the California prison system to achieve the impact the project’s creators are hoping for.

Tammerlin Drummond is a columnist for the Bay Area News Group. Her column runs Thursday and Sunday. Contact her at tdrummond@bayareanewsgroup.com or follow her at Twitter.com/tammerlin.