Photography by Rae Overman
Delila Vasquez gestures to her stomach, pulling on the sweater she’s wearing.
“I still have scars,” the 18-year-old Woodrow Wilson High School student says. Vasquez is recalling first grade, when she was 6 or 7 years old and having bone and skin removed from the area in order to construct her ears.
Vasquez was born with CHARGE Syndrome, a genetic condition that can cause a wide range of birth defects to multiple parts of the body. The condition manifests itself differently in each person. For Vasquez, CHARGE syndrome caused her to be blind in her right eye and born without eardrums.
She missed a large part of elementary school due to surgeries — eventually getting cochlear implants — but she still found herself ahead of the academic curve. Something about school agreed with Vasquez.
“I love school,” she says, her enthusiasm palpable. “If I understand it, I’m so excited to do it over and over.”
Vasquez, in her earlier years, was enrolled in classes for deaf students. It was in these classes that Vasquez began to notice her peers’ treatment of her.
“I used to hide myself. I used to have so many sweaters, and I would cover myself up,” Vasquez said. “I was being bullied by my own people.”
She was deeply disappointed that the bullying was a result of other deaf students, peers she had grown up with. While she acknowledges the emotional pain she felt during middle school and early high school, she doesn’t regret it.
She owes her current self confidence to the lessons she learned while enduring the poor treatment from her peers. The bullies were handled in time and Vasquez found herself taking “mainstream” classes with hearing students.
The transition was a bit bumpy at first, as she was learning to navigate a totally different kind of classroom with an interpreter, but as she got her stride, she saw it as a challenge. She was beginning to be more comfortable with asking questions and asking for help, learning how to “advocate” for herself. She continued to progress and began to prove to her teachers and herself that she no longer needed an interpreter.
Over the years, she had grown a fondness for searching up other people’s stories, particularly those who have disabilities. She found herself wanting to do the same, to share her story with others.
One Dallas teacher, Crystal Sapier, maintained a connection with Vasquez and her family since being her teacher in fourth grade. When she was finally ready to tell her story, Sapier offered to help her do just that.
She began writing a book her freshman year, in the thick of the bullying. It took two years to complete, cover to cover. She titled it In CHARGE of My Life, with the goal of inspiring other students and people like her.
Vasquez will soon be on her way to her next academic challenge: college. She’s chosen to attend the University of North Texas, planning to study journalism and business. The two, she says, are going to be useful when she decides to tackle telling her story through film.
The normal bouts of nervousness and excitement surround the topic of graduation for Vasquez. But the excitement may also be because she plans on celebrating two accomplishments the week she graduates.
Her second book will be making its debut the day after she walks the stage.
“I’ve been currently working on it,” she says. “It’s gonna publish next semester.”
The second book is going to be a deeper dive into the story Vasquez has to tell. The first book, she says, was meant to be more accessible for younger children. She wants the next one “to be more detailed,” including her “trauma,” and the experiences she had with her bullies.
She hopes it can help others, even the ones that have hurt her.
“Yes, they did a lot of things, but at the end of the day, I’ll be there for them,” she says. “I know their story. I know what they’ve been through, to the point that I’m here — no matter what.”
