Una Voz Desatada

What does it mean to be voiceless? What does it feel like to have no mouth, no face, no flesh on one's bones, no power, no say in the life you are forced to lead or the words you are forced to speak? In this world of migration, xenophobia, and disrespect for the foreigner, the experiences of an immigrant child named Rocío are certainly not unique. But what IS perhaps unique is her engagement of valiant and extremestrategies to protect her own emotional and psychological survival....
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What does it mean to be voiceless? What does it feel like to have no mouth, no face, no flesh on one's bones, no power, no say in the life you are forced to lead or the words you are forced to speak? In this world of migration, xenophobia, and disrespect for the foreigner, the experiences of an immigrant child named Rocío are certainly not unique. But what IS perhaps unique is her engagement of valiant and extremestrategies to protect her own emotional and psychological survival. Punished both at school and at home for not "cooperating" with the teachers in parroting English phrases and eliminating the Spanish words of her happy early childhood in Mexico, Rocío claims the onlypower she still has - the power to withhold speech, to forego voice. These haunting drawings and journal entries are the reflection of a childhood in excruciating isolation and culture shock. It is the pain of an immigrant child who, rather than reject her ancestral language and identity, chooses to adopt selective mutism, and say nothing at all. Once chained to a desk and locked in the dark in the teacher's closet,in an effort to "force her" to speak English, Rocío holds on to whatlittle sense of self she has left by choosing to not participate in thistorturous "game" of English-language schooling. She withdraws fromthe world around her, claiming the powerful agency of self-determination,even if that route results in isolation, hunger, and physical restraint.