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Growing Up on Alcatraz


As the president shouts about reopening the Rock, the author prefers to remember his father’s childhood on the Island

Alcatraz was a famously strict institution — no doubt something Donald Trump hopes to reinstate — where inmates were guaranteed the minimum of food, shelter, medical care, and clothing. The Park Service was attempting to rebalance the image of Alcatraz away from lurid true crime and to incorporate the stories of families, of former inmates, and of the Native Americans who have their own long and layered history with the island. Trump, who has spoken fondly about police brutality for years, was yet again conjuring fantasies of rough justice that the Nation Parks Service spent decades correcting in the Alcatraz story.

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