Breaking Silence

At the heart oft his documentary is the ever-evolving relationship between Walker, a deaf father, and his hearing daughter, Leslie, as they build new bonds through their experiences with the criminal justice system. Leslie completed her parole in Houston, TX and returned to Baton Rouge, LA; Walker serves as a chaplain in Texas’ Estelle Prison where he talks with deaf men about their ongoing struggles. During Leslie’s imprisonment, Walker found it difficult to communicate with his daughter through ASL (American Sign Language). The guards required Walker to pick up the phone and speak through the glass. He learned that for incarcerated deaf people, language is taken away, so he began volunteering at prisons and teaching sign language at men’s and women’s prisons in Louisiana. Through personal interviews and father-daughter conversations, the program explores their joint memories of Leslie’s childhood, her experience of being a hearing-abled child with deaf parents, the regrets that fuel Walker’s activism, and the traumas Leslie experienced in adolescence triggering her cycle of incarceration. Throughout the film, Walker and Leslie share how imprisonment and re-entry have reshaped their relationship and created new pathways toward advocacy.