The Milk of Sorrow

Rape is one of world history’s greatest silences. In Peru’s brutal and violent civil war in the late 20th century, both military and guerrilla groups utilized rape to torture and instill fear into innocent victims. Over 75% of the victims of this 20 year conflict were from the indigenous groups of the Andean highlands.

In 2009, Peruvian director Claudia Llosa, attempted to give voice to the indigenous belief that the fear of rape is passed on through the mother’s breast milk. Thus, she titled her visually sparse and haunting movie, “The Milk of Sorrow”.

I understand how my own lineage of trauma was passed from one generation to the next. Children’s bodies are the innocent carriers. Experiential fear is stored and accumulated in hibernating cells. We grow into hard-wired adult carriers of that trauma. Ten years ago, my body broke hard. It laid wide open along an ancestral fault line from my father’s native Peru.