After battling addiction, depression, and spending time in jail, LBCC student Anthony Yracheta is dedicated to building a better life for himself.
At the age of 12, Yracheta’s had his first interaction with the police after cops saw him and his friends smoking weed and cigarettes while walking around on a school day in Pismo Beach, which is a predominantly white area.
“One side you got like these nice beach homes and the other side it’s all RV park, being brown kind of singled us out in that white community. A cop rolled up on us and through us on the ground. I mean I’ve been stopped by cops before for riding a bicycle without a helmet, but I never had a cop come up to me and physically throw me on the ground and point a gun to the back of my head and scream at us and say you know some pretty racial stuff. I kinda had this negative visual of them from then on.” said Yracheta.
After this initial encounter with law enforcement, Yracheta got into more legal trouble resulting in minor offenses such as driving with excessive tickets and bar fighting. These actions resulted in him being in and out of jail during his late teens and early twenties.
“It was a combination of life issues and I guess a mental state like depression. The town I came from, I don’t know there wasn’t a lot to do I guess, so I gravitated towards people who partied and stuff like that. That gets out of hand, it got out of hand for me,” Yracheta said.
Yracheta was charged with a felony of grand theft after a night out partying with friends.
According to Yracheta, he was accused of stealing items from someone’s car, however, he had none these items with him.
The owner of the property ended up dropping the charges against Yracheta; however, when he got to court he was faced with possible prison time or three years probation.
He served about four months in jail, had to pay an approximated 12 thousand dollar fine, and three years of probation.
“(In jail) you are stripped of everything, It makes you feel like you aren’t a person. You get no rights , you get nothing to do. It’s a pretty dehumanizing experience. The justice system failed me and I left there with a felony on my record for something I really didn’t do,” Yracheta said.
After being released from prison, Yracheta felt motivated to better his circumstances in life; however, finding a job while having a felony on his record made it harder than initially intended.
“I fell into a really deep depression at that point and I turned to alcohol a little bit but mostly drug sales. I ended up becoming a drug dealer and being on the streets and doing whatever was necessary to get by and make things better in my mind and that’s the road I ended up taking. That was the whole deal for like five or six years,” said Yracheta.
During this time, he went back to jail twice for having too many tickets for carrying a large amount of drugs. During his second time in jail, Yracheta was sent away for a month and according to him during that time is when he decided to get serious about taking the steps to build a better life for himself.
“When you are done, you’re done. I gave up and I just didn’t wanna live that life anymore. I’ve known I didn’t want that for a long time but I hadn’t made that conscious effort to just do something about it and trudge through the things I did not want to or didn’t think I could or that were gonna be hard. I didn’t wanna be sober and think about all my problems. I didn’t wanna have to start at the bottom and basically say I didn’t have any job experience. I eventually did though getting clean and finding a job,” Yracheta said.
During his transitional phase, trying to get himself cleaned up, Yracheta realized he could start attending college.
“I wanted to go back to school I just didn’t know how to and I guess my criminal history deterred me from thinking I could. I never really looked into it and I was just like I’m going to work where I work and I met somebody who told me otherwise,” Yracheta said.
Yracheta’s girlfriend, Bridget Cervelli, taught him that he could still get an education regardless of his background and she has since seen a positive change in his outlook on life.
According to Cervelli, Yracheta doesn’t come from a background where he learned much about college.
“I think he has a lot more confidence. He has a lot more goals for the future. I think he sees his future as being a lot more bigger than it was before,” Cervelli said.
After moving to the Long Beach area with Cervelli, Yracheta initially attended LBCC in hopes of becoming a drug and alcohol counselor but later decided to pursue a career in the automotive industry.
At LBCC he is the president for the Justice Scholars, a club on campus aimed to support those who were formerly incarcerated.
Club member Jessica Martinez expressed what the club does for the college campus.
“A big point of the mission of our club is it really establish visibility here on campus . We want to be more engaged in student life and raise an awareness to the issue. We hope to empower and advocate on behalf of the formerly incarcerated and the systems impacted students,” Martinez said.
Yracheta expressed his love for the club and how it has made him feel more comfortable to express his past. He plans to still be president of the club for next semester.
With about one year left at LBCC, Yracheta plans to continue his studies and ultimately hopes to get a job in the automotive industry.
