My mother would dress my three younger sisters and me in our best clothes, prepare and bag lunches, and place toiletries and other treats that were to be given to my father in clear Ziploc bags. Everything was checked before boarding, including us. We would take a public transit bus to Camden City Hall, which doubled as the city’s short-term jail, where we would then wait with other families, all black and Latino, all working poor, to board a yellow or blue bus that would take us on our journey to places like the East Jersey State Prison in Rahway.
