A very warm welcome to you who are reading this!
I am Holly Wissler, ethnomusicologist, music lecturer at Texas State University and tour leader in Cusco, Peru. This website is about my current project from the heart – a documentary about my adopted deaf son, Dante, from the Quechua community of Q’eros in the high Andes of Peru, where I was immersed in their indigenous musical rituals for years during my PhD research.
It broke my heart that Dante had to leave his home country of Peru to receive an education beyond elementary school, which catalyzed me to make this documentary about the lack of language access, deaf education and rights in Peru. We show twenty years of Dante’s story, how he moved from marginalized and unsocialized in his community into awakening and connection with the world. This documentary is about our unexpected path of love and commitment together, and the unforeseen profound life changes we experienced both as individuals and mother and son. I invite you to please read on.
Summary
A multicultural-international story twenty years in the making.
Dante, born deaf and growing up unsocialized and marginalized in his indigenous Quechua community of Q’eros, awakens into humanity as he begins to learn Peruvian sign language at age eight. Holly is an American ethnomusicologist who becomes intimately involved with Dante’s family initially through music research, and then unexpectedly through the adoption of her godson Dante, the ensuing challenges, and her discovery of the deaf experience. “Dante’s Story” tracks twenty years of intimate and endearing home footage, personal and educational struggles, trekking the Andes, and immigration to the U.S. The documentary illuminates the basic right of communication and education, and how Dante and Holly enter unforeseeable depths of personal experience and compassion because of their unusual union and commitment to one another.
The documentary spans from 2003 to the present day, from rural and urban Peru to the United States. Through personal stories and expert opinions by both deaf and hearing, this documentary’s goals are to engender awareness about: the deaf experience in indigenous and citified Peru; the lack of deaf rights; parents’ processes of denial, acceptance, and full support; adoption and immigration; and particularly profound life change on a personal level. All issues are translatable beyond Peru.