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Inside his 8- by 8-foot cell, Alex Diaz looked at his daughter’s pictures every day.

On the prison walls, she remained 5 years old. Outside, she grew taller, older.

He spent the first eight years of his daughter’s life incarcerated. His daughter was his blood, his kin, but his gang had been his other family.

Her photos kept him looking toward the future. That, and the encouraging phone calls of a longtime friend he had grown up with, Francisco Depina. They’d both belonged to gangs as teenagers.

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