Less than four years ago, Andres Idarraga '08 was in prison, serving a 14-year sentence for selling drugs. He was broke. When he was paroled, he would not have voting rights until he was nearly a senior citizen because of Rhode Island state law.
In another world, Idarraga might still be in prison, on the street or dead.
Yet today, he is a 30-year-old Brown senior, and on March 4, he voted for the first time in his life.
Nine years ago, Idarraga landed in jail after police caught him in Pawtucket selling drugs and illegally in possession of a gun. He had been arrested for selling once before, at age 16. Then, he had been sent to the Rhode Island Training School - a juvenile facility - and was released to his mother's custody just a week later. This time was different. Legally an adult, he was sent to maximum-security prison and wouldn't be eligible for parole until he had served nearly five years.
It didn't have to be this way. Recognized as a bright student at his high school in the poor city of Central Falls, north of Pawtucket, he earned a scholarship to attend the private Moses Brown School just north of the University on Lloyd Avenue. But he quit halfway through his senior year, unable to adapt to the alien environment and weary of having to take two buses just to get there. When he returned home to Central Falls, he "retreated" into his neighborhood.
"I always had a lot of teachers saying, 'You could make it out,'" he remembers now. "But I never really knew what they meant."
Born in Colombia, Idarraga emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1984, when he was 7 years old. His parents both worked factory jobs to gain residency, and the family eked out a living in Pawtucket, managing to send some money to relatives back home. Mother and father separated when their son was 12, and Idarraga went to live with his mother in Central Falls.
When he quit Moses Brown, he left Central Falls to live on his own in Pawtucket. He respected his mother's house too much to bring home the problems that came with drugs, he says. She pleaded with him not to drop out, but he had lost all interest in school. He finished his senior year at a public high school in Pawtucket just to appease her.
"I was street-wise," he says. "I could handle myself."
Idarraga made his first deal at age 15, he says, pocketing $80 after running a drug errand for a friend. Craving the respect and independence it gave him, he got more involved. Soon, he was keeping his own store of drugs and selling regularly.
"I didn't want to be the kid that didn't have (anything)," he says. Selling drugs was the way to get ahead, while the benefits of education were too abstract. He couldn't wait that long to make a better life for himself.
After finishing high school, Idarraga made a living by dealing. He brought in enough to pay for his own place in Pawtucket and keep some cash saved up. But every day, life became more dangerous. Once, another dealer who wanted Idarraga to stop selling in the same neighborhood started a fistfight with him in a night club and then pulled a gun on him outside. Only a mutual friend was able to persuade the rival dealer not to shoot Idarraga.
"When I was arrested, I was almost relieved," Idarraga says. Bruce Reilly, 34, a friend of Idarraga's who served time with him in prison, said the 20-year-old drug dealer who landed in jail in 1998 was "quiet and polite," but respected.
"People knew that kid sold some serious drugs," Reilly says. "You can be quiet and still be a strong person."
Idarraga spent his first few years in prison getting settled in his new surroundings. Reilly says he often invited him to join him in the prison library, but Idarraga said he was too busy.
"It does take a little time to realize, like, 'Holy s-, I'm in jail. What can I do except wait?'" Reilly says.
It wasn't until later that Idarraga realized he needed something else to fill his days, and the two started going to the prison library. At some point, Idarraga decided that he was going to turn his life around.
"I was not going to let that be the final chapter," Idarraga says.
'Dead broke,' but happyIdarraga started spending the greater part of his days in the library. He read voraciously and started tutoring other inmates studying for their GED exams. He became active in a program that brought troubled teenagers to the prison to meet inmates and see first-hand why they wouldn't want to end up there.
He had hours on end to do nothing but read, and he was introduced to Dickens, Cervantes, Tolstoy and others. He read biographies of Thurgood Marshall and Nelson Mandela.
Then he sent out college applications to the University of Rhode Island, Johnson and Wales University and Brown in September 2002.
One month later, Idarraga came up for parole for the first time, having served one-third of his sentence. He presented the "best package" he could put together for the hearing, he says, and was able to mention that he had applied to college. He was denied parole.
The following spring, he received acceptances from URI and Johnson and Wales. He was denied admission to Brown. A year after his first parole hearing, the board agreed to parole him in time for him to attend college. In September 2004, he was a 26-year-old freshman at URI.
"I was so happy to be in college," he remembers. "I'm dead broke. I don't have a dollar to my name - but I couldn't be happier." He had spent six years and four months in prison - almost a quarter of his life. In the time away, he learned a respect for education that he didn't have before.
"He was very fervent about what he wanted because of the time lost," says Angel Green, who taught Idarraga's introductory literature class at URI. "He was very clear about his intent, in terms of what his future was to hold."
Though the 2004 elections were coming up, Idarraga was barred from voting because he was a convicted felon. So he began volunteering for the Rhode Island Family Life Center, an advocacy and support organization for former criminals that was working to change the law. He got Reilly involved as well.
"We felt that we needed to go out there and do some really important things, set the bar really high," Reilly says. "It became more than just being able to vote. ... It was about humanizing us."
While completing his freshman year at URI, Idarraga applied again to Brown through the Resumed Undergraduate Education program. Green wrote a letter of recommendation describing him as an outstanding student. He was accepted.
"I was giddy," he says.
The right to voteWhen he was accepted to Brown, the Family Life Center asked him to take on more of a spokesman's role. He became the poster child for the Rhode Island Right to Vote Campaign, which was able to create a ballot initiative to change the law so that felons could vote after leaving prison. He was sent around the country to speak for the Center and organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union. He worked with other Brown students on the campaign as well.
Idarraga lost no time taking advantage of his Brown education. He worked tirelessly at a double concentration in comparative literature and economics and became a writing fellow. He tried to keep a low profile and not talk about his past.
"He never told his classmates about his background," says Rhoda Flaxman PhD'82, a former director of the Writing Fellows program. "I was always very impressed with that."
Now finishing his last semester of college, Idarraga has been accepted to three law schools and wants to pursue educational policy as a teacher, lawyer or policymaker.
In November 2006, the ballot initiative narrowly passed. Idarraga registered to vote a month later.
On March 4, the day of Rhode Island's presidential primary, Idarraga drove his 8-year-old nephew to school and engaged him in "a little semi-conversation about voting."
"He asked me, 'Who are you going to vote for?' and I said I didn
't know," Idarraga recalls. His nephew then brazenly pronounced, "I'm going to vote for the lady," Idarraga says.
"I said, 'You have to have reasons behind it!'" Idarraga says. But now, he realizes, his young nephew is "going to remember, 'I'm supposed to vote. I see my uncle vote all the time.' "
Idarraga completed his first-ever ballot at Curvin McCabe Elementary School in Pawtucket. "It felt like I was now a part of society again," he says.Though he would not say for whom he voted, Idarraga says he is attracted to elements of all three of the major candidates and is pleased to see both a woman and a black man among them.
"Either way, it makes me very invested in my country," he says. "It's inspirational."
