No Hay Vida Sin Libertad: Testimonios of Resistance From the #Hutto27 Hunger Strikers

Abstract

No hay vida sin libertad—“There is no life without freedom”—read a sign at a rally demanding the closure of the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, in November 2015. The rally was held in support of 27 women imprisoned in the detention center who had launched an indefinite hunger strike. Fleeing state and intimate partner violence and persecution in their home countries, the women detained in the Hutto detention center were driven to strike after suffering months of abysmal living conditions and inhumane treatment at the hands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In this article, I analyze 11 letters composed by some of the #Hutto27 detainees. Conceptualizing the letters as testimonios that serve as powerful testaments to trauma, anguish, and, ultimately, solidarity through defiance, I argue that the letters construct a feminist archive of resistance—one which allows a glimpse into the affective life of detention.

Keywords:

• Affect
• immigrant detention
• resistance
• rhetorical agency
• testimonio

Acknowledgments

Amani Husain, PhD, is currently a lecturer in the Department of Communication at California State University Long Beach. She wishes to thank Phaedra Pezzullo and Emma Pérez for their invaluable support and feedback throughout the development of this article. Stephanie Hartzell also provided helpful assistance through the drafting and editing process. An earlier version of this article was presented to the Critical and Cultural Studies Division at the 2017 National Communication Association meeting in Dallas, Texas.

Notes

1 Although it is a detention center, its official name remains the T. Don Hutto Residential Center. It is telling that the official name of the detention center obscures its true purpose.

2 Although several news reports claim that Grassroots Leadership gathered and released 18 letters, I was able to find only 11. The original letters can be found at http://grassrootsleadership.org/blog/2015/10/breaking-least-27-women-hunger-strike-hutto-detention-center-hutto27.

3 Translations of 10 letters were published by nonprofit organization Texans United for Families on the organization’s Facebook page in 2015. Each original letter was scanned and posted as a photo, with its English translation in the photo’s caption. One letter, written by Maribel and included in this article in full, was translated by me and my dear friend Bibiana Cantua Alderete. It is important to note that while I can read Spanish I am not a fluent Spanish speaker and therefore analyzed the letters by moving between both the original Spanish and the translations. As a mixed-race scholar from the Texas–Mexico borderlands who identifies as half Chicana, my reliance on the English language illustrates my positionality and limitations in the role as translator.

4 Slang word for “gangster,” possibly signaling the maras, or transnational youth gangs known for drugs and violence across Latin America.

5 Honduran or Guatemalan colloquialism/slang; vulgarity used to express anger.

6 Misspelling or perhaps slang for the Spanish word hielera, meaning “freezer.”

7 Misspelling of huelga, the Spanish word for “strike.”

8 For more information on the Border Patrol’s use of las hierlerlas, see J. Weston Phippen, “A First Look Inside Border Patrol’s ‘Iceboxes,’” The Atlantic online, August 19, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/08/border-patrold-holding-cells-immigrants/496607/; Opheli Garcia Lawler, “The Iceboxes at the Border,” The Cut online, December 26, 2018, https://www.thecut.com/2018/12/what-are-las-hieleras-iceboxes-used-by-cbp-at-the-border.html; Reade Levinson & Kristina Cooke, “Migrants in U.S. Custody Describe Life in ‘Ice Boxes’ and ‘Dog Pounds,’” Reuters, July 18, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-conditions-idUSKBN1K82X1; Aura Bogado, “Inside the Immigration ‘Icebox,’” Colorlines, https://www.colorlines.com/articles/inside-immigration-icebox.