Truthout

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)On July 8, 2013, 30,000 California prisoners launched what became a 60-day mass hunger strike. One year later, however, Luis Esquivel is still sitting in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) in solitary confinement in California's Pelican Bay State Prison. "Right now, my uncle is in his cell with no windows," said his niece, Maribel Herrera. "It's like sitting in a bathroom - your sink is there, your toilet is there, your bed is there. And you're just sitting there. I can only think about that for so long because it hurts."

Herrera's uncle has been in solitary confinement for 15 years. "I hadn't seen my uncle since I was a child," said Herrera. "I can't even remember hugging him." When she visited him in 2012, her first-ever visit to Pelican Bay, more than 850 miles away from her family's home in San Diego, hers was the first visit Esquivel had received in seven years.