Episode 22: Jason Wang | From Convict to CEO

"You know, you don't have to physically be in prison to be in prison. Many of us put ourselves in mental and emotional prisons because we haven't chosen to forgive ourselves."

Below is an abridged audio transcript of Episode 22, the first episode for Season 3 of Rock The Boat: Against All Odds, edited for clarity.

Rock the Boat is all about Asian Americans who are challenging the status quo and breaking stereotypes. This week we feature Jason Wang, a former gang member and ex-convict who is now the founder of a company called FreeWorld that provides employment opportunities for people with criminal histories. He says the incarcerated are one of the least served labor pools in the country.

Jason got very personal with us, in part because so much of his upbringing and family history has shaped who he is today, and why he thinks it is so important to give people—especially ex-convicts—a second chance.

Trigger Warning: This interview includes references to domestic violence, abuse, and suicide. So if any of these topics make you uncomfortable, we recommend you skip this episode.

This conversation with Jason covers topics ranging from:

• His personal story about his abusive father

• Joining a gang as a teenager

• Getting caught and going to juvenile detention

• What it's like to go to prison

• Teaching others in prison math and bible studies

• Getting out of prison and starting a company

The following is an abridged transcript of the episode. To listen to the full episode, find us on Anchor, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

I. Jason's Origin Story

Jason: My name is Jason and I am the founder and CEO of Free world. Free world is an educational investor in America's biggest underdogs and most overlooked Talent pools and that's people with criminal histories.

My parents were immigrants. They came from China and Malaysia and they really came to America seeking the American dream.

So they were looking forward to the white picket fence and two car garage. They were looking for Second Chances an opportunity to move up economically that they normally wouldn't have in in Asia. //

My father was really going to pound in the idea of hard work while my mom was trying to pound in the idea of education. My parents were extremely poor and my father was really the head of the household.

My dad did take it to the extreme. And so when I was a young kid growing up, I grew up with a lot of abuse and there were times when my father would get so angry that he would take up a butcher knife and chase me around the kitchen trying to stab him.

By the age of 10, I had already attempted suicide three times and I just really felt alone and unsure of who I could go to for help.

Lucia: When Jason’s father came to the United States, he ended up getting involved with an Asian gang called Snakeheads.

Lynne: Snakeheads, by the way, are Chinese gangs that are mostly set up to smuggle people into wealthier, Western countries.

Lucia: Yup. Like places like the US.

Lynne: But according to Jason’s story, they are also set up to do other things—like maybe financially support your business. So Jason tells us that his Dad ended up borrowing millions of dollars from this gang in order to set up a trucking business. But the business didn’t succeed, and when it went up flames, his family received threats.

Jason: So when the game came asking for their money back, they went up to my father and essentially showed them a picture of me and my mother and my grandmother and said that we are going to kill your entire family unless you pay this back. And so what my father did was he ran and so we went from state to state working at small little Chinese restaurants and so he could save up the money

Lucia: They ended up in Carroll, Iowa, where the population of minorities was pretty small. At the age of six, Jason started bussing tables and cooking in the kitchen of this Chinese restaurant with his father.

At 11, Jason’s parents got divorced. It turned out his dad had three kids and a wife in China. So his mom and him left his Dad and moved to Texas.

Lynne: And life was very different for Jason. He wasn’t afraid of his dad anymore. He wasn’t afraid of his mom.

Lucia: Jason says he became extremely rebellious, adopting this “me-against-the-world” attitude.

Lynne: Yep, Jason believed he had to do whatever he needed to do to survive.

Lucia: At 13, Jason joined a gang.

Jason: I ended up meeting this group of people that happen to be in a small Asian treat game and I start hanging out with them and we go street racing into fights and drink and do drugs and I to me that felt like a family that accepted me finally, you know, we were committing crimes together and even though I knew it was wrong at the time.

I have this yearning for respect and a sense of belonging and that's what the gang provided for me when I didn't have at home. I think the other thing is that the gang leader really turned out to me as a father figure and he cared and respected me and nurtured me to move up in the gang and to commit larger murder crimes.

II. Jason gets caught and goes to jail

Lynne: At age 15, Jason was incarcerated for a group 3 felony—aggravated robbery—and was given a 12-year-sentence.

