La Llorona and Rhetorical Haunting in Mexico’s Public Sphere

This essay analyzes how two public performances (a 2017 protest and a yearly play in Xochimilco) adapt the legend of la Llorona for a rhetorical haunting of Mexico’s public sphere. Rhetorical haunting is defined as a community-based rhetorical tactic that conserves and transmits a community’s painful memories, memories that contest official versions of the past. La Llorona as rhetorical haunting asks the public to keep contested memories alive as an act of communal protest and defiance of the dominant institutions that wish for the public to forget.