The Queen Without Kingdom: Vulnerability, Martyrization, Monolingualism and Injury Toward a Quechua-Speaking Woman Imprisoned in Argentina

Abstract

“The Queen of Los Hornos” (La Reina de Los Hornos) by the journalist Natalie Iriarte tells the story of Reina Maraz (her name means “queen”). She is a “Bolivian, poor, migrant, dark-skinned, Quechua-speaking, illiterate and evangelist woman” who was sentenced to life imprisonment in Argentina in November 2010. Reina waited more than a year until December 2011, for an interpreter to tell her she was accused of the murder of her husband. The whole character of Reina is expressed in her vulnerability linked to her identity as a Quechua speaker: She is a woman who cannot defend herself because she does not understand the dominant language. Using CDA as a method, the research question of this chapter is how does the text “The queen of Los Hornos” represent Reina’s identity in terms of her vulnerability? This chapter will highlight the discrimination and vulnerability of Reina caused by her multiple minority identities and show that the journalist reproduces, perhaps unconsciously, the same paternalistic discourse of power that considers Reina as an extremely weak human being.