Today we’d like to introduce you to Quan Huynh. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Quan Huynh has been described as a mighty warrior, a magician, and a mountain of goodness. He is the bestselling author of Sparrow in the Razor Wire: Finding Freedom from Within While Serving a Life Sentence.
He works as the Executive Director for Defy Ventures in Southern California, a nonprofit whose mission is to shift mindsets, to give people with criminal histories their best shot at a second chance. After spending twenty-two years in and out of correctional institutions, Quan was paroled from a life sentence in 2015 and created his first company six months later.
Quan has given talks at Tedx, Talks at Google, and been featured in Entrepreneur, PBS Newshour, and numerous other publications and podcasts.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, it was not a smooth road. But that is where I believe resilience and grit are nurtured. One of the hardest things for me was paroling from my life sentence – doing the hard, internal work of self-examination and embracing personal responsibility in my life. Even after paroling, my reentry journey has been difficult in its own way – rebuilding relationships with family members that had not seen me in decades and did not understand my evolved worldview.
During the pandemic, when every business qualified for the PPP Loan, my company was turned down because I was on active parole. Luckily, my case gained national attention, and there was a class action lawsuit filed against the SBA where we successfully sued them for discrimination against small business owners with criminal histories, and they eventually changed the language and requirements and I ultimately gained relief.
My book-writing process also had its share of challenges. My book is written for men that are doing long or life-term sentences, and in it, I share how I found my own sense of freedom years before I paroled from my life sentence. But although the incarcerated are my target market, they are not my target customer. There is no way to market to the incarcerated, and I never felt comfortable marketing to their families, as that felt predatory to me. So on the launch week of my book, I committed to matching every book that was sold to donate to someone that was currently incarcerated. That week we were able to get 1,376 books donated to prison. To date, I have donated close to 2,800 books to prisons nationally, but considering in California alone, there are about 115,000 incarcerated men and women, this still feels like such a drop in the bucket for me. My goal is to get my book into every prison in the United States.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am an author. I am an advocate for second chances and for fair chances. My work in the prisons through Defy Ventures in Southern California brings me to help shift mindsets to give people with criminal histories their best shot at a second chance. That mission is two-fold – not only to help transform the hearts and minds of those incarcerated but also of those that can help us make an impact – those of the business community that can hire and provides economic opportunities to those coming home from incarceration.
My mission of getting my book into every prison is because I know the amazing sense of liberation and freedom I found years before I paroled, and my hope is that in sharing my own journey, my incarcerated brothers and sisters can hopefully find some seeds of guidance for their own circumstances. I truly believe that those coming home from incarceration, if given an opportunity, can become the most loyal of employees, and that is why I will openly hire from this population.
Pricing:
- Buy my book here: https://quanxhuynh.com/collections/products/products/purchase-sparrow-in-the-razor-wire-by-quan-huynh
- Purchase my book for donation to incarcerated men and women here: https://quanxhuynh.com/collections/products/products/donate-sparrow-in-the-razor-wire-by-quan-huynh
- Listen to it on Audible here: https://www.amazon.com/Sparrow-Razor-Wire-Finding-Sentence/dp/B08GTSG1KX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MBAL8NYQW0U0&keywords=sparrow+in+the+razor+wire&qid=1668896728&sprefix=sparrow+in+%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1
Contact Info:
- Website: www.quanxhuynh.com
- Instagram: @quanxhuynh
- Facebook: @quanxhuynh
- Twitter: @quanxhuynh
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAi6NQK-OVNj2mJiY-m1qmA
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/jade-janitors-anaheim?osq=Jade+Janitors
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiyzzM-B6oM