Lucia: Jason’s gang would scope out houses and plan these robberies sometimes a year in advance. They’d figure out where the nearest fire department and police station was. They were armed with walkie-talkies and halloween costumes—they’d even practice on other houses.

Lynne: These were pretty elaborate stunts.

Jason: It was a Saturday. We dress up as electricians. We went up to the front of the house and we knocked on the door and there's three of us and we told the woman in the front that there was a Transformer blew out in the neighborhood and that we need to check her fuse box and show she allowed us to come inside the house.

We went over to the garage and that's when the gang leader pulled out a gun and told her that if she made a sound that we would we would kill her. There we all had our responsibilities we knew exactly who was in the house. And so we went to each of the rooms and Tighter victims up and put them into a living room with a ghost.

And from there. We went and basically ransacked it looking for a safe that contains 75 thousand dollars worth of cash as well as two rings one costing 25,000 other one costing 35,000. Halfway through we received a communication from our Lookout saying that there was the car that had just broken from the host and that we should expect somebody come in.

And so we hid, the uncle ended up coming into the house.

We tackled him to the ground and basically threatened to kill the son if they didn't open up the safe.

Eventually, we got the safe and all the things that we were looking for. We piled it into the car and then we drove away to get away car where we transfer the goods and then we took those goods over to a safe house where we hit everything and our plan for a lot of these robberies were was that we would wait for about six months for the heat to die down.

And then we would take the goods up to Oklahoma where we pawned it off and take the cash and and use it to to party and everything else and as I go through this. Like that, that was who I was and that's that's all I cared about.

Lynne: Back then, Jason didn’t really have that much guilt about what he was doing. He says he just saw it as a job, a way to make money. He didn’t really see that he was harming people.

Lucia: But he feels really differently now.

Jason: I’ve relived that moment for the past 15 years of my life and even now talking over it. I'm in tears.

I was in a terrible place in my life and it doesn't excuse anything that I've done and I've lived my life after prison feeling like I have a debt to pay to not only my victims but also to society because of the harm that I've done in our community. And there have been nice where I've woken up crying because.

oui. Visions of what I did are just so vivid. I can still see the faces and I can still see. How we were and what we did. And it's heartbreaking and I feel immense amount of guilt. For forever changing their lives.

Lucia: While living in the JDC, Jason started to change. Something big happened.

Jason: So I became extraordinarily religious when I was in there. And so I started leading Bible study groups.

I started fasting. I became this religious nut inside prison and in my mind, I thought that if I was holier than thou that God would essentially allow me to escape this prison sentence and I would eventually go home and that was basically the premise that I use during my entire time there.

Lynne: Eventually, Jason’s court date arrives. But Jason doesn’t get released. He’s sent to a juvenile prison for 12 years.

Jason: I feel nothing. And I'm in the State of Shock in a wasn't until I got to my prison cell later on that night that I laid down and I just started crying my eyes out.

You know prison became almost like a time out to say Jason. Look at what you're doing with your life. And really consider if you keep going down this pathway we're going to end up and that was one of the big learning lessons I had while I was incarcerated.

III. Jason is in prison, finds God, and starts thinking of himself as someone who can teach others

Lynne: The way Jason tells it, he was a little different than the other inmates. He happened to be one of those kids who was well educated and well behaved.

Lucia: Also, he was Asian.

Jason: So the first thing is that I was the first Chinese person in the prison system in 10 years.

Lucia: He started working in the kitchen, cooking, and cleaning, and eventually earning the trust of some correctional officers.

Lynne: So they agreed to let him teach. The correctional officers let him have this group room every Sunday where he’d lead bible study and teach things like algebra to other inmates.

Jason: And so what I did was I ended up teaching Bible classes while I was in prison. But also taught GED classes and so I would help people learn math and reading and all these other things that order to achieve their GED and I didn't realize that the time but that was actually one of the best ways to gain respect because people start to realize well, hey, you know, Jason has value and people in prison are so hungry for an opportunity not follow in their parents footsteps and to not be this statistic.

Lucia: The way Jason sees it, the group room where he taught algebra and bible study—that room became a safe space from the toxicity of TYC.

Jason: We would have gained leaders inside these group rooms singing hymns on the top of their voices and and really, you know, it was just an amazing transformation.