Breaking Silence

At the heart of Breaking Silence is the ever-evolving relationship between Walker, a deaf father, and his hearing daughter, Leslie, as they build new bonds through their experiences in the criminal justice system. Leslie has just 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 within the prison system. During Leslie’s imprisonment, Walker found it difficult to communicate with his daughter during his visits—he communicates through ASL and the guards required Walker to pick up the phone and speak through the glass—so he began volunteering at Angola State Prison, as well as teaching sign language at men’s and women’s prisons in Louisiana. He learned that for deaf people who are incarcerated, language is taken away. 

Through personal interviews and father-daughter conversations, Breaking Silence explores their joint memories of Leslie’s childhood, Leslie’s 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.