Bernardino Garcia, 32
Died Dec. 30, 2020
Oregon State Penitentiary
Release date: Nov. 7, 2022
Read more profiles of Oregon state prisoners who died from COVID-19
When Bernardino “Bernie” Garcia was sent to a correctional facility closer to his home, his friends, family and fellow members of the Siletz Tribe — who had all been advocating for his transfer back to the Willamette Valley — were waiting for him, only they would soon mourn rather than celebrate. Once at Oregon State Penitentiary, he quickly contracted COVID-19, which in combination with a heart condition he’d been battling, took his life.
Garcia’s determination to transcend the violence of his youth and intergenerational trauma inherited from his ancestors was a source of pride and inspiration to those who knew and loved him.
“One thing I appreciate about Bernie is that he and his relative, Star Bear, took it upon themselves to try and learn our Dee-ni language,” said Robert Van Pelt, Garcia’s uncle.
Van Pelt helped Garcia procure books and other materials that allowed them to learn and begin speaking on their own.
“They were interested in their culture, in who they are,” Van Pelt said.
Siletz Dee-ni, an ancient dialect of the Indigenous Athabaskan language, has endured against the threat of extinction thanks to ongoing efforts to revive the language.
Garcia’s spirit also endures alongside those whose lives he touched, including his teachers.
Melissa Michaux, a professor at Willamette University who taught Garcia during a 2016 in-prison course focused on restorative justice, said an essay he wrote about his life’s journey impacted her deeply.
“Bernie was not easy to get to know at first,” Michaux said. “He literally joined my class coming right out of solitary confinement. Where he opened up initially was in the writing.”
She remembers appreciating his willingness to speak with her about his writing after class.
“I was able to talk to him about how his writing and his presence in the class had really propelled me to learn a lot more about the plight of native peoples in Oregon, in particular,” she said.
Following an op-ed in the Statesman Journal from one of Michaux’s colleagues, Nicole Lindahl-Ruiz, that described the systemic forces contributing to Garcia’s untimely passing, his fourth-grade teacher contacted the author.
The teacher still remembered Garcia and his little brother, who died when they were both attending elementary school, Lindahl-Ruiz said.
According to Lindahl-Ruiz, the impact his brother’s death had on Garcia and his classmates affected the teacher so deeply that she made a point of checking once a year to see if she could locate Garcia and see what he was up to.
Like many Indigenous youths, Garcia received his high school education at the Chemawa Indian School, which has struggled to overcome its colonial legacy but remains a refuge for Indigenous youths seeking a path toward a brighter future.
Van Pelt, Garcia’s uncle, recalled a time when he and his nephew stood together on Government Hill overlooking a small cemetery. The historical site, near the Oregon Coast in Siletz, is described in United States government documents as having “a pleasant landscape” with “subtle but significant reminders” of a dark history.
“He was standing there looking at his little brother’s grave, and I was standing there looking at my little brother’s grave,” Van Pelt said.
The same congenital heart disease that claimed their young brothers would put Garcia in a wheelchair a couple years after his 30th birthday.
“Bernie was all about family, he was always concerned about family,” Van Pelt continued. “That’s why he wouldn’t want to see any of our young people think that going to prison was cool. … Bernie had his demons, but he realized there’s more for our people than this,” Van Pelt said. “There should be more for our young people than this.”
“Bernie found the truth inside of himself and was able to stand up and say, ‘I am a good person,’” Van Pelt said. “‘I come from good people. Good people, beautiful people, can come from me.’”
The Lakota Oyate Ki Club, a Native American cultural club that has been organizing from within the Oregon State Penitentiary since 1968, honored Garcia with the award of a merit coin for his grant writing efforts and contributions to the Indigenous community.
Earl Allen, Klamath Modoc and sub-chief of the club, said Garcia was attentive and respective of the club’s elders.
“He was always thinking of others – never himself. If a brother needed something, he took care of it,” Allen said. “He liked ceremony — our songs, our traditions. I always admired that, because a lot of natives that come in here don’t really know that these days. When you find somebody with young years that promotes that and knows that, it makes me pay attention, because it shows a little insight to the kind of man he was.”
Lakota Club member Nolan Briden met Garcia in 2010, through a letter while in solitary confinement. He said the walls were no match for their growing friendship.
Briden said one of his best memories with Garcia was “Red Power Hour,” something they created together.
“For like an hour straight, we’d sing songs back and forth,” Briden explained. “He would sing songs; I would sing songs. He would teach me songs; I would teach him songs.
“He taught me a lot by just being who he was,” said Briden, “showing up every day to face whatever the day would bring.
“I think he would like to be remembered as a person that advocated for his people — for their growth, their healing, and just moving forward.
“We came up through the system as young, young people — where violence is the action, that’s what speaks,” Briden said.
“He inspired me to look outside the realms and ideologies of incarceration and violence, of dealing with things in a certain light. ... The memory of him pushes me forward to ask, ‘How can I honor his passing? How can I honor everything that he stood for?’”
Garcia’s older cousin, Todd Mabe, is also a prisoner at Oregon State Penitentiary.
“I’ve known Bernie my whole life. I’ve been at OSP since 2017, and I’ve been with Bernie ever since,” Mabe said.
Toward the end, he served as Garcia’s caregiver. “He wasn’t doing very good up until the point that he had passed,” Mabe said.
“The Lakota Club is a circle, and we’re really in tune with our own. We will look out for one another, and we will try to practice our ways, our traditions.
“It sucks that he had to pass the way he had to pass, before he even got a chance to live to his best or fullest potential.”
During what meteorologists called a “beast of a storm” last winter across the Pacific Northwest, Garcia battled health complications and his family was told he only had days to live. After a temporary recovery, he contracted COVID-19 and died on New Year’s Eve.